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Pumpkin spice has become completely divorced from pumpkin pie.

Even Colonial Americans Liked Pumpkin Spice

A recipe for pumpkin (or rather, “pompkin”) spice appears in America’s oldest cookbook

The late 19th and early 20th centuries were full of inventions such as this--the "Pinkert Navigating Tricycle," which was meant to be used on water.

People in the 1800s Dreamed of Bicycling on Water

Despite numerous patents, nothing really ever came of this fad

Close-up of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" (1893)

Trending Today

The Founder of Primal Scream Therapy Has Died. What Exactly Is Primal Scream Therapy?

Arthur Janov believed encountering trauma from childhood could help free people from adult neuroses

Anne Frank in 1940

Investigators Are Turning to Big Data to Find Who Betrayed Anne Frank

Many experts believe that someone alerted Nazi authorities to the hiding place of Frank and her family, but the culprit has never been determined

Orbis et Globus in place - for now

This Wandering Concrete Sphere Will Track the Movements of the Arctic Circle

On a small Icelandic island, a massive piece of art will track Earth's wobble in space

The sarcophagus at St. Nicholas church in Demre looted by crusaders, which archaeologists now believe did not contain the Saint's remains.

Cool Finds

Turkey Claims It's Found Saint Nicholas' Crypt

Archaeologists say the body was not stolen by crusaders in the 11th century and is still located below a church in Demre

A graphic showing the high image resolutions achieved with cryo-electron microscopy

Method for Capturing the Smallest Details of Life Nabs Chemistry Nobel

With cryo-electron microscopy, tiny living molecules can be seen in their natural states

Visitors next month will be able to tour the top tiers of Rome's Colosseum

Rome's Colosseum Is Reopening Its Upper Tiers to Visitors

For the first time in four decades, the public will be able to enter the top levels of Rome’s amphitheater

Tripartite Mahzor, Lake Constance Area, ca. 1322 (Oxford, Bodleian Library) - The Tripartite Mahzor is a magnificent illuminated manuscript divided into three volumes, housed today in Budapest, London and Oxford. It is adorned by paintings in colors and gold, produced in a non-Jewish workshop. Here the initial word: כל ("All") opening the Eve of Yom Kippur prayers is written within a colorful panel adorned with hybrid creatures typical to this workshop. This image is taken from the Ursula and Kurt Schubert Archive held in the Center for Jewish Art.

World's Largest Online Database of Jewish Art Preserves At-Risk Heritage Objects

Take a tour through the Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art, which contains more than 260,000 entries from 41 countries

The glowing end of a tapeworm took fourth place in the competition. 200x magnification

Art Meets Science

Revel in the Big Details of Tiny Things With These Prize-Winning Images

Skin cells, tape worms and fuzzy mold are among this years top photos

The brown rat is among the few hundred animal genomes that have been sequenced. Only 8.7 billion more to go...

How Scientists Decide Which Animal Genomes to Sequence

There are an estimated 8.7 million species on Earth–it's unlikely scientists will ever sequence them all

Cool Finds

Hemingway's Earliest Piece of Fiction Discovered

The phony travelogue describes a trip from his home in Illinois across the Atlantic to Ireland and Scotland

A triple solar flare recorded in April, 2017

New Research

Could a Magnetic Shield Protect Earth From Space Weather?

A bad geomagnetic storm would fry the electric grid and cripple civilization for years—a space shield is cheap by comparison

Illustration of the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope

Trending Today

Controversial Hawaiian Telescope Gets State Approval

The long-delayed Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea faces opposition from native Hawaiian groups and environmentalists

Trending Today

Three Scientists Behind the Detection of Gravitational Waves Awarded Nobel Prize in Physics

The trio is the leading force behind the massive pair of detectors that can measures ripples in the fabric of space-time smaller than the width of a proton

A statue of Frank Pantridge outside the Lisburn Civic Centre in Northern Ireland. His defibrillator sits beside him.

The Irish Cardiologist Whose Invention Saved LBJ

Frank Pantridge miniaturized the defibrillator, making it portable

The Lion of Al-lāt in 2010

Ancient Statue Damaged by ISIS Resurrected in Damascus

Palmyra's Lion of Al-lāt, as the statue is known, once adorned the temple of a pre-Islamic goddess

Portrait of a Civil War soldier group, circa 1861-65.

The Most 'Realistic' Civil War Novel Was Written Three Decades After It Ended

By an author who wasn't even alive when it occurred

Kurt Vonnegut in a 1990 portrait

You Can Now Read Five Newly Discovered Kurt Vonnegut Short Stories

Written early in the author's careers, the works were recently unearthed in his archives

New Research

In a First, Archival-Quality Performances Are Preserved in DNA

Songs by Miles Davis and Deep Purple at the Montreux Jazz Festival will live on in the ultra-compact, long-lasting format

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