Smart News

Researchers tested their pollen-carrying bubbles on lily, azalea and campanula flowers (shown).

New Research

Soap Bubbles Can Pollinate Flowers, but Can They Replace Bees?

New research shows that carefully calibrated soap bubbles cause pear trees to bear fruit

A fossilized Mussaurus egg that was the subject of one of two new studies documenting soft-shelled eggs at the time of the dinosaurs. Mussaurus was a long-necked, plant-eating dinosaur that grew to 20 feet in length and lived in modern-day Argentina between 227 and 208.5 million years ago.

New Research

First Soft-Shelled Dinosaur Egg Fossils Found

Twin discoveries reveal that some ancient reptiles laid soft-shelled eggs, challenging long-held assumptions in paleontology

Summer solstice sunrise over Stonehenge

Virtual Travel

How to Livestream Stonehenge's Summer Solstice Celebrations

Annual event at the Neolithic monument will be broadcast virtually in place of an in-person gathering

Written in ornate cursive by a general’s aide and signed by Maj. F.W. Emery on behalf of Granger, “General Orders No. 3” had long been hidden in a book of formal orders housed at the archives.

Cool Finds

National Archives Locates Handwritten Juneteenth Order

On June 19, 1865, the decree informed the people of Texas that enslaved individuals were now free

This giant squid was stranded on Britannica Bay in southwest South Africa.

Rare Giant Squid Washes Onto Shores of South African Beach

At more than 13 feet long, the creature was probably just 2 years old, scientists say

One of the interior passages of the 5,000-year-old Irish megalithic tomb of Newgrange. In this photo, sunlight enters the monument's main chamber at dawn on the winter solstice.

DNA Extracted From Ancient 'Irish Pharaoh' May Reveal Royal Incest

New analysis of elite man buried in Stone Age monument suggests he was the product of either a brother-sister or parent-child pairing

Simon G. Elliott's Antietam battlefield map was one of about 3,000 antique maps digitized by the New York Public Library between 2015 and 2018.

Cool Finds

Forgotten Antietam Battlefield Map Shows Locations of Thousands of Graves

The Union and Confederate soldiers buried at the site of the 1862 clash were later moved to nearby cemeteries

A graph generated by the "hedonometer," a tool that measures happiness on Twitter going back to 2008. After George Floyd's killing, researchers measured the most negativity on English-language Twitter ever—making it the "saddest day in the history of Twitter," they say.

New Research Suggests We're Living in Historically Unhappy Times

A tool that analyzes tweets and a study from University of Chicago researchers show that Americans' happiness has reached new lows in recent weeks

A near-infrared, color image taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows the sun glinting off of north polar seas on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Similar glints were spotted from Earth in 2000 at Titan's equator but Cassini found no evidence of liquid there.

New Research

Bright Patches on Saturn’s Largest Moon Are Dried-Up Lake Beds

New study tackles a 20-year-old mystery about Titan, the second-largest moon in the solar system

Quaker Oats announced this week that it will retire the Aunt Jemima name and logo. "We recognize Aunt Jemima’s origins are based on a racial stereotype," said a spokesperson in a statement.

Quaker Oats to Retire Aunt Jemima After Acknowledging Brand's Origins as 'Racial Stereotype'

The breakfast line's rebranding arrives amid widespread protests against systemic racism and police brutality

John Everett Millais, The Bridesmaid, 1851

Covid-19

U.K. Museum Reimagines Classic Art With Face Masks

The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge has released greeting cards of six paintings adapted for this "most unusual year"

Over 800 corten-steel monuments, one for each county in the United States where a racial terror lynching took place, on display at the National Memorial For Peace And Justice

Nearly 2,000 Black Americans Were Lynched During Reconstruction

A new report brings the number of victims of racial terror killings between 1865 and 1950 to almost 6,500

This artist's rendering of green airglow on Mars depicts the European Space Agency's Trace Gas Orbiter in the foreground.

Green Glow Detected in Mars' Atmosphere

The emerald light resembles the glow emitted in Earth's atmosphere

A male Broad-tailed Hummingbird photographed at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado, where researchers conducted field experiments on avian color vision.

New Research

Compared With Hummingbirds, People Are Rather Colorblind

Experiments reveal the tiny birds can see "non-spectral" colors that blend ultraviolet light with colors humans can see to create distinct hues we can't

A fisherman happened upon a statue depicting the Virgin Mary and child in a river near Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

Cool Finds

Fisherman Finds Suspected Medieval Statue in Spanish Riverbed

Researchers think the religious icon, which depicts the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus, is about 700 years old

See Spot run!

Businesses Can Now Buy Spot, Boston Dynamics' Robotic 'Dog'

The four-legged robot sells for about $75,000

A display in Paris' Musée du Quai Branly–Jacques Chirac, which houses hundreds of thousands of artifacts from non-European cultures

Activists Try to Remove African Artifact From Paris Museum

Protesters demanding the repatriation of looted objects seized a funeral pole on view at the Musée du Quai Branly–Jacques Chirac

This diagram shows the different kinds of animal bones used to make the 48,000-year-old tools.

Cool Finds

Evidence of Early Bow-and-Arrow Hunting Discovered in Sri Lanka

If confirmed, the 48,000-year-old find will be the oldest known instance of bowhunting outside of Africa

This 3-D scan shows the locations of unmarked graves that once belonged to Zion Cemetery, an African American cemetery founded in Tampa in 1901 and rediscovered last year.

Lost African American Cemetery Found Under Florida Parking Lot

The discovery marks the fourth forgotten black graveyard identified in the Tampa Bay area in the past year

Artist Jason deCaires Taylor's “Ocean Siren” changes color according to the average daily water temperatures measured at Davies Reef on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Recently, marine heatwaves have wreaked havoc on the Great Barrier Reef, causing the most widespread bleaching ever recorded.

This Sculpture Takes the Great Barrier Reef’s Temperature

'Ocean Siren' changes colors in real time to reflect ocean temperatures at Davies Reef, part of Australia’s ailing Great Barrier Reef

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