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Cool Finds

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Cool Finds

There’s an Easy (And Tasty) Way to Measure the Speed of Light at Home

You can make surprisingly accurate calculations using chocolate and a microwave

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Cool Finds

Here’s How Astronomers Actually Find Planets in Other Solar Systems

Astronomers have found 1,741 exoplanets. But how, exactly?

Cool Finds

Fish Oil Could Be a Modern-Day Snake Oil

The premise that fish oil is good for your heart is based on questionable data

Siegfried Sassoon

Cool Finds

These Diaries, of Poet Siegfried Sassoon, Capture the Chaos of WWI

Siegfried Sassoon’s poems captured life in the trenches of WWI

Cool Finds

Send Your Pets’ Remains To Space

A new service offers to launch your pet’s ashes into space

Cool Finds

Quentin Tarantino And Judd Apatow Agree: Kodak Film Can’t Disappear—They Need It

Some of Hollywood’s most famous directors are pressing studios to buy Kodak film—before it’s too late

Cool Finds

How Big Were Romans’ Feet?

A bioarchaeologist proposes one method to answer that question

French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel with some of his works in Hong Kong, May 2014. The sculptures he is designing for Versailles have a similar pearl-strand shape.

Cool Finds

For the First Time in 300 Years, a New Permanent Sculpture Will Grace Versailles

A fountain sculpture being installed on the grounds is intended to be the first permanent addition to the collection in centuries

The London as it looked before it blew up

Cool Finds

In 1665, a British Warship Mysteriously Blew Up—And Soon We Might Know Why

349 years ago, the warship The London exploded in the Thames Estuary. Now archaeologists are trying to figure out why

Cool Finds

If Certain Couples in Yemen Choose to Divorce, Their Siblings Must Get a Divorce, Too

“Swap” marriages dictate that both marriage vows and divorces must be evenly shared between siblings of two families

Natural Chocolate Is Actually a Reddish Color

Chocolate didn’t turn brown until chemists got their hands on it

This half-albino redwood tree has swirls of green and yellowish-white, as well as male and female cones.

Trending Today

Rare Half-Albino Redwood Tree Is Safe, For Now

One rare, half-albino redwood in California was slated to be chopped down, but local outcry has saved it

Balan, the Blowpipe maker.

Cool Finds

Meet One of the Last Bornean Elders Who Still Makes Traditional Poison Dart Blowpipes

It takes two days of constant drilling by hand to create a single pipe, which can be used to hunting animals

Lead from mining operations in Broken Hill, Australia, reached Antarctica before humans did.

Cool Finds

Pollution Beat People to the South Pole

Before people ever made it to the South Pole, a pollutant had beaten us there

Giant pandas Hsing-Hsing (left) and Ling-Ling frolic at the National Zoological Park near Washington, DC. Photo circa 1974.

Cool Finds

Don’t Worry Mr. Nixon, the National Zoo’s Pandas Figured Out How to Have Sex

President Nixon wanted to make sure Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing had enough time to “learn the ropes”

A baby chimp in the 1950s

Cool Finds

This Guy Simultaneously Raised a Chimp and a Baby in Exactly the Same Way to See What Would Happen

When treated as a human, the baby chimp acted like one—until her physiology and development held her back

The original expedition to Wyoming's Natural Trap Cave, more than 30 years ago.

Cool Finds

A Wyoming Cave Full Of Ice Age Animal Bones is Finally Being Opened To Scientists

After being closed for three decades, a remote sinkhole full of ancient bones will be opened to researchers

A cyclist rides his bicycle on the former border patrol road between East and West Germany.

Austria

Cycle Through History on the Iron Curtain Trail

The trail stretches 4,225 miles from the Barents to the Black Sea

Cool Finds

Creepy Internet-Style Tracking and Targeting Analytics Are Moving into Real Life

A company is using cameras and heat sensors to track people in their store

An old-fashioned lettuce farm.

Cool Finds

Japan’s Massive Indoor Farm Produces 10,000 Heads of Fresh Lettuce Every Day

The innovative farming solution could help cut down on food waste

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