Behold "Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer", a 1626 painting by Frans Hals. Last August it was stolen from a museum in the Netherlands — and this is… Read the rest of the article: $10 million painting is stolen for the third time since 1988

A lot of the big companies of the 80s video-game boom all had names beginning with A — like Atari, Activision, Accolade, and Acclaim. Why? Over at Debugger on Medium,… Read the rest of the article: Why so many early video-game companies had names starting with A

Helen Rosner writes a witty post about becoming intrigued by a new garlic-peeling technique that moves at rapid-fire pace, and her attempt to master it. I won't spoil the …… Read the rest of the article: An attempt to master a new garlic-peeling technique

Laura Preston was a painter who, in 2013, set off on what was supposed to be a one-year trip with her partner, in an Airstream. She discovered that painting on… Read the rest of the article: Artist makes gorgeous quilts while travelling in an Airstream

A racing pigeon recently showed up in the backyard of someone's house in Australia, looking super worn out. The owner of the home fed it, and discovered that it had… Read the rest of the article: Racing pigeon from Oregon shows up in Australia, and now faces a death sentence

Photographer William Arnold got intrigued by the botanical life while on walks during his lunch breaks in Truro, Cornwall. He began gathering plants and making images of them using the… Read the rest of the article: Gorgeous black-and-white images of plants

Here's a fun project by @EleanorClarinet — the "Movie Critic Matchmaker": It gives you a bunch of movies to rate, swiping right or left, and then tells you which movie… Read the rest of the article: "Movie Critic Matchmaker" figures out which critic aligns with your tastes

In the pandemic, all forms of smaller-than-car transportation have boomed—cycling is way up, as people try to get around without using ride-hail services or public transportation. What's more, sales of… Read the rest of the article: CityQ, a four-wheeled midpoint between bike and car

Bread-baking took off during the pandemic, a trend in which I participated. When COVID-19 first hit, I wondered if there might be short-term runs on various foods, so—feeling faintly like… Read the rest of the article: A $40 cast-iron pot for baking perfect bread

What happens when you send a robot probe to another planet — or asteroid or comet — and it breaks? Space agencies have been pondering this problem for years, and… Read the rest of the article: Behold IceBot, a robot made from ice

Scientists have recently been discovering extremely short giraffes that look, as Gizmodo notes, like adorable Corgi versions of a regular tall giraffe. They spotted one in Uganda, then another in… Read the rest of the article: Short-legged "Corgi" giraffes discovered

Discover has an excellent short history of the old and venerable use of "they", in English, to refer to a single person. The use of "they" as a singular pronoun… Read the rest of the article: Our centuries-old use of "they" as a singular pronoun

Another weird thing about 2020: The planet sped up. The planet's rotational speed often drifts around slightly, depending on changes in wind, ocean currents, or the sloshing around of the… Read the rest of the article: Earth's rotation sped up in 2020, we may need a "negative leap second"

Behold the "Snatchelator", an invention of the Brooklyn resident Taylor Mali. Two years ago, Mali and his wife saw that a plastic bag had been snared in the tree outside… Read the rest of the article: Brooklyn man creates "Snatchelator" to grab plastic bags from city trees

The Guanabara Boards Longboard School in Rio de Janeiro issued this amazing video — shot by storied skateboard filmmaker Brett Novak — of four women doing fab longboard-dancing maneouvers. As… Read the rest of the article: Awesome video of longboard dancing in Guanabara

The National Museum of American History is creating a "digital time capsule" of 2020, and is inviting folks to submit their recollections of this Annus horribilis. They have a form… Read the rest of the article: National Museum of American History wants your tales of 2020 for a time capsule

A bunch of scientists figured out that you can rock fruit flies to sleep, just like sweet little babies. This adorable finding is reported in a recent edition of Cell… Read the rest of the article: You can rock fruit flies to sleep with gentle vibrations

A couple of years ago, some scientists were experimenting ways to clean up oil spills in the ocean by using flame. They accidentally created something they'd never seen before —… Read the rest of the article: Cracking the secrets of the super-efficient "blue whirl" flame

Behold "Clip", a removable attachment that goes on the front wheel of your regular bike, turning it temporarily into an ebike. As Fast Company notes: The new design, called Clip, attaches… Read the rest of the article: Clip-on motor to turn a bike into an ebike

The essayist and novelist Nicholson Baker has written a long piece for New York magazine that argues that it's possible — and even likely — that COVID-19 emerged accidentally from… Read the rest of the article: Nicholson Baker writes on the "lab leak hypothesis" of COVID-19