Smart News

WWII veteran Marvin Strombo, right, and Tatsuya Yasue, an 89-year-old farmer, left, hold a Japanese flag with autographed messages that belonged to Yasue's brother Sadao Yasue, who was killed in the Pacific during World War II.

U.S. Veteran Returns Flag to Family of Dead Japanese Soldier

Marvin Strombo took the flag from the body of Sadao Yasue during the Battle of Saipan, but promised that he would one day return it

Campers near Chaco Canyon, N.M., gather together and look to the east to watch the sun rise on August 17, 1987, as part of the harmonic convergence.

Trending Today

Thirty Years Ago, People Tried to Save the World By Meditating

Believers in the Harmonic Convergence traveled to places like Chaco Canyon and Stonehenge to welcome aliens, the resurrected Maya and wait for world peace

An ancient knee joint that shows signs of grinding between the bones, a result of osteoarthritis

New Research

What a 6,000-Year-Old Knee Can Teach Us About Arthritis

By studying bones dating back thousands of years, researchers find that the disease may not be just a part of getting old

Artists like Paula Modersohn-Becker sought to incorporate exotic elements into their art in Germany's colonial era, such as the bananas shown in this 1905 painting

German Art Museum Tackles Legacy of Colonialism

Looking hard at its own collection, Kunsthalle Bremen aims to challenge the racism of colonialism that persists today

The enigmatic Yayoi Kusama built a museum for her work in near total secrecy

Yayoi Kusama Secretly Built a Museum

Opening October 1, the Tokyo museum will showcase art and archives from the visionary avant-garde Japanese artist

Bishop's long-lasting lipstick was advertised as "kissable."

Chemist Hazel Bishop's Lipstick Wars

Bishop said her advantage in coming up with cosmetics was that, unlike male chemists, she actually used them

You Can Own Mark Twain's Connecticut Farmhouse

The author gifted the property to his daughter in 1909. Not long after, tragedy struck

Pierre de Fermat left behind a truly tantalizing hint of a proof when he died—one that mathematicians struggled to complete for centuries.

The Romance of Fermat's Last Theorem

Fermat left a lot of theorems lying around. Mathematicians proved them all–except one

Cool Finds

Brilliantly White Moose Photographed in Sweden

It took a local politician three years to finally capture a video of the elusive ghostly creature

This butterfly is the same species, white-letter hairstreak, as the one spotted in Scotland. But the little beauty is shown here in Dorset, UK.

Cool Finds

Elusive Butterfly Spotted in Scotland For the First Time in 133 Years

The white-letter hairstreak has come under threat due to an outbreak of Dutch elm disease

Carthaginian general Hannibal is legendary for bringing tens of thousands of soldiers, cavalrymen, and thousands of horses, mules and African elephants through the Alps during the Second Punic War.

New Research

Silver Composition in Coins Confirms the Story of the Rise of Rome

Lead isotopes in Roman coins reveal the defeat of Carthage financed Rome's expansion throughout the Mediterranean

Workers remove the Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson monument in Wyman Park early Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2017.

Baltimore Quietly Removes Four Confederate Monuments

Mayor Catherine Pugh said the statues “needed to come down”

"Black Iron Ursa" by Jason Chase

Art Meets Science

Artists Can Now Buy One of the World’s Blackest Blacks

Singularity Black is not the blackest hue out there, but it is the darkest color currently available to the general public

The replica bones and teeth in place

Once Plundered by Thieves, Ancient Cave Reopens with 3-D Replicas of Stolen Fossils

It took multiple attempts—and two broken printers—to get the recreations right

Cloth Smuggled Out of Syrian Prison Bears Witness to Atrocities Wrought by the Civil War

The U.S. Holocaust Museum has received the cloth scraps, which bears the names of 82 inmates written in chicken bones, rust, and blood

Have an hour or twenty? Take in the mesmerizing views from Slooh's live feeds of space.

Watch Free Live Streams of Outer Space

The astronomy website Slooh has lifted the paywall on footage from its telescopes

“Love Symbol #2”

Trending Today

Prince Now Has His Own Shade of Purple

The Pantone Color Institute has debuted “Love Symbol #2,” a deep purple based on the late star's custom-made piano

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on this day in 1769 in Corsica. As a young man at school, one instructor said that he "has always been distinguished for his application in mathematics."

Napoleon's Lifelong Interest in Science

Napoleon was a Frenchman of his time, which means he was interested in how science could do good–he just took it farther than most

Thanks to Disney, this story is so ubiquitous that 'Bambi' is a common shorthand for 'baby deer.'

If You Think ‘Bambi’ Seems Too Mature For Kids, You’re Not Wrong

The popular novel was even a Book-of-the-Month Club selection

Florence Harding put up with a lot during her life, including Warren G. Harding's constant philandering.

Florence Harding, Not Eleanor Roosevelt, May Have Created the Modern First Lady

She did things her own way, and helped to set a precedent for the First Ladies who followed her

Page 522 of 988