If you love puzzles and science, you've come to the right place. With our new daily puzzle, you have six attempts to guess the science word of the day and complete the word chain.

After every guess, letters that appear in the word will get a yellow chain link, and if they're in the right place the link will go green. Get them all right and you'll earn a space on our leaderboard.

Let us know how you scored by leaving a comment below (but no spoilers please), and be sure to check back every day for a new word. Good luck!

The world of science news never sleeps, but even we need to take a break every now and then. And what better way than to give our collective brains a good workout with sudoku?

The rules are simple: Each row, column and 3 x 3 box must contain the numbers 1 to 9, with no repeats. Sounds simple, right? Sometimes it is; other times, it's a little more challenging. (That's when tapping the hints button comes in handy.) Regardless, it's a great way to step back for a bit and crunch some numbers.

We have three new sudoku puzzles of varying difficulties every day — easy, medium and hard — so be sure to bookmark this page and try a new challenge. Enjoy!

Easy, 36-45 clues

Medium, 28-35 clues

Hard, 17-27 clues

More quizzes and games

Do you think you've got decent science knowledge? It's time to put your gray matter to the test with our weekly, free science crossword puzzle.

We've spent hours carefully writing our puzzles to make sure they are challenging but accessible to people of all ages and scientific backgrounds, with answers ranging from unusual animals and ancient rulers, to fundamental theories and Nobel Prize-winning scientists. Don't expect it to be easy, but it will be fun!

All you have to do to play is register once and then you should be logged in for next time, and if you need a hint tap the question mark next to the clue to reveal a letter.

Be sure to share this with your friends, and if you want more fun and games, you can also try out one of our amazing science quizzes on more than 50 different topics.

Note: Our crosswords are currently best experienced on desktop.

Previous science crosswords

Want to try your luck with our previous crossword puzzles? The most recent ones can be found below, but you can access the full list of science crosswords here.

—#53: Ancient supercontinent — 11 across

—#52: The moon's other name — 2 down

—#51: Largest rodent on Earth — 4 down

—#50: Longest-serving president in US history — 1 across

—#49: 'Short' tempered French emperor — 13 across

The weekend is here, and what better time to look back at the week in science news by testing your knowledge on what's happened on this planet and beyond.

There is no time limit on the quiz, and if you need a hint you can get one by tapping the lightbulb in the top right corner.

We hope you enjoy it, and be sure to share your results with your friends and followers on social media.

New research suggests there is more to Vincent van Gogh's famous painting Starry Night than meets the eye. Its turbulent, swirling sky shares many characteristics with invisible fluid dynamics processes that occur in our real-world atmosphere, an analysis of the brushstrokes and colors in the painting reveals.

Van Gogh painted Starry Night in June 1889, while he was living in an asylum in southern France as he recovered from a mental breakdown that resulted in the self-mutilation of his left ear around six months earlier. The oil-on-canvas masterpiece shows the view of a swirling sky from the window of the painter's room with an imaginary village added in the foreground, and is famous for its detailed brushstrokes and use of bright hues.

The painting recently caught the eye of researchers in China who recognized some similarities between its spiraling shapes and the patterns seen in fluid dynamics — the study of the movements of fluids and gases. This inspired them to study the painting in greater detail.

In the new study, published Tuesday (Sept. 17) in the journal Physics of Fluids, the researchers analyzed the minute details of the brushstrokes and colors used in the paintings and found that these components both shared strong similarities with the "hidden turbulence" of gases in the atmosphere.

"It reveals a deep and intuitive understanding of natural phenomena," study co-author Yongxiang Huang, a fluid dynamics expert and oceanographer at Xiamen University in China, said in a statement. "Van Gogh’s precise representation of turbulence might be from studying the movement of clouds and the atmosphere or an innate sense of how to capture the dynamism of the sky."

