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Smart News / Smart News Arts & Culture

Before Fannie Farmer, recipes were more like estimates. She standardized measurements and insisted on "scientific" cookery.

Fannie Farmer Was the Original Rachael Ray

Farmer was the first prominent figure to advocate scientific cookery. Her cookbook remains in print to this day

Metin Eren recreates ancient arrowheads to see how they respond when fired with bows like this

This Lab Replicates Weapons to Reveal Stone Age Feats of Engineering

A Kent State archaeologist is testing the innovative engineering of the Clovis people, one of the earliest communities to inhabit North America

The former bank where four hostages and two robbers spent six days holed up in the vault.

The Six-Day Hostage Standoff That Gave Rise to ‘Stockholm Syndrome’

Although it is widely known, ‘Stockholm syndrome’ is not recognized by the APA

New Research

X-Rays Reveal Details of Portrait Once Hidden Under Vesuvius’ Ash

Using X-ray fluorescence, researchers have mapped the pigments used on a crumbling painting in Herculaneum

An Indian woman holds a bucket and walks to relieve herself in the open, on World Toilet Day on the outskirts of Jammu, India, in 2014.

Indian Court Grants Woman Divorce Over Husband’s Refusal to Install a Household Toilet

Relieving oneself in open fields is common practice in many parts of India, but the government is trying to change that

The battered remnants of Fritz Koenig's "Sphere" will return to the World Trade Center site after years of exile.

Cool Finds

The World Trade Center’s Only Surviving Art Heads Home

Battered, but not broken, Fritz Koenig’s “Sphere” is being reinstalled near its original location at Ground Zero

Munch's painting 'The Scream' is one of Western art's most familiar images.

The Mysterious Motives Behind the Theft of ‘The Scream’

Two versions of ‘The Scream’ have been stolen and recovered in Norway

A statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee was removed from the University of Texas at Austin campus, early Monday morning.

University of Texas at Austin Removes Three Confederate Statues

Gregory L. Fenves, the president of the university, says the monuments “have become symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism”

"Ignorance = Fear / Silence = Death" by Keith Haring, 1989

New Exhibit Captures Nearly Eight Decades of Protest Art

The show incorporates the various ways artists have responded to the politics and social problems of their times since the 1940s

Virginia Museum’s Historic Artmobile Will Hit the Road Again

The original artmobile cruised through the state between 1953 and 1994, carrying immensely valuable masterworks in tow

A screenshot of William Wheeler's VR creation showing a barren, sandy landscape to explore

Reach Out and Touch This Virtual Reality Art Installation

“The Sands,” currently on view at Essex Flowers, projects elaborate creations in a physically empty space

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Disassembled Childhood Home Is for Sale… on eBay

It has yet to receive any bids

Workers use a crane to lift the monument dedicated to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney from outside Maryland State House, in Annapolis, Maryland, early Friday morning.

Statue of Roger B. Taney Removed From Maryland State House

Taney, the fifth chief justice of the Supreme Court, wrote the majority opinion in the infamous Dred Scott case

A rendering of how a performance on the Floating Museum's moving exhibit "River Assembly"

Catch the Museum Floating Through the Chicago River

On a converted barge, the Floating Museum reflects on Chicago’s industrial past and cultural present

AI is now able to synthesize new sounds from old ones, and even compose original music

Art Meets Science

AI Is Edging Into the Art World in Psychedelic Ways

The team at Google is using neural networks to create tools that they hope will inspire and channel creativity

Shakespeare wrote 'Macbeth,' which features three witches, during James I's reign, which also was the time of some of England's most famous witch trials.

England’s Witch Trials Were Lawful

It might seem like collective madness today, but the mechanisms for trying witches in England were enshrined in law

Happy National Soft Serve Day!

The Science of Soft Serve

It’s just like regular ice cream–with a few big differences

Campers near Chaco Canyon, N.M., gather together and look to the east to watch the sun rise on August 17, 1987, as part of the harmonic convergence.

Trending Today

Thirty Years Ago, People Tried to Save the World By Meditating

Believers in the Harmonic Convergence traveled to places like Chaco Canyon and Stonehenge to welcome aliens, the resurrected Maya and wait for world peace

Artists like Paula Modersohn-Becker sought to incorporate exotic elements into their art in Germany's colonial era, such as the bananas shown in this 1905 painting

German Art Museum Tackles Legacy of Colonialism

Looking hard at its own collection, Kunsthalle Bremen aims to challenge the racism of colonialism that persists today

The enigmatic Yayoi Kusama built a museum for her work in near total secrecy

Yayoi Kusama Secretly Built a Museum

Opening October 1, the Tokyo museum will showcase art and archives from the visionary avant-garde Japanese artist

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