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Cool Finds

A plate from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium

Cool Finds

Meet the 17th Century Female Entomologist Who Illustrated Butterfly Life Cycles

Maria Sibylla Merian’s work fought superstition and societal norms

Cool Finds

Meet the Bear Who Earned the Rank of Corporal in the Polish Army

He had a penchant for cigarettes, booze and arm wrestling

Cool Finds

Sweden Has a Hotel for Sourdough Starters

Boarding bread is the new doggy day care.

Cool Finds

NASA Has Specific Rules For Naming Its Spacecraft

From Project Mercury to Space Shuttle Atlantis.

Cool Finds

Liverpool, England Has a Mysterious Network of Tunnels

Historians know who built them, but they don’t know why

Cool Finds

There Are About 600,000 Dahlias on These Van Gogh Themed Floats

The colorful floats can be covered in up to one million dahlias apiece.

A juvenile crocodile in a Cape York peninsula river, the region where researchers recently looked for wild rice species

Cool Finds

To Find New Rice Species, Scientists Head to Remote Tropical Swamps

A remote peninsula in northern Australia beckons a rice research expedition

Cool Finds

Tour This Japanese City from the Viewpoint of a Cat

New “cat street view” shows Hiroshima Prefecture’s Onomichi through the eyes of its fluffiest residents

The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse

Cool Finds

People Have Always Been Obsessed with the End of the World

Since ancient times, art and fiction love to play in the fertile ground of the apocalypse, but it hasn’t always been healthy

This concept drawing shows a swarm of "Gremlin" drones.

Cool Finds

The U.S. Military Named Their Swarming Drones After This Fairy Tale

These “Gremlins” take their cue from WWII fighter pilots’ lucky charms

Cool Finds

The World’s Rarest Silk Is Made of Clam Spit

Only one person in the world is thought to be able to dive for, spin and create rare “sea silk”

A detail of "Lewis and Clark at Three Forks" by Edgar Samuel Paxson, mural in lobby of Montana House of Representatives

Cool Finds

How to Reconstruct Lewis and Clark’s Journey: Follow the Mercury-laden Latrine Pits

One campsite has been identified using the signatures left by men who took mercury-laced purgative pills to treat constipation and other ills

Cool Finds

This Indonesian Volcano Erupts Electric-Blue Streams Of Molten Sulfur

Glowing blue rivers illuminate Java’s Blue Fire Crater.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Had a Huge Reenactment Party to Verify Ancient Pit Oven

A prehistoric-style barbecue helped feed 200 guests — and prove archaeologists’ hypothetis

Cool Finds

A Single Video Game Character Can Cost Around $80,000 To Make

It takes money to make money.

Cool Finds

Here’s What Our Future World Might Look Like

A warmer planet would favor fast-growing tropical trees and oceans full of algae but a lack of biodiversity

Ice patches that normally persist through the summer are melting in Yellowstone National Park.

Cool Finds

Melting Ice in Yellowstone is Revealing Ancient Artifacts Faster Than Researchers Can Handle

The tools, spears and even baskets from ancient Native Americans are emerging faster than archeologists can collect them

Ariel view of the Port of Galveston in 2008

Cool Finds

An 1830s Steamship From the Texas Navy May Be Buried Near Galveston Harbor

Author Clive Cussler first discovered the wreckage in 1986, now the port’s expansion forces an archeological excavation

Cool Finds

One Japanese Company Makes Half Of The World’s Zippers

How YKK came to dominate pants around the world.

Cool Finds

Here’s How Victorians “Photoshopped” Photos

Early photographers used pencils to touch up photographic plates — and the results look pretty freaky

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