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Ray Yoshida, Arbitrary Approach, 1983

Cool Finds

New Exhibition Lets You Look at Art While Playing Pinball

<i>Kings and Queens</i> tracks the game’s influence on a group of Chicago artists

Trending Today

Prince Charles Will Battle Squirrels Using Contraceptives and a Lot of Nutella

North American gray squirrels are decimating native red squirrels in the British Isles, leading to a new plan to reduce the population of invasive mammals

Bleached coral discovered earlier this month at Maureen's Cove in the Great Barrier Reef

Trending Today

Great Barrier Reef Braces for Another Massive Bleaching Event

After the worst die-off in the reef's history in 2016, scientists are worried that high sea temperatures will affect the area again

This Roman road is part of a newly opened McDonalds.

Cool Finds

New McDonalds Has a Cool Design Element: an Ancient Roman Road

Have a bit of history with that Happy Meal

Prayer wheels are just one of the sounds preserved and remixed in a new project.

Cool Finds

Listen to the Sounds of Sacred Spaces Around the World

A new project documents, then remixes, religious and spiritual sounds

Sigmund Freud, G. Stanley Hall, C.G. Jung, A.A. Brill, Ernest Jones, and Sándor Ferenczi posed at Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts in September, 1909.

When Freud Met Jung

The meeting of the minds happened 110 years ago

Hugo La Fayette Black was a Supreme Court justice for over three decades, and is remembered as a defender of civil rights.

This Supreme Court Justice Was a KKK Member

Even after the story came out in 1937, Hugo Black went on to serve as a member of the Supreme Court into the 1970s

This later image shows the artist's interpretation of the Luddites breaking a loom. Byron was speaking up to oppose the Frame Breaking Act of 1812 that would make machine breaking a capital crime.

Byron Was One of the Few Prominent Defenders of the Luddites

Years later he even wrote them a poem, “Song for the Luddites”

This image, entitled "Doing Their Share, Too," celebrated the war work of black women.

Cool Finds

This African American Artist’s Cartoons Helped Win World War II

Charles Alston knew how to turn art into motivation

Wild pigs lack natural predators in much of the United States.

Texas Approves Pesticide Targeting Wild Pigs

But hunters and conservationists are concerned that other animals will be exposed to the toxin

Strong atmospheric river events are driving record precipitation across the state of California.

Rivers in the Atmosphere Converge to Give California a Huge Downpour

All aboard the Pineapple Express

Playing the flute isn't easy even for some humans, but in the 18th century, inventor Jacques de Vaucanson figured out how to make a machine play it.

This Eighteenth-Century Robot Actually Used Breathing to Play the Flute

It was one of a trio of automata that had functions like living creatures

This animal hair toothbrush (horse hair, to be exact) is said to have belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte.

You Can Still Buy Pig-Hair Toothbrushes

There's an argument for it, given all the environmental destruction causes by plastic ones

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault keeps backups of the world's seeds safe in case of catastrophe.

Trending Today

Syria Just Made a Major Seed Bank Deposit

Seeds from 49,000 types of crops will be backed up in Svalbard once more

John 'Babbacombe' Lee was convicted of murder in 1884 and sentenced to death by hanging. Then things got weird.

The Weird Story of “The Man They Couldn’t Hang”

John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee’s life and almost-death are matters of speculation

The Little Rock Nine escorted by soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock Central High.

That Time the U.S. Government Won an Oscar

Today, the award is kept on permanent display in the National Archives

Woodblock print on paper by Utagawa Kuniyoshi.

Cool Finds

Japan Is Getting a Ninja Museum

Officials hope the iconic warriors can sneak more tourism into the country

Bee pollination drives billions of dollars a year in global agricultural production, but the busy insects are under threat.

New Research

New Map Highlights Bee Population Declines Across the U.S.

As wild bee populations continue to fall, new research identifies counties that will be hit the hardest

Walt Whitman photographed in 1854, two years after his serialized novella was first published anonymously.

A Graduate Student Just Discovered a Lost Work of Fiction by Walt Whitman

The serialized novella was first published anonymously in 1852

Tootsie Rolls contain small amounts of cocoa and also an ingredient you might not expect—orange extract.

Tootsie Rolls Were WWII Energy Bars

The candies were included in rations because they stayed fresh for a long time

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