Smart News

The endangered smoky mouse was feared to be extinct after the 2019-2020 fire season in Australia. But researchers have spotted survivors in seven locations, offering hope for the species' persistence.

Australian Mouse Feared Extinct After Fires Found Alive

Camera traps spotted the endangered smoky mouse in seven different locations

Statue of Theodore Roosevelt outside the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The statue will be removed, the city announced Sunday.

The Racist Statue of Theodore Roosevelt Will No Longer Loom Over the American Museum of Natural History

As plans emerge to remove the controversial figure, the 26th President's legacy remains sullied by his colonialist ideology

This 200-year-old Hindu temple in India was rediscovered by locals after being buried for some 80 years.

Cool Finds

Centuries-Old Hindu Temple Unearthed in India

The 200-year-old structure had been buried by sand for 80 years until local miners rediscovered it

Bones that archaeologists say belonged to a large male sperm whale, alongside a 17th century cannonball. These items were discovered by archaeologists in Edinburgh, Scotland during excavations ahead of a new tram line.

Cool Finds

A Construction Project Reveals Whale Bones Beneath a Road in Scotland

Thought to have come from a large male sperm whale, they may be remnants of the whaling industry that once operated out of Edinburgh’s port

The copy of the Last Supper held at the Royal Academy of Arts is attributed to Leonardo da Vinci's pupils Giampietrino and Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio.

See 'The Last Supper' in a New High-Resolution Scan Online

Based on a copy made by Leonardo da Vinci's pupils, the image will be useful to scholars and the public alike

This cheese is real, but by stimulating certain parts of a mouse's brain, researchers were able to trick the critter into smelling scents that were not present.

New Research

Experiment Tricks Mice Into Smelling Things That Aren’t There

Researchers stimulated certain of the mouse’s brain cells in a particular order to produce 'synthetic smells'

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

Page 305 of 980