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Arts

How To Scrape at a Picasso Without Getting Arrested

The New York Times has an interactive feature showing Picasso’s “Woman Ironing” that you can scratch away at to uncover the original pairing - one of a man

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The Best Songs That Help Us Learn

Songs have a long history of helping us learn things

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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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Picasso, Matisse and Monet Paintings Stolen From Dutch Museum

Seven paintings from some of Western art’s greatest masters went missing from a the Kunsthal Museum in Holland this morning

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Yesterday’s Google Doodle Celebrates Little Nemo, Takes You Back to Childhood Fantasy Land

Yesterday’s Google Doodle celebrated the 107th anniversary of Little Nemo in Slumberland, a comic strip by Winsor McCay that hit the presses for nine years

Art.sy’s mission is to make all of the world’s art accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.

Mapping the Art Genome

A new Web site called Art.sy recommends art based on a visitor’s preference for a particular artist or artwork

Mo Yan and Chinese literature translator Howard Goldblatt speak at a literary festival.

China’s ‘Provocative and Vulgar’ Mo Yan Wins Nobel in Literature

Chinese author Mo Yan took this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature for his “hallucinatory realism”

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The Residents of Tolkien’s Middle Earth Are 81 Percent Male

Life expectancy, gender breakdown, and declining longevity, and interesting trivia abound

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Emily Dickinson: The Remix

An ode to the poet, in four takes

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Why Pencils Are Way Better Than Pens

Count Wolfgang, head of a huge pencil company, explains why pencils are wonderful

British Architects Plan to Build a House Entirely From Waste

England will soon begin construction on its first building built entirely from waste

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Share a Bit of Earth’s Majesty With Every Letter You Send

A new stamp collection pulls together beautiful top-down views of the Earth

David Blaine at a recent NYC performance.

David Blaine’s Going to Have 1 Million Volts of Electricity Shot at Him for 72 Hours

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Blind Photographer Paints With Light, Creating Stunning Images

Her photos are modeled after walks through the park or moments on the street that she experiences through sound and smell

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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Went on His Own Adventures—to the Arctic

When he was a 20-year-old medical student, Conan Doyle became the ship’s surgeon on board a whaling ship, the Hope

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The Silence that Preceded China’s Great Leap into Famine

Mao Zedong encouraged critics of his government—and then betrayed them just when their advice might have prevented a calamity

A bog oak floor.

Giant Tree Trunk Unearthed After 5,000 Years in a Bog

A 44 foot-long piece of a 5,000 year old tree trunk was uncovered on September 25 in the UK

Palmyra, Syria

Looters Are Selling Artifacts to Fund War in Syria

War zones are dangerous places, for both people and cultural heritage

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Artist Builds House, Invites Partiers to Trash It

Can a party ever be art?

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These Thin Sections of Rock Look Like Beautiful Stained Glass

The beautiful MicROCKScopica project was created by Bernardo Cesare, a professor of petrology and a photographer, who combined his talents in an absolutely stunning way

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