Smart News

Can We Excuse Cheating If It Supports a Good Cause?

Is it ever ok for us to bend the rules or cheat in order to achieve a greater good, or to support those who do?

Cracking the Code of the World’s Oldest Undeciphered Language

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People Discriminate Against Cats Based on Color, Too

People ascribe different personality traits to cats of different colors, a bias that skews adoption rates

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The Best Songs That Help Us Learn

Songs have a long history of helping us learn things

The resemblance is uncanny.

Lady Gaga Gets an Entire Genus of Plants Named After Her

The next time you see a little fern out in the wild, it may just be a Gaga

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This Stunning Photo of the Milky Way Could Carpet An Entire Apartment

A beautiful, zoomable, nine-gixapixel photo of the central Milky Way

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Don’t Let the Ear Mites Bite

The New England Journal of Medicine recently posted this horror-inducing video of ear mites crawling around in some poor 70-year-old man's ear

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Platonic Friendships Between the Sexes Are Impossible

New research says it's not really possible for straight guys and gals to ever be "just friends"

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There’s No Such Thing As Espresso

Espresso is widely misunderstood and hard to define

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These Were the First Debates Since 1988 In Which Climate Change Went Unmentioned

Climate change was conspicuously missing from this season's presidential debates, the first time the topic has not come up since 1988

A beluga whale

Beluga Whale Learns to Speak Like a Human

Beluga whales can vocalize in a way remarkably close to human speech, according to new observations

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Will NASA’s Newest Crowdsourcing Gambit End with a Curiosity or a COLBERT?

NASA needs your help naming its new research facility

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Young People Still Love Libraries

Most Americans between 16 - 29 still use the library to get books—real, paper books

Five Kid Concussions in One Game Have Parents Questioning Pop Warner Football

Those concussions have hurtled this game to the forefront of the ongoing debate surrounding kids and football

Even Darwin Could Be a Debbie Downer

A few bouts of angst written by Darwin reveal that no one is immune to the blues

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The Best Graphics That Make You Realize You Don’t Know How Big Anything Actually Is

Here are the best scale visualizations out there, starting with the classic Powers of Ten video that melted the faces of everyone alive in 1977

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The Journalist Who Says ‘I Told You So’ About Lance Armstrong

For 13 years, journalist David Walsh pursued his theory that Lance was doping, but the USDA's recent announcement finally vindicated his long-held beliefs with hard evidence

Rubble from the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake.

Italian Scientists Sent to Jail Because They Downplayed the Risk of an Earthquake

Six scientists and one former government official will do time for failing to accurately convey the risk of an earthquake

In 2012 Election, Gender Gap Is As Wide As It’s Ever Been

Men and women haven't agreed in three elections: 1996, 2000 and 2004

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Two Pillars of Skepticism—Leon Jaroff and Paul Kurtz—Died This Weekend

Leon Jaroff and Paul Kurtz both died this weekend. Together, the two men represent some of the founding ideas of the modern skeptic community

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