Related: Hidden Van Gogh self-portrait discovered under 'peasant woman' painting

The researchers closely analyzed the 14 "whirls" in the painting's sky. Overall, these shapes generally followed patterns predicted by Kolmogorov’s law — a physical rule that describes how atmospheric gas moves at different scales depending on inertial energy. In the painting, that inertial energy is represented by the intensity of the yellows in the painting, the researchers wrote.

When the researchers looked more closely at the whirls, they also found the spacing and weight of individual brushstrokes revealed an alignment with Batchelor's scaling, which describes how small eddies and droplets can be before they dissipate in a turbulent fluid.

However, Kolmogorov and Batchelor developed their laws decades after the artist died. So, the authors wrote, Van Gogh was definitely not using fluid dynamics knowledge, but likely drawing on general observations of the sky or other naturally occurring spirals as inspiration. Similarly, the connection between energy and the color yellow is almost certainly a coincidence, the authors noted.

But it's clear that Starry Night evokes processes that crop up in the natural world.

In 2020, researchers named a new species of peacock spider after the painting due to a similarity between van Gogh's colorful swirls and luminous dots on the arachnid’s rear end. And in 2021, microbiologists also noticed a striking similarity between the painting's iconic swirls and swarming colonies of mutated bacteria.

In May this year, new photos of Jupiter from NASA's Juno probe also showed intense storm swirls in the planet's northern hemisphere which looked very similar to van Gogh's newly analyzed brushstrokes. These swirling clouds were also linked to "turbulent patterns" in Jupiter's atmosphere, similar to those on Earth.

Imagine a secret organization that combines the exceptional talents and physical skills of its agents with incredible gadgets to protect the world from evil villains bent on using science to rule the world.

No, we’re not talking about the next instalment of James Bond, but the incredible female scientists in the "Curie Society" series of YA graphic novels.

Following the exploits of teen science prodigies Simone, Maya and Taj, the two books in the series are action-packed adventures where the main protagonists learn how to use their gifts to become the next secret agents in The Curie Society — a secret organization formed to support exceptional female scientists around the world (and save it at the same time).

Ahead of the second book's launch, we spoke to MIT professor Ritu Raman, one of the lead science advisors on the series, about how graphic novels can help promote STEM education, why diversity is so important and what it's like to be immortalized in comic book form.

Alexander McNamara: How did you get involved in the making of the Curie Society books?

Ritu Raman: I met Heather and Adam [Einhorn and Staffaroni, authors of the books] several years ago when I was postdoc at MIT, and we were talking about how there's a lack of content for preteen and teenage girls that shows science in both an exciting way, but also an accurate way. Something that motivates people, but then also shows them, within reason, what's going on in the world of STEM today.

When Heather and Adam did the first book, they talked to a bunch of different scientists and engineers from a variety of different perspectives. There was a huge collaborative effort to put the first story together, which I think was particularly important when they're fleshing out the three main characters and their origin story.

AM: What was your role in the series and how did you help in its creation?

RR: It changed between books. In the first, they talked to a lot of different scientists who do different kinds of work and had different paths to science. I think that was really important for them to take bits and pieces of people's authentic experiences and weave them into the characters.

Part of my story is moving around a lot growing up, and as a result I skipped a lot of grades bouncing between different schools. And so of the three characters, Simone's experience of being younger and not necessarily emotionally matched in maturity to the place that she is, while being matched scientifically, comes from me. 

Then in the context of Maya, who is supposed to be South Asian or Indian, the cultural exploration of science and other things, I think come a little bit from myself. The third character [Taj], is polar opposite from me, but honestly, reminds me of one of my close friends.

In the first book I shared my experience and provided feedback on a little bit of the science, but actually we talked more about depictions of bioethics and how scientists do or don't think about the consequences of their work. Who should be in the room when these decisions are being made? How do we portray a villain who starts off sort of as a good scientist and maybe things go wrong? I was providing feedback more at that level.

In the second book, they decided to pursue a strategy of having one main scientist to work with, and so I got to see the story and help craft it from very early visions. I did a lot more accuracy checking, but also if we needed a technology that would, say, paralyze somebody but not hurt them forever, I was brainstorming the different tools and technologies that could be highlighted.

