Ellis Island gets makeover
About 40 percent of the people living in the U.S. today came through Ellis Island, according to the National Park Service. Today, anyone can go to the…
Category: Briefs
Easy way to artistic fame?
How do you get your painting in a famous museum? Years of toil in obscurity, perhaps? You could also just buy a few screws. No one looked twice when a…
Left-handedness might be at least partly genetic
Left-handedness might be in your genes, according to a new study in the journal Nature Communications. About 10 percent of the human population is…
Curiosity earns cat a trip to California
Since at least the late 1500s, authors from Shakespeare to Stephen King have mentioned what happens to curious cats — and it’s never good. But for one…
The rarest modern dime
Would you take a half a million dollars in exchange for a common dime? That’s the value of a proof copy of the 1975 “No S” Roosevelt dime. Only two of…
An ancient and magical word
Consider the neighborhood kid magician doing magical tricks for the little ones. It’s not entirely unlikely that an amazing trick will include the magic…
The big mystery of fingerprints
Fingerprints unlock smartphones. They help detectives identify suspects. But why do we even have them? Researchers are seeking to explain this fascinating…
Flaco captured the hearts of New Yorkers
When a thoughtless vandal damaged an exhibit at the Central Park Zoo in 2023, a Eurasian eagle-owl named Flaco escaped and found fame. Not on Broadway,…
The first computer artist was a computer
Believe it or not, artificial intelligence art has a history — and not just within the last two years. In fact, the history AI-generated art goes back to…
How to catch and release a fish
These steps help you return a fish to the water so it can be caught again. They are from The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Fishing Basics (Alpha). * Land your…