Smart News

Throw one back in honor of Robert Leo Hulseman, the inventor of America's most iconic cup.

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How a Red Party Cup Became an American Icon

There's just something about Solo cups

Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel are just some of the Vatican Museums' vast holdings.

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The Vatican Names Its First Woman Museum Director

Barbara Jatta just smashed through one frescoed ceiling

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Rains Transform Australia's Uluru National Park Into a Waterfall Wonderland

Record storms flooded roads and swelled rivers near the park's iconic natural feature

Decoder glasses help visitors view both utopian and dystopian angles to the exhibition

Cool Finds

This Art Show Looks at 500 Years of Failed Utopias

So far, the ideal has yet to work out

Thousands of lab rodents disposed of at Dartmouth College are being blamed for radioactive contaminations and carcinogens in local groundwater.

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Residents Claim Ivy League College Polluted Water With Dead Lab Rodents

Burial of lab animals in the ‘60s and ‘70s have been linked to groundwater contamination in Hanover, New Hampshire

The old county courthouse in Monroeville, Alabama will soon be just one of the town's many To Kill a Mockingbird-themed attractions.

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Lawyer Wants to Make Harper Lee’s Hometown a Haven for Tourists

Monroeville, Alabama, could change with a proposed Harper Lee Trail

Chinchorro mummy at San Miguel de Azapa Museum in Arica, Chile

New Research

What Have the World’s Oldest Mummies Kept Under Wraps?

Researchers are making digital reconstructions of the 7,000-year-old bodies, which face rapid deterioration from microbes

Street in Apia, the capital of Samoa, when that country was still on American time.

Five Years Ago, This Island Nation Lost an Entire Day

On this day in 2011, Samoa switched sides of the international date line for the second time, losing December 30 in the process. Here's why

A painted lady butterfly, Vanessa cardui, one of thousands of insect species that migrate over southern England

New Research

Researchers Record Trillions of Migrating Insects Swarming Through the Skies

Though bugs make up a large amount of biomass, little was known about their migrating habits, until now

An audio tape from the oral history collection at the Navajo Nation Library

Cool Finds

Navajo Nation Library Wants to Digitally Preserve Thousands of Hours of Oral Histories

The library is looking for help protecting its tapes

A woman smashes her laptop at Good Riddance Day in 2015

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2016 Got You Down? Trash All Your Woes on Good Riddance Day

Inspired by a Latin American tradition, Good Riddance Day is one way to say goodbye to this year’s bad memories

Pangolins are prized for their meat and their scales, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

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Chinese Officials Seize 3.1 Tons of Pangolin Scales

The record-breaking bust shines a spotlight on the plight of the pangolin

Vik Muniz's "Perfect Strangers"

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New York City’s Long-Awaited Second Avenue Subway Is Packed With Public Art

The city’s four newest subway stations are covered in colorful mosaics

A technician takes an X-ray fluoroscope of a female patient. Fluoroscope exams delivered much more radiation exposures than modern X-rays.

Just Months After Its Discovery, the X-Ray Was in Use in War

The public was also fascinated by the fact it was possible to take pictures of somebody’s insides

Vera Rubin makes observations through the Flagstaff Telescope.

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Five Things to Know About Boundary-Breaking Astronomer Vera Rubin

Her observations confirmed the theory of dark matter, and her activism helped open science to more women

New Research

Cheetah Populations Plummet as They Race Toward Extinction

Hunting, habitat loss and the pet trade have reduced the fastest land animal to roughly 7,100 individuals

An interior shot of Hagia Sophia. Its name means "Holy Wisdom" or "Sacred Wisdom."

You Can Hear Hagia Sophia’s Sublime Acoustics Without a Trip to Istanbul

Stanford scientists have digitally created the building’s unique sound, taking listeners back to the Middle Ages

The Egyptian fruit bat is a highly social mammal that roosts (and argues) in crowded colonies.

New Research

Researchers 'Translate' Bat Talk. Turns Out, They Argue—a Lot

A machine learning algorithm helped decode the squeaks Egyptian fruit bats make in their roost, revealing that they "speak" to one another as individuals

Two of the last remaining wolves on Isle Royale

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Park Service May Boost Wolf Pack on Isle Royale

The NPS has proposed a plan to boost the wolf population on the island where currently only two inbred canines remain

A photograph of the National Menorah from 2011.

Why There’s A 30-Foot Menorah on the National Mall

The tradition of the National Menorah was begun under President Jimmy Carter in 1979

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