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Cool Finds

Cool Finds

Drone Captures Thousands of Years of Archaeology on Remote Scottish Islands

A drone survey of Canna and Sanday Islands collected 420 million data points, creating what may be the most detailed 3-D map of islands yet

Mansa Musa as seen in the Catalan Atlas.

Cool Finds

New Exhibition Highlights Story of the Richest Man Who Ever Lived

Read about Mansa Musa, emperor of Mali, who once disrupted Egypt’s economy just by passing through

Charred residue containing evidence of beer making.

Cool Finds

Oldest Evidence of British Beer Found in Highway Dig

Charred residues show cracked grain and starch molecules likely used as part of a beer brewing session in 400 B.C.

Cool Finds

Revealed: Leonardo da Vinci’s Reddish-Brown Thumbprint

The inky impression made on an anatomical drawing of a woman will go on view to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the artist’s death

President Kennedy declassified images like this one that showed medium-range ballistic missile launch sites in the Cuban countryside

Cool Finds

How CIA-Backed Spies Detected Soviet Nukes First During Cuban Missile Crisis

A report from Yahoo News lays out how a network of agents detected Soviet operations on the island before a U-2 spy plane snapped the famous photos

Uroplatus finaritra, a new species of leaf-tailed gecko.

Cool Finds

Newly Discovered Leaf-Tailed Gecko From Madagascar Is Already Threatened by Pet Trade

The master of camouflage is about 4-inches-long and hides amid dead leaves

Cool Finds

3,000-Year-Old Quinoa Found in Ontario

The batch of charred grain is the farthest north a now-extinct version of the crop has been found

Researchers drilled into the depths of Lake Mercer with a pencil-sized nozzle that sprayed hot water

Cool Finds

Trove of Tiny Ancient Animal Remains Recovered From Depths of Antarctic Ice

The crustaceans and tardigrade, or water bear, were found around a kilometer below the surface of the subglacial Lake Mercer

Meet Juliet, a Sehuencas water frog recently collected from the Bolivian cloud forest.

Cool Finds

A Year Later, Match.com Profile Pays Off for World’s Loneliest Frog

The 2018 Valentine’s Day stunt raised funds for an expedition that located five new Sehuencas water frogs, including a mate for lonesome Romeo

The Gardens of Agra

Cool Finds

Restored Mughal Gardens Bloom Once More Along Agra’s Riverfront

Two of the 44 original historic gardens and structures have been rescued in an ambitious conservation project

Cool Finds

Easter Island Statues May Have Marked Sources of Fresh Water

A spatial analysis of the island’s moai and ahu seem to line up with ancient wells and coastal freshwater seeps

Cool Finds

Egyptian Schoolboy’s 1,800-Year-Old Lesson to Go on Display

The British Library took the exercise out of storage as part of an upcoming exhibition on the history of writing

Icelandic horses today

Cool Finds

Burials Suggest Icelandic Vikings Had a Thing for Stallions

Adding some insight into their little-known funerary practices, DNA analyses confirm that sacrificial stallions were buried in Viking graves

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

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