We also decided to do a longer feature of the work that we do in our lab. Sometimes, when you want to make something super cool and exciting to read, you're depicting technologies five or 10 years from now, right? So we also wanted to give folks something that's happening in labs right now, and that people might be like, "Wow, I would have thought that that didn't exist yet." 

We wanted to show myself, as well as the women working with me in my lab and the kinds of things that they do. It was really cool to be able to highlight some real students at MIT in the context of the Curie Society.

AM: How does it feel to be immortalized in comic book form?

RR: I'm living in the dream, really. I've always wanted to write and contribute to the world of fiction, but when I write for work, I'm a scientist, I write a very specific plan of how to get a grant funded in the next five years that will do exactly this and this. There's creativity in there, but it's creativity within very strict constraints, and I think the opportunity to release those constraints a little bit and still scratch that creative part of my brain, while talking about the science…. It's very cool, I'm very happy about it.

AM: That creative process is pretty important, and obviously the book is crammed with science. As the advisor to the story, how far can you push the science from fact to fiction?

RR: That's an interesting question, particularly because there are probably different aspects of science that I treat differently in that way. I mean one of the things about being a PhD trained scientist and working in a lab is that I know about some very niche areas, but then I also have a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering. But it's not like I can really comment too deeply on some of the work on airfoil design for planes, which showed up in one of the books.

I sometimes feel like I'm hypercritical of the things that are closer to my work related to genetic engineering or making new tissues by 3D printing — that sort of stuff that I know a lot about. So the first thing I do is try to modulate. For things that are not directly in my area of expertise, I think I'm able to give a lot more freedom — if this passes the smell test or it doesn't defy or fundamentally break the laws of physics, it's good. Maybe it's not exactly perfectly right, but it's a story and that's OK. With stuff that is more related to the things that I do, I have to first try to censor myself a little bit more.

So I try to first turn off that part of my brain, but I think now that we've worked together for many years the team hopefully feels comfortable being like, "Hey, this is the reason we wanted to say it that way. If you feel this is fundamentally wrong, is there something else we could say that would still move the story from point A to point B?" 

I think particularly being involved in an earlier draft is great, because then before they've committed too much to something, I can figure out how to best lead science into that. I think just having a good relationship with the authors over many years has helped.

AM: It must have been fun actually being able to explore other areas of science that you're not an expert in. Did you learn a lot from researching the story as well?

RR: Yeah, I mean, I'm not incentivized in my job to think outside of the exact context of what my lab works on because I'm paid to be an expert. Zooming back out and being a generalist sparks your own enthusiasm for the things that you thought were cool when you were a kid. I really wanted to go into aerospace and make rockets, and I still think those things are exciting, but it's not what I'm doing right now. 

You can't do everything, but I think that some of the technologies, in particular related to energy and the climate crisis, are very exciting. Even though a lot of my work is focused on human health — which is great and very motivating — sometimes, as a human being living on the planet, you're also thinking more broadly about other grand challenges that are facing us. So catching up on what everyone else is doing is very heartening and exciting to see.

AM: How effective do you think graphic novels are in getting people into STEM.

RR: One of the things that I think is very important is make sure we're meeting people where they are. Some people respond really well to the written word, some people respond well to digital media, some people would prefer everything to be delivered to them in the form of a dance — and that's OK. Usually most people are a combination of those things and you need to hear stuff repeated three or four different times for it to really sink in.

I think graphic novels fit in a nice space. We have TV shows where people describe science for kids of different audiences, and there's a lot of YouTube videos that do that. Science fiction novels also do a job of exploring that space, but they often seem to target older audiences and really focus on dystopian visions of the future.

