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Beijing Just Issued Its First “Red Alert” for Smog
Will the city’s latest smog crisis spur international action on climate change?
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View a Rare Seaplane Lost Just Before the Pearl Harbor Attack
The plane was a casualty of the first phase of the raid that took place on December 7, 1941
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Watch Mount Etna and Momotombo Erupt in All Their Glory
Photos and video catch the spectacular events in action
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A Buddha in Japan Is Missing Half of Its Curls
What happened to the Buddha of Nara’s famous ‘do?
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The CIA Won’t Reveal What’s in its Secret Art Collection
An art installation questions why the CIA is keeping mum about a series of abstract paintings
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There’s a Philly Sign Language Accent
The unique signs used by people in Philadelphia hint at the history of sign language in the U.S.
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How Twitching Frog Legs Helped Inspire ‘Frankenstein’
Galvanism sought to reanimate the dead—and in doing so provided the impetus for one of literature’s most famously frightful books
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It Can Take More Than 10 Years of Work to Get a Christmas Tree Ready for Market
Helicopters can speed along the harvest, however
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An Unexpected Effect of Ultra-Marathons: Brain Shrinkage
Don’t worry, it isn’t permanent
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Catch a Glimpse of the Comet Catalina and the Geminid Meteor Shower
The meteor shower peaks next week as comet Catalina gets closer throughout the month
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A Space-Based Physics Lab Could Help Scientists Study How Gravity Warps Spacetime
The LISA Pathfinder Probe could help reveal the ripples caused by black holes and supernovae
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Does This Carving Depict a Paleolithic Campsite?
A chunk of stone may be marked with one of the oldest drawings of a human campsite
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Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Inca Road
Visit Machu Picchu With Google Street View
Armed with a backpack and 15 high-res cameras, Google just tackled one of the world’s wonders
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The Word “Taser” Comes From a Young Adult Sci-Fi Novel
Massively popular at the time, the Tom Swift books have not aged very well
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Court Revokes the Construction Permit for Contentious Hawaiian Telescope
Protestors physically blocked access to the Mauna Kea construction site for more than a year and now the project faces another roadblock
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Five Things You Should Know about the Catastrophic Flooding in Chennai
Mass evacuations, a submerged airport and questions about the city’s urban planning
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Yearbook Photos Show How Smiles Have Widened Over the Decades
An analysis of roughly 38,000 high-school senior portraits shows Americans’ frowns turning upside down
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This Holograph Can Be Touched and Manipulated
Tiny interactive displays use lasers to create touchable plasma
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Hundreds of Fake Ads Protest Paris Climate Summit’s Corporate Sponsors
Artists in Paris distributed 600 posters calling out companies’ hypocrisy
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