All the Days You Can Visit National Parks for Free in 2017

National parks are great any time of year (yes, even in winter ), but if you don’t want to shell out for the park pass, take advantage of the National Park Service’s fee free days this year. Here are all of them. Read more…

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All the Days You Can Visit National Parks for Free in 2017

Some Guy Found a Huge Chunk of 2,000-Year-Old Butter in a Bog and It’s Still Edible

A 2, 000-year-old orb of butter weighing 22-pounds was recently discovered in Co Meath, Ireland. Ancient butter experts believe that it was once offering to the gods. It’s also “theoretically… still edible” according to Andy Halpin, one of the Irish National Museums’ assistant keepers. Not a chance, Andy! Read more…

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Some Guy Found a Huge Chunk of 2,000-Year-Old Butter in a Bog and It’s Still Edible

The Best Cheap (or Free) Museums in All 50 States

Hanging out at a museum is a great way to spend an afternoon. It can also be a frugal way to spend an afternoon, as many museum admission prices are cheap—or better yet, free. Cheapism offers a list of cheap or free museums in every U.S. state. Read more…

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The Best Cheap (or Free) Museums in All 50 States

Some museums have flesh-eating beetles on staff to clean off skeletons

An animal skeleton is made up of hundreds of tiny bones, many of which are too fragile to be handled by human hands. That’s why many osteology departments at museums have a special team exclusively devoted to the careful cleaning of these specimens: A colony of millions of flesh-eating beetles . Read more…

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Some museums have flesh-eating beetles on staff to clean off skeletons

The First Driverless Transit System in the U.S. Starts Rolling in 2017

Since 2011, Honolulu’s been busy building a $5.2 billion solution to help alleviate the mind-blowing traffic congestion that’s come to define life on Oahu’s South Shore. The Honolulu Rail Transit Project is a 20-mile, 21-station elevated train—and it will be the first completely driverless rail system in the U.S. Read more…

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The First Driverless Transit System in the U.S. Starts Rolling in 2017

This Ring Scans Text And Reads It Aloud For Visually Impaired People

No braille? No problem! This FingerReader by the Fluid Interfaces Group at the MIT Media Lab is a high-tech way to help visually impaired people read; it actually scans printed text and narrates it aloud. Read more…        

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This Ring Scans Text And Reads It Aloud For Visually Impaired People

You’ll Soon Be Able To Explore Museums After Dark Using These Robots

It’s already a pretty great time to be a couch-bound art lover , and this summer the gallery experience is getting even more futuristic—because anyone with a working Wi-Fi connection will be able to sign up to pilot light- and camera-clad robots around the Tate Britain late at night, offering a self-guided tour with a drone’s-eye-view. Read more…        

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You’ll Soon Be Able To Explore Museums After Dark Using These Robots

Lasers Unearth Lost ‘Agropolis’ of New England

sciencehabit writes “Hidden ruins are customary in the wild jungles of South America or on the white shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Now, researchers have uncovered a long-lost culture closer to Western civilization — in New England. Using aerial surveys created by LiDAR, a laser-guided mapping technique, the team detected the barely perceptible remnants of a former ‘agropolis’ around three rural New England towns (abstract). Near Ashford, Connecticut, a vast network of roads offset by stone walls came to light underneath a canopy of oak and spruce trees. More than half of the town has become reforested since 1870, according to historical documents, exemplifying the extent of the rural flight that marked the late 1800s. Some structures were less than 2 feet high and buried in inaccessible portions of the forest, making them essentially invisible to on-the-ground cartography.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Lasers Unearth Lost ‘Agropolis’ of New England

Light-up wizard hoodie transforms its wearer into a Technomancer

On April Fool’s Day 2012 , ThinkGeek featured the Technomancer Digital Wizard Hoodie among their fake products. Now they’ve introduced the real thing, a hooded jacket that lights up and makes spell sounds based on the movement of the wearer’s arms. Read more…        

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Light-up wizard hoodie transforms its wearer into a Technomancer