Smart News

Tanning Beds Cause $343 Million in Medical Bills a Year

A new study has calculated the steep cost of a not-so-healthy glow

These tiny filament-like fossils could be the oldest evidence of life on Earth.

New Research

Scientists Think They’ve Found the Oldest Fossil Ever

The controversial claim suggests that microbes lived on Earth half a billion years earlier than thought

Margaret Hamilton, Katherine Johnson, Sally Ride, Nancy Grace Roman, Mae Jemison

Cool Finds

LEGO Is Making a Women of NASA Set

The toy company selected Maia Weinstock's proposal to celebrate the space agency's female pioneers during its Lego Ideas competition

"I shall call him Squishy, and he shall be mine." No, wait, that's Finding Nemo.

Cool Finds

Take a Peek at the Mesmerizing "Cosmic Jellyfish"

NOAA's research vessel Okeanos Explorer filmed this specimen of Rhopalonematid trachymedusa in the National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa

Trending Today

New Foundation is Looking to Level Up Video Game Culture

The non-profit aims to preserve game code and the magazines, marketing materials and culture surrounding video games

It looks tiny now, but no matter what you've been told, it'll get bigger. A lot bigger.

Bad News, Pet Lovers: Teacup Pigs Are a Hoax

It’s a descriptor, not the term for a breed of pig, and it’s hurting animals

This picture of Uncle Fester holding a lightbulb in his mouth is right above the "gobble hole" at the base of a pinball table.

Why Is This 25-Year-Old Pinball Machine Still the Most Popular?

You can even play a video-game version of this table

Wilmer Souder poses with a microscope—one of the newfangled tools with which he helped pioneer the field of forensic science.

Cool Finds

Why Nobody Remembers the Forefather of Forensic Science

Wilmer Souder was a hidden pioneer of a still developing field

One surprising group is getting colon cancer at rates not seen since the 1890s.

New Research

New Study Shows Sharp Rise in Colorectal Cancers Among Young Adults

Its authors are not sure why the cancers have risen so much—only that they’re increasing every year

New Research

Study Shows 84% of Wildfires Caused by Humans

Over the last 21 years, debris burning, arson and campfires have combined with climate change to make the fire season much longer

You won't find "dord" in the dictionary these days, but back in the 1930s, Webster's had a definition for this non-word.

As “Dord” Shows, Being in the Dictionary Doesn’t Always Mean Something’s a Word

Even dictionaries can make mistakes, although Merriam-Webster maintains this is their only one

Five Things to Know About Little Golden Books

What to know as the iconic series of children's books celebrates 75 years

Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were often portrayed together. Here, Davis is drawn as a Confederate general.

The Illustrator of Alice in Wonderland Also Drew Abraham Lincoln. A Lot

John Tenniel was a well-known editorial cartoonist as well as the man who gave Lewis Carroll’s books their visual charm

The fall armyworm is native to the Americas, but has quickly invaded southern Africa and is wreaking havoc on crops there.

A Very, Very Hungry Caterpillar Is Wreaking Havoc on Africa’s Crops

Workers labor in the fields in the shadow of Mt. Williamson.

Cool Finds

View Daily Life in a Japanese-American Internment Camp Through the Lens of Ansel Adams

In 1943, one of America’s best-known photographers documented one of the best-known internment camps

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

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