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Smart News / Smart News Arts & Culture

The winning spellers made history with eight co-champions, the most number in the spelling event history.

The National Spelling Bee Ended in an Unprecedented Eight-Way Tie

“We’re basically throwing the dictionary at you,” pronouncer Jacques Bailly told the spellers. “[A]nd so far you are showing the dictionary who is boss”

The 92-second clip that shows the Fab Four playing their song “Paperback Writer.”

Hitting the High Notes: A Smithsonian Year of Music

Lost Footage of One of the Beatles’ Last Live Performances Found in Attic

A man filmed the missing 1966 ‘Top of the Pops’ appearance from his TV set

The laptop is infected with six viruses: WannaCry, BlackEnergy, ILOVEYOU, MyDoom, SoBig and DarkTequila.

Art Meets Science

A Laptop Infected With the World’s Most Dangerous Viruses Sold for $1.3 Million

The computer is a work of art designed to provide a physical manifestation of abstract digital threats

A police boat cruises along the River Seine past the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, which was badly damaged by a huge fire on April 15, and which is under repair, on May 20, 2019.

France’s Senate Requires That Notre-Dame’s Iconic Spire Be Rebuilt ‘Exactly as It Was’

The bill contradicts an earlier call for proposals to replace the fallen tower with a more modern aesthetic

A young girl plays at the newly restored Moat Brae house.

The Scottish Garden That Inspired Peter Pan’s Neverland Opens for Visitors

The Moat Brae house and its surroundings, where author J.M. Barrie played as a child, is now a children’s literature center

New Research

‘Mona Lisa’ Comes to Life in Computer-Generated ‘Living Portrait’

A new artificial intelligence system can create realistic animations from a single static image

Anne Frank wrote the letters between 1936 and 1941, a period predating the events of her famed diary.

Letters Anne Frank Wrote to Her Grandmother Will Be Published for the First Time

The notes are featured in a soon-to-be released volume of Frank’s collected works

It's safe to assume Mr. Rogers would've approved of 1-4-3 Day.

Pennsylvania Honors Mister Rogers With First Annual Day of Kindness

The holiday is dubbed 1-4-3 Day in a nod to the TV personality’s favorite phrase, “I love you”

Trending Today

Engineer Says Notre-Dame Is Vulnerable to High Winds

Models show damage to the roof vaults have cut the structure’s wind resistance by over half

France outlawed ortolan hunting in 1999, but the ban was rarely enforced until 2007 and remains unevenly implemented

Ortolans, Songbirds Enjoyed as French Delicacy, Are Being Eaten Into Extinction

Hunters illegally catch some 30,000 of the 300,000 ortolans that pass through southwestern France every migration season

Michelangelo likely sketched "The Seated Man" while working as an apprentice in Domenico Ghirlandaio's studio

Cool Finds

Art Historian Says He Has Identified the Earliest Known Michelangelo Drawing

The sketch, now on view in Budapest, likely dates to between 1487 and 1490

Father Karel Stautemas raising a glass of Grimbergen beer

A Belgian Abbey Is Using Centuries-Old Recipes to Revive Its Brewery

Grimbergen Abbey in Belgium will produce its first beers in more than 200 years

The shift will be funded by a $10 million donation from MOCA's Board of Trustees president, Carolyn Powers

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles Will Soon Offer Free Admission

The move will be funded by a $10 million donation

Walt Whitman in 1869, as photographed by William Kurtz

Rare Walt Whitman Artifacts Go on View at Library of Congress for Poet’s 200th Birthday

The library holds the world’s largest collection of Whitman-related items

Lee Krasner has long been viewed as a fringe character in the American Abstract Expressionist canon, but a new retrospective challenges this notion

Revisiting the Artistic Legacy of Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock’s Wife

A London retrospective unites almost 100 of the genre-bending artist’s works

Photograph from the 2015 LGBTQ Pride celebration. Upward of 60 000 people took to the streets of Taipei for the annual Pride march, the largest such event in Asia.

Taiwan Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage—a First for Asia

Activists hope the law will inspire similar pushes for equality in other parts of the continent

"Rabbit" sold at Christie's for a record-breaking $91.1 million

Jeff Koons’ ‘Rabbit’ Breaks the Auction Record for Most Expensive Work by Living Artist

The stainless steel sculpture sold for $91.1 million, surpassing the $90.2 million record set by David Hockney last November

Ruby Taboh's stilton cheese.

Cool Finds

Cheese Made From Celebrity Belly Button and Armpit Bacteria Goes on Display

Five types of “human cheese” from cheddar to Cheshire are on view at the Victoria & Albert Museum

Constance Wu's character, Rachel Chu, wears the gown to a wedding

Constance Wu’s ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Dress Is Coming to the Smithsonian

Curator Theo Gonzalves says he hopes the gown will enable Asian American visitors “to see themselves in the museum, … see themselves in American history”

Structures unearthed at Achtriochtan may be linked with the bloody massacre

Archaeologists Are Excavating Site of Scottish Massacre That Inspired the ‘Game of Thrones’ Red Wedding

In 1692, members of the Campbell clan turned on their MacDonald hosts, killing at least 38 men and sending women and children fleeing into the hills

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