Smart News

Each finger is made of two layers of hydrogel that react to temperature by contracting and leaking water.

New Research

This Robotic Hand Stays Cool by Sweating

The robot is three times more efficient at sweating than the animal kingdom's best, humans and horses

Staff won’t be able to check properly until March, because further exposure to cold air could kill any surviving bees.

10,000 Rare Bees Feared Dead After Attack at U.K. Castle

A local councillor deemed the perpetrators ‘morons’

The vest said to have been worn by Charles I at his execution on January 30, 1649

See Charles I's Stained Execution Shirt

The vest will feature in an upcoming exhibition on London's long and gruesome history of public killings

Kryptos, displayed in a courtyard of the CIA’s Langley, Virginia, headquarters, has long puzzled codebreakers.

New Clue May Be the Key to Cracking CIA Sculpture's Final Puzzling Passage

"Northeast" joins "Berlin" and "clock" as hints for deciphering a 97-character section of Kryptos' code

Researchers conducting excavations near Bath Abbey have uncovered the remains of an apse dated to between the late eighth and late tenth centuries.

Cool Finds

Newly Unearthed Anglo-Saxon Monastery May Have Hosted England's First Coronation

In the millennia since Edgar the Peaceful's 973 coronation, the content of the royal ceremony has remained largely the same

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope has produced the highest resolution image of the sun's surface ever taken. In this picture, taken at 789 nanometers (nm), we can see features as small as 30km (18 miles) in size for the first time ever. The image shows a pattern of turbulent, “boiling” gas that covers the entire sun.

See the Sun’s Surface Move in ‘Unprecedented’ Detail

The images were taken with the immensely powerful Inouye Solar Telescope, which could shed light on some of the sun’s more confounding secrets

The red-breasted nuthatch eavesdrops on chickadee conversations to get advanced notice of predators like pygmy owls.

New Research

Nuthatches Heed Chickadees' Warning Calls—but They're Wary of False Alarms

Nuthatches prefer to check the facts before they 'retweet' chickadees' alerts

Gallup found that the youngest age bracket—covering 18- to 29-year-olds—visited the library the most, possibly because this group included college students.

Americans Went to the Library More Often Than the Movies in 2019

A new Gallup poll suggests that even in the digital age, libraries remain an important fixture in communities across the country

Susan B. Anthony's childhood home in Battenville, New York, as seen in 2018

Susan B. Anthony's Childhood Home Is Getting Renovated

The women's suffrage activist lived in the house from 1833 to 1839

The "Fashionista" line now boasts 176 dolls with nine body types, 35 skin tones and 94 hairstyles.

Meet the New Wave of More 'Diverse' Barbie Dolls

The additions include dolls with no hair, prosthetic limbs and vitiligo

Among the artifacts believed to be lost are letters written by Chinese immigrants, photographs of Chinatown and an 1883 document on the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Fire at Museum of Chinese in America Caused Less Damage Than Initially Feared

Around 200 boxes recovered from the building have been deemed "very much salvageable," but they represent only a "fraction" of the museum's collection

This deer mouse certainly looks pretty stressed and scared.

When Stressed Out, Mice’s Fur Turns Gray Quickly

A new study gives scientific backing to an old adage—and suggests that stress might affect the human body in dramatic ways

The Cape coral snake is a venomous species that lives in arid regions of southern Africa.

New Research

The Future of Antivenom May Involve Mini Lab-Grown Snake Glands

The antiquated technique used to produce antivenom requires injecting venom into horses and this new method may someday remove that step from the process

A new type of aurora, called auroral dunes, produces horizontal, undulating stripes of green that resemble mounds of sand on a beach.

A New Type of Aurora Ripples Across the Sky in Horizontal Green ‘Dunes’

Originally observed by citizen scientists, the unusual light show might help researchers better understand a poorly studied layer of the atmosphere

Historic records and biometric analysis suggest the man seen front row center in this 1943 image of Sobibor camp guards is John Demjanjuk.

Newly Released Photos May Place the 'Devil Next Door' at Sobibor Death Camp

This is the latest chapter in the long, complex saga of John Demjanjuk, who was accused of participating in Nazi war crimes

This concretion, recovered from the Hoi An shipwreck, alludes to the fate of artifacts left underwater.

Who Owns the Art Recovered From Shipwrecks?

A thought-provoking exhibit at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco draws on artifacts from two centuries-old shipwrecks

Image from Rebel Lives: Photographs From Inside the Lord's Resistance Army by Kristof Titeca

How a Notorious Ugandan Rebel Group Used Everyday Snapshots as Propaganda

A new exhibition explores the underlying agenda of seemingly mundane photographs taken by members of the Lord's Resistance Army

The mesmerizing rainbow sheen of jewel beetles Sternocera aequisignata might help camouflage them from predators.

Glitzy Beetles Use Their Sparkle for Camouflage

A new study suggests eye-catching iridescence isn't just for standing out in a crowd—it can conceal, too

Chagyrskaya Cave in Siberia's Altai Mountains, where researchers uncovered Neanderthal stone blades that resemble tools excavated in Europe

Neanderthals May Have Trekked 2,000 Miles to Siberia

A new tool analysis suggests European Neanderthals migrated east at least twice

Asiatic cheetahs—like this one photographed in Iran—haven't had a stable population in India in decades. Now, the government has clearance to introduce African cheetahs into several wildlife ranges in the Indian subcontinent.

After Decades-Long Battle, Cheetahs Can Be Reintroduced in India

Officials will now move forward with an experimental—and controversial—plan

Page 336 of 984