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Cool Finds

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Say Hello to Your New Octopod Overlord

Designer Sean Charlesworth has built a robot octopus out of 3-D printed parts

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From Tweets to Tunes – Musicians Sonify Twitter

A group of musicians is reading your Tweets, and turning them into music

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Stop Trying So Hard – Hacks Might Be Happier Than Artists

Being an artist is hard, giving up that dream might make you happiera

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Solar System Lollipops And Other Food That Looks Like Things

Food that looks like things, things that look like food, and food that look like other food. Chaos!

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Scientists Don’t Sleep

Scientific researchers continue working into the wee hours of the morning, but the experiments they really want to do would take 1,000 lifetimes

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Three Decades After Last Sighting, Japanese River Otter Declared Extinct

Japan bids its Japanese River Otter a collective ‘sayonara’ this week after the country’s Ministry of the Environment officially declared the species extinct

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The Navy’s Future Is Filled With Laser Guns

The US Navy is driving the push in the development of laser-based weaponry

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Questions About the Apocalypse? Ask This Guy

David Morrison, an astrobiologist by day, and apocalypse expert by night, is here to clear up your questions about the end of the world

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Yes, Arcade Crane Games Are Rigged - Here’s How

Why those cute stuffed animals always slip through your mechanical robot fingers

Trust us, there’s nothing old fashioned about Estonian youth.

Estonia’s Teaching 100 Percent of Its First Graders to Code

Estonia is implementing a new curriculum that will teach 100 percent of its publicly educated students to write code

Cold War–Era Science Shows Beer Will Survive a Nuclear Apocalypse

In 1955, scientists dropped nukes on beer and soda to see how they held up

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Women Shut Down Deadly Witch Hunts in India (Yes, That Still Happens)

In some parts of rural India the practice of witch hunts is still in vogue, but local women aim to stop it

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Curiosity’s Latest: This Gigantic 3D Panorama of Mars

Using Curiosity’s left and right navigation cameras, NASA produced a 3D panorama of the Martian surface

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NYC Has Its Own Ant, the “ManhattAnt”

A new ant species joins a menagerie of other creatures cut off from their kind in isolated patches of urban green in NYC

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The Genetics Behind Venus, the Mysterious Two-Faced Cat

A cat named Venus is perhaps the most famous feline on the planet thanks to her unique markings

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This Is What Extinction Sounds Like

Before-and-after audio records show how ecosystems change

A celebratory Silent Spring float

Crazy Lies Haters Threw at Rachel Carson

Silent Spring turns 50 this month, but Rachel Carson’s ecological game-changer was not always the beloved green bible it is today

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The Stunning Results of Throwing a Water Balloon at a Bald Man’s Head

Photographer TIm Tadder’s “Water Wigs” makes a splash in this collection of unique images

The flag of the Tlicho Nation

Kindergarten Classes Could Save Fading Language

A kindergarten program seeks to teach children a small community’s native language

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These Rubik’s Cubes Can Be Solved With Touch Alone

These designers have all come up with clever ways to push the game out of the real of sight, and into the realm of touch

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