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Cool Finds

Cool Finds

This Transgender Archive’s Oldest Artifacts Tell a Story of Courage and Community

The Digital Transgender Archive was born out of two researchers’ frustration with finding materials by and about transgender people

Book hoarding has never been so lucrative.

Cool Finds

Competitive Book Collecting Is a Thing

Young bibliophiles duke it out in the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest

Shocking.

Cool Finds

Tesla vs. Edison Is a Video Game That Will Literally Shock You

Fight the ‘War of the Currents’

Cool Finds

An AI-Written Novella Almost Won a Literary Prize

A short novel co-written by humans and AI passed the first round of a Japanese literary contest

This Tube is full of mosquitoes.

Cool Finds

The London Underground Has Its Own Mosquito Subspecies

Take a bite out of this strange evolutionary example

A self-portrait made by Johnny Rotten on the walls of the studio where the Sex Pistols recorded their first demos.

Cool Finds

Johnny Rotten’s Graffiti Made These Buildings Historic Landmarks

The Sex Pistols’ home and recording studio are now protected as a cultural heritage sites

A red pigment reference from the Forbes Pigment Collection helped prove that a supposed Jackson Pollock painting was a fake.

This Could Be the World’s Most Colorful Library

Harvard’s Forbes Pigment Collection preserves some of history’s most precious colors—and helps conserve the world’s greatest art

Tom Randle plays Macheath, or “Mack the Knife,” in a production of Benjamin Britten’s The Beggar’s Opera.

Cool Finds

The Strange Career of “Mack the Knife”

As old Macheath is inducted into the National Recording Registry, here’s a look back at his long musical life

Each year, thousands of California sea lions flock to the docks at Oregon's Port of Astoria.

Cool Finds

An Oregon Port Is Using Inflatable Air Dancers to Scare Off Pesky Sea Lions

The car dealership staple is now a marine mammal scarecrow

Revelers sit on a wall in Mathura.

Cool Finds

A Saturated Snapshot of This Year’s Holi Celebrations

Revelers are already soaking in shades of the spring festival

A room decorated with animal art was designed to look like a forest.

Cool Finds

This Polish Museum Exhibit Was Completely Curated By Kids

“Anything Goes” took six months and 69 children to create

Only about 2,000 people speak Lakota.

Cool Finds

This News Website Is a Lakota-Speaker’s “Dream”

Woihanble.com could help preserve a threatened language

Cool Finds

Roald Dahl’s Iconic Illustrator Inspired This New Font

Quentin Blake’s handwriting has elements of spontaneity and joy

Perhaps Magnolia rzedowskiana should be renamed Magnolia interneta.

Cool Finds

Two New Flower Species Were Discovered Online

These naturalists didn’t know one another—but that didn’t keep them from discovering two new magnolias together

In 1957, the former first lady took to the wheels of steel.

Cool Finds

That One Time Eleanor Roosevelt Was a DJ

In 1957, the first lady spun records for a cause

You can thank William Perkin for that garish dress your best friend will make you wear at her wedding.

Cool Finds

How Malaria Gave Us Mauve

Tropical diseases and coal tar have a lot to do with brightly-colored clothing

Eric Underwood's Instagram rant about having to put makeup on his shoes inspired a new ballet shoe by Bloch.

Cool Finds

Flesh-Toned Ballet Shoes Will Soon Be Available for People of Color

At long last, there are options for non-white dancers

Wacky Victorian women play behind a clothing screen, ca. 1900.

Cool Finds

Researchers Seek Silly Sherlocks to Dig up Victorian-Era Jokes

Joke detectives are using the British Library to uncover what made Victorians chuckle

Cool Finds

Geometric Shapes Inspire New, Stretchy Materials

Intricate designs drawn from Islamic art could help make materials that stretch in new ways

Cool Finds

MAD Magazine’s Iconic Alfred E. Neuman Turns 60 This Year

The impish mascot has had a long, colorful life

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