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Cool Finds

Cool Finds

Planet Hunter TESS Is Already Spotting Hundreds of Crazy New Worlds

The first data from the space telescope’s mission tallies more than 200 potential planets, including some just 50 light-years away

New Research

Sorry, the Mona Lisa Is Not Looking at You

A new study suggests the famous painting’s eyes don’t follow viewers around the room but are looking off to their right instead

New Research

Dragonflies Embark on an Epic, Multi-Generational Migration Each Year

Monarch butterflies aren’t the only migratory marathoners in North America

Cool Finds

Found: Sailboat From Teen’s Abandoned Round-the-World Attempt

Abby Sunderland’s boat was dismasted in the Indian Ocean in 2010 during her controversial bid to become the youngest to circumnavigate the world solo

Cool Finds

Basquiat Painting Has Hidden Black-Light Images

An art conservator found the arrows on an untitled 1981 work and believes there may be more “secret” imagery hidden away on other works

One of the flower-strewn slabs.

Cool Finds

Could These Fossils Push Back the History of Flowers?

A study analyzing 200 tiny flowers from 174 million years ago suggests angiosperms were around during the Jurassic, but paleobotanists are skeptical

Cool Finds

Your Christmas Tree May Be Turned Into Mouthwash One Day

A new sustainable chemical process can turn pine needles into a chemical feedstock for paint, food sweeteners, mouthwash and other products

Magnet, one of the endangered North Atlantic right whales returning to their wintering grounds in Georgia and Florida.

Cool Finds

First Right Whale Calf in Two Years Spotted Off Florida Coast

A mother and calf were recently sighted along with several possibly pregnant endangered North Atlantic right whales

Cool Finds

Preserved Horse, Saddled, Harnessed and Ready to Flee, Found in Villa Outside Pompeii

Archaeologists found ornamental pieces of a harness and saddle, suggesting the horse was ready to ride when the volcano blew its top

An artist's conception of the view from Farout.

Cool Finds

Meet Farout, the Solar System’s Most Distant Minor Planet

Observations suggest the object is 300 miles in diameter, pinkish-red and 3.5 times as far away from the sun as Pluto

View of the Silent Night Chapel

Trending Today

A Brief History of ‘Silent Night’

The classic Christmas tune was first composed as a poem, and it was set to music for the first time in the winter of 1818

The reticulated siren.

Cool Finds

Biologists Describe Legendary, Two-Foot-Long Salamander for the First Time

The reticulated siren was known locally as a ‘leopard eel’ until two researchers tracked it down and revealed its true identity

Cool Finds

Adelie Penguins Poop So Much, Their Feces Can Be Seen From Space

Satellite images of the Adelie penguin’s pink guano shows how their colony size and diet have changed over the last 4 decades

Cool Finds

The Goddess in the Margarine Tub Is Just One of 1,267 Treasures Found by the British Public in 2017

A new report reveals the pieces voluntarily recorded with the U.K.’s Portable Antiquities Scheme last year

Cool Finds

Fruit Flies First Began Feeding on Our Fresh Produce About 10,000 Years Ago

It turns out the insects love marula fruit found in south-central Africa, which attracted them to human caves

Cool Finds

Recently Deciphered 4,500-Year-Old Pillar Shows First Known Record of a Border Dispute

The marble stele, held in the British Museum’s collections for 150 years, also includes the first known use of the term “no man’s land”

Cool Finds

Newly Discovered Cave Could Be Among Canada’s Largest

The “Sarlacc Pit,” as its been informally dubbed, was discovered last spring during a caribou survey in British Columbia’s Wells Gray Provincial Park

New Research

Evidence Suggests Humans Reached “Roof of the World” 40,000 Years Ago

Over 3,000 stone tools show human presence in Tibetan plateau 20,000 years before previously thought

Extragalactic Background Light

New Research

This Is How Much Starlight the Universe Has Produced

4,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 photons over 13.7 billion years

Cool Finds

Here’s How That Cow Got So Large

The sad fact is most steers are slaughtered before they reach their full, awesome size, making the Aussie bovine more lucky than freakish

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