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Cool Finds

152 Nassau

Hitting the High Notes: A Smithsonian Year of Music

The Site of Country Music’s First Recorded Hit Is Set to Be Demolished

152 Nassau Street in Atlanta was home to the first country music recording hit made before the genre even had a name

The board was likely used in the bath house at Vindolanda, one of 14 forts along Hadrian's Wall, but was repurposed as a floor stone in the adjacent building after it was broken.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Uncover an Ancient Roman Game Board at Hadrian’s Wall

The cracked stone board was likely used to play ludus latrunculorum, Rome’s favorite game

Even large equines can get a little hoarse.

New Research

Even Mild Cases of Asthma Can Slow Down Elite Racehorses

Researchers found 80 percent of racehorses surveyed suffered from airway inflammation that impacts performance

Cool Finds

Historians Are Looking for Images of the HMS Beagle’s Anchors

Researchers are hoping to confirm that they have discovered an anchor from the ship that carried Darwin stuck in the mud of an Australian river

Future of Space Exploration

One-Third of Exoplanets Could Be Water Worlds With Oceans Hundreds of Miles Deep

A new statistical analysis suggests seas hundreds of miles deep cover up to 35 percent of distant worlds

That so  totally rocks, dude.

New Research

Green Sea Turtles Are Bouncing Back Around U.S. Pacific Islands

Surveys show the species increasing 8 percent near Hawaii and 4 percent elsewhere, though hawksbill turtles aren’t faring as well

Nostalgia in a can

You Can Buy a Tin of Air to Commemorate the End of the Heisei Era

The nostalgic keepsake goes up for sale in advance of Emperor Akihito’s abdication

Cool Finds

‘A Clockwork Orange’ Follow-Up Found in Burgess Archives

‘The Clockwork Condition’ was intended to be a philosophical examination of themes raised in his most popular and problematic novel

Wainright watches over Livingstone's body on the trip back to Britain.

Cool Finds

Diary of Livingstone’s Intrepid African Attendant Jacob Wainwright Digitized

He traveled with the Scottish missionary and explorer searching for the source of the Nile, and he’s responsible for bringing his remains to Britain

Cool Finds

New Legos Are Designed to Help Visually Impaired Children Learn Braille

The goal of the new toy is to increase literacy among the blind has fallen dramatically in the last 50 years

The SEIS instrument on the surface of Mars.

Future of Space Exploration

NASA Detects First ‘Marsquake’

A 2 to 2.5 magnitude quake on the Red Planet is the first seismic activity detected outside the Earth and the Moon

Cool Finds

North Carolina’s Famed Shipwrecks Are Now Home to a Shark Conservation Research Study

Unwitting citizen-scientists discovered evidence that vulnerable species return to the same ships, which could help in their recovery

Cool Finds

Salvagers Accidentally Found the Netherlands’ Oldest Shipwreck

Dated to around 1540, the ship carried a load of copper plate that was likely for the country’s earliest copper coins

New Research

Beer Fueled Diplomacy in This Ancient Empire

Analysis shows a brewery at a Wari outpost in the mountains of southern Peru strengthened bonds with friends and neighbors

Cool Finds

Ring Containing Charlotte Brontë’s Hair Discovered in Attic

The piece of mourning jewelry includes an inscription and a little door covering a plaited lock of the Jane Eyre author’s hair

Cool Finds

Scientists Find a Tiny Speck of Comet Inside a Meteorite

The little fragment found in Antarctica was protected from the elements and preserves the chemical signature of the early solar system

New Research

New Analysis of Depression-Era Fossil Hunt Shows Texas Coast Was Once a ‘Serengeti’

Over 11 million years ago, the area was full of animals

Cool Finds

Bonn Library Recovers More Than 600 Books Looted After World War II

The trove was flagged after a Belgian woman unwittingly tried to auction the stolen books

Cool Finds

Book of Lost Books Discovered in Danish Archive

The index is part of the Libro de los Epítomes, an effort by Christopher Columbus’ illegitimate son to create a searchable index of the world’s knowledge

Cool Finds

These Ecologists Borrowed Tricks From Astrophysicists to Count Endangered Orangutans

The thermal-imaging expertise of astronomers helped researchers find the great apes in the hot, humid jungles of Borneo

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