Smart News Arts & Culture

These fragmented black lines are actually seagulls flying

Cool Finds

See the Swoops of Seagulls’ Flight Patterns

Special video effects shows more than an hours worth of seagull flight as curling paths

A visitor to MoMA views Jackson Pollock's painting "One (Number 31, 1950)"

Cool Finds

A Computer Can Tell Real Jackson Pollocks From Fakes

Genuine Pollacks really are distinguishable from random splatters of paint—there's now software to prove it

Cool Finds

The Inventor Who Has Developed a Sweet-Smelling "Fart Pill"

One eccentric French man wants to take the guilt out of gas with a tablet designed to make farts smell like flowers, ginger or chocolate

Cool Finds

Men Care More About Having Fancy Kitchens Than Women Do

A survey of prospective homebuyers reverses certain stereotypes about gendered desires

Black holes create and destroy galaxies, like this spiral galaxy in the constellation Dorado.

New Research

Technology from ‘Interstellar’ Could Be Useful to Scientists, Too

The movie’s visual effects are now being used for scientific research

Fighting in Aleppo in 2013

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Can Antiquities Looting in Syria Be Stopped?

The Islamic State is selling antiquities to fund their fight, now a secretive group is trying to protect those cultural treasures

Cool Finds

Hypnotize Yourself With a Record-Breaking Traditional Dance

This synchronized dance won a group of 5,211 Indian women a Guinness World Record

Physarum polycephalum in the wild, sans piano

Cool Finds

A Scientist And a Slime Mold Are Set To Play a Duet

The blob-like creatures’ movements inspired a composer to create a way for slime mold to play the piano

Cool Finds

Nothing Says 'I Love You' Like a Bit of Pocket Change

Victorians seduced their sweeties with "love tokens"

Cool Finds

These Bells Play Seismic Shifts

Watch as UC Berkeley’s bells play the earth’s “natural frequencies”

Trending Today

Here’s The Most Expensive Painting Ever Sold

A Gauguin painting broke the price record this week, selling for nearly $300 million

Cool Finds

Wisconsin is Too Warm for a 66-Foot Ice Tower to Survive

Weather conditions likely played a big factor in the crashing demise of a giant ice sculpture intended to last through the winter

New Research

The Taj Mahal Gardens Have a Special Relationship to the Solstice

On the day the sun climbs the highest in the sky, careful alignments within the gardens and buildings of the beautiful mausoleum appear

Harper Lee in 2007, accepting the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Trending Today

Harper Lee is Releasing A Sequel to “To Kill A Mockingbird” in July

The novel was written before her prize-winning book and tells the story of Scout as an adult, returned to her hometown from New York

Zsanett Szirmay draws on traditional Hungarian embroidery and cross-stitch patterns in "Soundweaving."

Cool Finds

This Music Is Made of Embroidery

Here’s what happens when you feed historical cross-stitch through a music box

An oil painting dated 1609 that is the portrait engraved by Martin Droeshout for the First Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays published in 1623.

New Research

New Research May Solve a Mystery Behind Shakespeare’s Sonnets

The first printing of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets was dedicated to a “Mr. WH”—has a scholar finally identified him?

Haenyeo from South Korea's Jeju island

Cool Finds

South Korea’s 'Women of the Sea’ Have Free Dived For Abalone Since the 17th Century

Diving supported life on the wind-scoured, rocky island of Jeju

Miguel de Cervantes is best known for creating Don Quixote, a whimsical knight.

Cool Finds

Did Archaeologists Just Find Miguel de Cervantes, 400 Years After His Death?

A centuries-old crypt could hold the answer to the mystery of Cervantes’ missing remains

William Gillette's lost Sherlock Holmes film was an unsolved mystery—until now.

Cool Finds

Mystery Solved: Footage From a Long-Lost Silent Sherlock Holmes Is Found

William Gillette is responsible for how we see Sherlock Holmes—but the loss of his single silent film was an unsolved mystery

Cool Finds

How One 138-Page Book Inspired the Creation of the Boy Scouts

How a little military textbook evolved into a movement that would captivate generations of young men

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