Cool Finds

Cool Finds

The Doctor Who Introduced the Virtues of Hand Washing Died of an Infection

A sad fate: Ignes Semmelweis, a maternity doctor who fought for hospital sanitation, died of sepsis

January 15, 2015

Cool Finds

These Photos From a Lunar Orbiter Could Be Abstract Art

Our distant view of the Moon from Earth is nice, but these close-ups are amazing

January 14, 2015

Cool Finds

Save the Voices of Tolkien, Joyce And Tennyson

The British Library is fighting time and budget constraints to save its vast collection of audio recordings

January 14, 2015

Cool Finds

America’s Goats Are Concentrated in Texas

In 2012, famers reported more than 2 million goats living in the U.S.

January 13, 2015

Cool Finds

Some Microbes Can Eat And Breathe Electricity

How many ways can life exist? Some recently discovered microbes can live on a cathode, apparently without the need for a carbon food-source

January 13, 2015

Cool Finds

Mummy Feces Solve the Mystery of How Verona’s Most Powerful Man Died

Digging deep for the secret behind a medieval warlord’s mysterious death

January 13, 2015

Cool Finds

A Museum in England Is Hiding a Forgery Among Its Masterpieces

A South London gallery is asking its patrons to identify the fake in order to spark discussion about how and why we appreciate the art

January 13, 2015

Cool Finds

Two Men Tried To Cure Schizophrenia by Removing Their Patients’ Intestines

Bayard Holmes and Henry Cotton were separated by a generation, but both thought that mental illness arose from toxins produced within the body

January 12, 2015

Cool Finds

How a Single Penny Became Worth More Than $2 Million

Fifteen years ago, few would pay $1 million for a coin—no matter how rare. That’s changing.

January 12, 2015

Cool Finds

Oil Companies First Built Pipelines in the 1860s; They’ve Been Contested Ever Since

In the 19th century, reformers were happy to have oil come out of the ground—but they objected to the way oil companies controlled it

January 12, 2015

Cool Finds

On This Day in 1932, America Elected Its First Female Senator

This year, a record number of women are serving in Congress; Hattie Wyatt Caraway was the first ever in the Senate

January 12, 2015

Cool Finds

Come for the Giant Rock, Stay for the UFO History

George Van Tassel believed he could communicate with aliens

January 9, 2015

Early Food Safety Workers Tested Poisons by Eating Them

They were hailed as heroes and even had a song

January 9, 2015

Cool Finds

It’s Cheaper to Make Diabetes Test Strips of Silk Than of Paper in India

Skilled handloom weavers and abundant silk hold the key for an innovative solution

January 9, 2015

Cool Finds

A Museum’s Butterfly Emerged Half Male, Half Female

The rarity is like a natural experiment that tells scientists how genes and hormones interact to produce different sexes

January 9, 2015

Cool Finds

U.S. Air Force Builds New Radar for Space Junk

It’s called Space Fence and should help us track the estimated 500,000 pieces of debris that orbit Earth

January 9, 2015

Cool Finds

The 1887 Blizzard That Changed the American Frontier Forever

A blizzard hit the western open range, causing the “Great Die Up” and transforming America’s agricultural history

January 9, 2015

Cool Finds

The Flu Has Been Making People Sick for At Least 500 Years

The 1918 flu pandemic gets all the headlines, but the malady is thought to have first appeared in the 16th century—and possibly earlier

January 8, 2015

Cool Finds

Ellis Island Isn’t to Blame for Your Family’s Name Change

A long-standing myth obscures the truth behind the Americanization of some European names

January 8, 2015

Cool Finds

Visit Kepler’s Exoplanets—And Don’t Worry About the Natives (At Least for Now)

NASA has made a set of travel posters themed to exoplanets while a nonprofit searches for life among them

January 8, 2015