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Cool Finds

Desert kites, stone structures used for hunting, discovered in the U2 images.

Cool Finds

U-2 Spy Plane Images Reveal Ancient Archaeological Sites in the Middle East

Two patient archaeologists organized and scanned the images to find structures destroyed or covered up over the last 60 years

Cool Finds

This Is the World’s Tallest Tropical Tree

The yellow meranti in Malaysia’s Sabah state is 330 feet tall and weighs more than a jetliner

New Research

Exoplanet Core Orbiting a Dying Star May Help Astronomers Understand What Lies in Store for Our Solar System

It’s likely the planetesimal orbiting a white dwarf 410 light years away was the core of a minor planet caught in its immense gravity

Redoshi seen in “The Negro Farmer: Extension Work for Better Farming and Better Living"

Cool Finds

Researcher Identifies the Last Living Survivor of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Redoshi was 12 when she was kidnapped and sold to the crew of the Clotilda

New Research

New Type of Arctic Dinosaur Discovered in Alaska

The duck-billed, crested lambeosaurine shows that a diverse array of dinos lived in the warmer but still harsh Arctic 70 million years ago

The royal document was signed by nine witnesses

Cool Finds

819-Year-Old Royal Charter Issued by King John Found in University Archives

A visiting historian happened upon the medieval document while conducting research in Durham, England

The most recent vortex on the left and the first one discovered in 1989 by Voyager 2.

New Research

There’s a Dark and Stormy Vortex Brewing on Neptune

It is the sixth massive dark and stormy vortex found on the planet since 1989 and the only one astronomers have watched develop

Lake Michigan's making a pointed statement

Cool Finds

Photographer Captures Stunning Images of Ice Shards Along Lake Michigan

As the lakes melts, glassy sheets of ice are piling up along another along parts of the Michigan shoreline

Illustration of the GRAPES-3 Muon telescope in a lightning storm.

New Research

How Much Electricity Can Thunderstorms Produce?

Researchers used a cosmic ray detector to clock one storm in at a shocking 1.3 billion volts

An illustration of what Avimaia schweitzerae and its nest may have looked like.

Cool Finds

First-Ever Fossilized Mother Bird Found With Unlaid Egg

The rare 110-million-year-old bits of shell shine light on the reproduction during the age of dinosaurs

Underwater view of ship 17's hull

Cool Finds

Wreck of Unusual Ship Described by Herodotus Recovered From Nile Delta

The Greek chronicler dedicated 23 lines of his Histories to the construction of a Nile cargo boat known by locals as a baris

Cool Finds

Mariner’s Astrolabe Recovered From Shipwreck Is the World’s Oldest

The navigational gadget comes from the wreck of the Esmerelda, part of Vasco da Gama’s fleet that sunk off the coast of Oman in 1503

These floral watercolors may have been painted by van Gogh's unrequited love interest, the 19-year-old daughter of his landlady

Cool Finds

Newly Discovered Papers Found in Vincent van Gogh’s London Lodging

The cache includes insurance records signed by his landlady, a volume of prayers and hymns, and watercolors possibly painted by an unrequited love interest

Artist's depiction of "Henry," a teenaged sailor on the Mary Rose.

Cool Finds

DNA Shows Ethnically Diverse Crew Sailed Henry VIII’s Flagship

The research on the skeletons found near the wreck suggests there were sailors and marines on board who came from North Africa and the Mediterranean

Cool Finds

Birds and Humans Are Depicted Together in This Rare Scene From 12,000 Years Ago

Researchers believe the discovery, detailed in a new study, represent an “exceptional milestone in European Paleolithic rock art”

Cool Finds

NASA Releases Opportunity Rover’s Final Panorama Photograph

The little Mars explorer was hit by a duststorm in June, 2018 and never recovered, but it did send back 354 images from on its final days

Cool Finds

Could This Work Be Leonardo da Vinci’s Only Known Sculpture?

An art scholar argues “Virgin with the Laughing Child” held in a U.K. museum bears the hallmark smile and other techniques of the polymath’s other works

Alcatraz's recreation yard, where the structures were discovered.

Cool Finds

Radar Scans Reveal Traces of 19th-Century Fort Beneath Alcatraz

Before Capone took up residence, the island was home to military installation that guarded San Francisco Bay

New Research

Beer Yeast Is a True International Collaboration

A new study looking at the genomics of brewer’s yeast indicates it’s a combination of European grape wine and Asian rice wine strains

The positions of the globular clusters used to estimate the mass of the Milky Way.

Cool Finds

How Much Does the Milky Way Weigh?

Measurements from the Gaia satellite and Hubble Space Telescope show our galaxy tips the scales at about 1.5 trillion solar masses

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