Smart News: Latest Discoveries & News

A paradoxical solution to help protect the species

February 16, 2016

A rainbow-colored crosswalk in St. Louis, Missouri.

Street art will no longer color crosswalks in St. Louis, Missouri

February 15, 2016

Cool Finds

Watch a Stunning Time-Lapse of Cave-Bound Glowworms

These New Zealand sparklers aren’t stars—they’re insects

February 15, 2016

Cool Finds

Happy 452nd Birthday, Galileo

The revolutionary who helped shape modern astronomy

February 15, 2016

Cool Finds

This Unfinished Film Highlights the Daily Lives of Black Americans in the 1960s

‘The American Negro’ shares stories of black surgeons, mothers and workers

February 15, 2016

Cool Finds

Chow Down on a Plastic-Eating Fungus

Plastic trash could have a delicious future

February 15, 2016

The sun rises over Joshua Tree National Park. The newlydesignated Castle Mountains, Mojave Trails and Sand to Snow national monuments will connect Joshua Tree to other federally protected lands in a massive 1.8-million-acre preservation bid.

This time, the California desert was the president’s preservation focus

February 12, 2016

Cool Finds

OK Go Shot Their Latest Music Video in Microgravity

Singing aboard the Vomit Comet

February 12, 2016

A photograph from a staged production of "R.U.R." ("Rossum's Universal Robots").

Cool Finds

78 Years Ago Today, BBC Aired the First Science Fiction Television Program

And no, it wasn’t ‘Doctor Who’

February 11, 2016

New Research

Here’s Why It’s So Hard to Smash a Cockroach

Scientists chased and crushed cockroaches—and their results could one day save lives

February 11, 2016

Former Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Thomas Peter Lantos (D-Calif.) and his poodle, Gigi.

The government will stop using taxpayer dollars to immortalize lawmakers in the traditional fashion

February 11, 2016

Cool Finds

Check Out These Vintage Computer Viruses at the Malware Museum

Relive the horror of watching your computer catch a ‘90s-era virus

February 11, 2016

A newly-released poster in NASA's Visions of the Future series heralds a future "grand tour" using gravity assists.

Cool Finds

NASA Went Retro With Their New Space Travel Posters

Travel to the world of tomorrow—today!

February 10, 2016

Cool Finds

Take 360-Degree Tours of Mars and the Moon

Earth’s neighbors have never seemed so tantalizingly close

February 10, 2016

A rendering of the newly reopened Museum of Neon Art in Glendale, California.

Cool Finds

Glow to This Flickering Tribute to Neon

The past shines at the Museum of Neon Art in Southern California

February 10, 2016

This kindergarten in Fredericksberg, Denmark was inspired by how a child might draw a house.

Cool Finds

How Children’s Imaginations Inspired This Cool School

A new Danish kindergarten was envisioned by the way a child might draw a house

February 10, 2016

"Chevalier de Saint-Denis," Thierry Poncelet.

Cool Finds

You Too Can Own a Portrait of a Dog Dressed as a Person

Dog art auctions put the spotlight on man’s best friend

February 10, 2016

This kitten, though adorable, was not one of the post office cats.

Cool Finds

A Brief History of Post Office Cats

Mail used to come with a side of meow

February 9, 2016

An illustration of how gravitational waves ripple through the fabric of space-time.

The internet is abuzz with rumors of a big announcement—here are a few things you should know to decipher the news

February 9, 2016

Michelangelo painted some of art history's greatest hands.

New Research

Michelangelo May Have Had Arthritis

Researchers used old portraits and letters to study the master’s hands

February 9, 2016