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Cool Finds

New Research

Did the Greeks Help Sculpt China’s Terra Cotta Warriors?

New analysis and DNA evidence suggests the 8,000 life-sized figures in emperor Qin Shi Huang’s necropolis owe their inspiration to the Greeks

This map changed how the world saw itself.

Cool Finds

Discover One of History’s Most Ambitious Maps

Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 map was the oldest document to use “America” to describe the body of land between Africa and Asia

Cool Finds

Capsules Reveal Once Highly Classified Pieces of WWII Air Campaign

Two shipping barrels opened by the Commemorative Air Force contain one of the more intriguing technologies of the second world war

A diver recovering a bottle of beer from the wreck of the Sydney Cove.

Cool Finds

Australian Researchers Brew Beer With Yeast Believed to Be from a 220-Year-Old Shipwreck

A glimpse into the boozy past

Cool Finds

How Virtual Reality Is Helping Prosecute Nazi War Criminals

A new, detailed 3D simulation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp is helping prosecutors build stronger cases against these still-living Nazis

Alfred Jacob Miller's "Buffalo Jump," 1859-1860

Cool Finds

1,600-Year-Old Feast Unearthed in Alberta

Archeologists at Head-Smashed-in-Buffalo Jump have excavated a rare roasting pit with the meal still left inside

Paris, 1739.

Cool Finds

This Is What 18th-Century Paris Sounded Like

A bygone age comes back to life in this painstaking reconstruction of the sounds of 1739

One of the Wentworth elms rediscovered at Holyroodhouse

Cool Finds

“Extinct” Variety of Tree Rediscovered at Queen’s Palace in Scotland

Two Wentworth elms identified at Holyroodhouse escaped Dutch elm disease, which destroyed millions of other trees

Each crossing incorporates the existing zebra-style design.

Cool Finds

Colorful Crosswalks Paint the Streets of Madrid

This art was made to be stepped all over

Who says you can't buy friendship?

Cool Finds

Toyota Hopes This Adorable Robot Will Make Japan Less Lonely

Meet your $390 best friend

The room has plenty of "Hudson River light" to spark the artist in a lucky bidder and their guest.

Cool Finds

Channel Edward Hopper With a Night in His Bedroom

Stay in the childhood home of one of history’s greatest painters

These seemingly inhabited buildings are actually vacant properties illuminated by the new Breathing Lights project in three New York cities.

Cool Finds

This Art Project Breathes New Life Into Blighted Buildings

Breathing Lights will illuminate hundreds of abandoned structures throughout New York

Scores of lives were lost while building the 816 Nuclear Plant, a long-abandoned nuclear project now open to the public.

Cool Finds

Tour the World’s Biggest Manmade Cave in China

The 816 Nuclear Plant stands as a reminder of a paranoid past

Cool Finds

$25.5 Million Raphael Painting Discovered in Scottish Manor House

An art historian working for a BBC television show recognized a painting in a dark corner as the work of the Renaissance master

Gold signet ring showing five elaborately dressed female figures gathered by a seaside shrine

New Research

Gold Rings Found in Warrior’s Tomb Connect Two Ancient Greek Cultures

Analysis of four gold rings and some 2,000 other recently uncovered objects points to the exchange of ideas and goods between two ancient peoples

New Research

Campsite Places Humans in Argentina 14,000 Years Ago

Excavations at the site Arroyo Seco 2 include stone tools and evidence that humans were hunting giant sloths, giant armadillos and extinct horse species

A reconstruction of Ötzi the Iceman at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology.

New Research

Hear the Recreated Voice of Ötzi the Iceman

Using CT scans of the Neolithic man’s vocal tract, Italian researchers have approximated the way he pronounced his vowels

View of the Sea at Scheveningen, 1882

Cool Finds

Stolen van Gogh Paintings Recovered After 14 Years

Italian police found the two paintings stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam while investigating organized crime in Naples

Esther Belin is a noted Native American poet and artist, but she is not in Wikipedia.

Cool Finds

Wikipedia Wants You to Improve Its Coverage of Indigenous Peoples

Why does the site that anyone can edit contain so little coverage of native people?

Hello, Aurora.

Cool Finds

Why Iceland’s Biggest City Turned Off Its Lights for One Night

Reykjavik decided to pause in the dark to witness one of Earth’s most beautiful phenomena

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