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Smart News / Smart News Science

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NASA And JPL Are Better at Pumpkin Carving Than You

Featuring LEDs, laser etching, chocolate fountains, rotating gears and even a replica Mars Rover, these pumpkins will put your simple pumpkin face to shame

Germany Adds a Third Gender to Birth Certificates

Parents of newborns born in Germany now have a third option for the gender section of their birth certificate

How Much of a Subway Map Can One Person’s Brain Process?

A group at MIT has figured out how to build a better subway map, by replicating how the brain processes a map

Oysters Don’t Have Ears But Still Use Sound to Choose Their Homes

Oyster larvae find their homes by responding to the unique sounds of a reef

Stop That Foot Massage! Feet Are Not an Erogenous Zone

If you’ve been begrudgingly giving foot massages, you might want to check with your partner to see if they actually like them

Damming and dredging a California river for gold

The Gold Rush Left Behind Mercury That’s Still Contaminating California

Leftover mercury will continue to flush through the environment, eventually making its way into the San Francisco bay, for the next 10,000 years

Reindeer Eyes Change Color to Match the Season

Reindeers’ wintery blue eyes are about 1,000 times more sensitive to light than their summery gold ones

Screenshot from Un Chien Andalou, the Surrealist film that Dalí collaborated on with Luis Buñuel

Salvador Dali Suffered From the Irrational Fear That Insects Were Crawling All Over His Skin

The condition is almost always accompanied by tactile hallucinations of crawling sensations and visual hallucinations of the non-existent insects

Our Brains Evolved to Recoil at the Sight of Snakes

Around 60 million years ago, our primate ancestors figured out that the sight of a snake meant trouble

A Family Tree of You And Your 13 Million Closest Relatives

A big data project to connect all the people

What Is Sex Like for Someone with Synesthesia?

The researchers found that the people with synesthesia seem to go into more of a trance during sex than those without

These Scientists Are Using Bees to Spread Pesticides

Since they’re already going to the flowers anyway, why not give them some pesticides to carry?

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Appreciate the Mathematical Beauty of Every Day Objects

Given math’s applicability to everything in our world and beyond, it’s not so far fetched to think that a theory of everything really does exist

A fake mastodon fights for survival in a display at the La Brea tar pits.

Animals Trapped in the La Brea Tar Pits Would Take Months to Sink

New research shows that animals trapped in the tar would linger for months on end

How Does a Tea Kettle Whistle?

This might seem like an obvious question, but it turns out that no one has looked into it until now

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Hibernation Doesn’t Have to Be Cold

Hibernation tends to go hand-in-hand with cold temperatures, but the greater mouse-tailed bat hibernates at a comfortable 68-degrees Fahrenheit

The migration paths that may have brought people across the Bering Strait Land Bridge.

The Very First Americans May Have Had European Roots

Some early Americans came not from Asia, it seems, but by way of Europe

Coral Reefs Are Fighting Back Against Global Warming

When they get stressed by the heat, coral make their own shade by releasing a chemical that helps clouds form

There are 37.2 Trillion Cells in Your Body

You know that your body is made of cells - but just how many? Turns out that question isn’t all that easy to answer

What Is the Exactly Perfect Time to Drink Your Coffee?

It’s a good thing that science is here to figure out the exact perfect way to drink a cup of coffee

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