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Cool Finds

Cool Finds

19th Century Concern Trolling: Chess Is “a Mere Amusement of a Very Inferior Character”

The writers of Scientific American had some not nice things to say about chess

Cool Finds

A Soldier’s Room Has Remained Virtually Untouched Since WWI

The home’s current owner, however, says he feels little connection to the dead soldier

Cool Finds

The World of Personal Computers in the 1980s Was A Wacky, Wonderful Place

You can experience early video games and operating systems yourself through retrocomputing and ads

George Washington's only complete set of dentures, made out of lead, human teeth, cow teeth and elephant ivory.  

Cool Finds

George Washington Didn’t Have Wooden Teeth—They Were Ivory

Washington’s teeth were made of a lot of things, but not wood

Cool Finds

The Foolproof Way to Fix a Wobbly Table

Solving life’s challenges one at a time—with math!

Smaug now resides at the Wellington airport.

Cool Finds

Smaug the Dragon And Other Unexpected Airport Surprises

There’s more to the world’s airports than newsstands and food courts

Cool Finds

Humans Outnumber Rats in NYC

There’s actually about one rat for every four people

Cool Finds

What Happens When Western And Traditional Chinese Medicine Merge

These two treatment philosophies were previously seen as being diametrically opposed, but some experts think the systems can complement each another

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Cool Finds

Left-Handed People Have Less Specialized Brains

Diversity means flexibility, even if being left-handed can be super annoying

A Big Circle named J1 in Jordan stretches 1,280 feet in diameter and the center has been bulldozed

Cool Finds

These Giant Circles in the Mideast Are One of the World’s Last Mysteries

Archaeologists have found more than a dozen ancient circles in Turkey, Syria and Jordan—but don’t know why they were built

Cool Finds

Great Britain Still Has Significant Debt From World War I

The U.K. is committing itself to paying off a small fraction of that debt next year by issuing new debt

The Lincoln Memorial and Reflecting Pool

Cool Finds

How to Protect the Lincoln Memorial From Crazy Flooding

The capital city’s decades-old system of levees to keep water back during storms and flooding is getting an upgrade

A Siberian musk deer two-month old stands next to his father at the Edinburgh zoo — they are closely related to the species just spotted

Cool Finds

Fanged Deer Not Extinct, Still Roaming the Mountains of Afghanistan

The Kashmir musk deer was last spotted in 1948 but now researchers report five recent sightings

Cool Finds

We Can Measure How Traffic Vibrates the Earth

Special instruments called geophones help researchers distinguish the signatures of big trucks rumbling down the highway and planes taking off

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Cool Finds

Someone Just Bought an Entire Connecticut Ghost Town for $1.2 Million

Johnsonville was once a 62-acre mill village

Cool Finds

Australia’s Koalas Have Chlamydia, But a New Vaccine Could Save Them

The sexually transmitted disease threatens the health of one of Australia’s iconic marsupials

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Cool Finds

The European Space Agency Has Made the Weirdest Short Film

The ESA’s advertising Rosetta with a very unusual sci-fi short

Cool Finds

Rainbows Don’t Include Purple Light, So Why Do They Sometimes Seem To?

Supernumerary rings, supernumerary rings, supernummrings

Cool Finds

Artists In Search of Inspiration Can Now Find Their Muse On a Cargo Ship

Container ships now join Amtrak trains, dune shacks and remote islands in the Arctic circle as sights dedicated to artistic pursuit

In London, Sherlock Holmes is happy to stop for a quick chat.

Cool Finds

You’ll Soon Be Able to Talk to London And Manchester’s Statues

Just scan a tag near the statues with your cell, and they’ll call you with a quick first-person history lesson

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