So when you're thinking about this audience, how do you introduce realistic science fiction in a visually compelling way, that has a narrative and also highlights several different kinds of people? You could certainly do it through superhero movies, but [graphic novels] are another way of doing it that I think could actually reach a ton of people, and can be something they revisit over time. Maybe it's in their bookshelf and they look at it but can't understand it the first time; then they go and they learn something in school and they can come back and go to that page.

I think it's one part of the arsenal, which doesn't have a ton of things in it right now, but there's a big opportunity for us to reach a lot of people who would not otherwise see these kinds of stories.

AM: The book itself has a very diverse cast of characters and is obviously focused on getting more women into STEM. From your perspective, is science doing enough to make this positive change, and what more could we be doing?

RR: I think as long as society is evolving we're always playing catch up in any discipline to make sure that we're capturing whatever the current distribution of the population is. I think in science, for example, we have made tremendous progress in recruiting more women into undergraduate programs — certainly at MIT we've had 50% women in our undergraduate programs for many years, which is lovely — but as you go farther along, certainly in graduate school, in the professoriate, in the leadership of STEM businesses, the representation, at least of women and certainly people that match different aspects of diversity, it's still very low. 

One of the things I really like about the way the Curie Society structures its characters is that even though the protagonists are younger, there are a lot of older female scientists that are portrayed as really senior people in the books. I think that's very important because they pretty openly acknowledge that the world they faced was fairly different to what these younger girls are facing, and that interplay has been really nice to see. I haven't really seen that in other media or other stories.

I do think that despite inroads in getting more people excited about science, when I interact with middle schoolers, and teenage girls in particular, there is still a lot of hesitation and a lack of self-belief about the role that they can play in science. I don't think it's something that we can pat ourselves on the back and say, "This is a solved problem, we don't need to worry about this anymore." We're combating thousands of years of all of us having certain beliefs about who's capable of what, so I think we still have some work to do there, at least to keep the pipeline going. 

But we also have to recognize that just getting a bunch of 12-year-olds excited about science is not enough. You need to actually preserve and promote and retain that enthusiasm throughout their lives, and that's a much longer scale problem.

AM: Do you think there are any particular challenges to getting younger people, particularly young girls, into science? Is there anything we can do?

RR: One threat that I see right now is that it's wonderful to highlight women and young girls that are excited about science, but if those are the only people in the story, you're sort of removing them from a natural context or the fact that we live in a very gender-diverse society. I would love to see more male characters interacting with these female scientists in respectful ways.

I think we need to be very careful of not just telling young women to pursue science, but also educating young men that, "Did you know that there are women who do science and are very good at it and we can all play together and do cool things?" 

More broadly, making sure our interventions are not just targeted at people who identify as girls is the missing gap in the field that we can keep pushing toward.

AM: So essentially what we need to do is see more people who are in the science environment in front of people talking about what we're doing?

RR: Yeah, and get more young boys to read these books too. I just think about the number of books I read as a kid that featured young boys and I still learned a lot from them. I would love for it to go the other way. Yes the story is about women and I hope young girls like it, but I hope a lot of boys read it too and think that it's an exciting story and something to emulate.

AM: Finally, if you were a character in the book, what would your specialized skill be? If you're already a member of the Curie Society and are keeping it secret, that's fine…

RR: One of the things I always wish I could do — particularly because we in my lab are always building little tissues and models of the human body and then trying to understand what happens inside the human body — is being able to go inside a person and see exactly what's going wrong. I think probably being able to see, at very high resolution, how cells are talking to each other and how we can manipulate that, that would probably be the secret skill — but you'll never know, I'll never tell.

Looking for a great educational LEGO set for your little ones, or a show-stopping display piece? This Insect Collection from the LEGO Ideas range is well worth a look.

While we're always on the lookout for the best LEGO for adults, there's certainly some crossover with educational LEGO sets to inspire the next generation of master builders.

This LEGO Ideas Insect Collection features three impressively detailed builds, and it's seen a 41% discount at Amazon. With $87.39 off of the MSRP, that's a hefty saving on a set that's so beautifully crafted.

The LEGO Ideas Insect Collection (set number 21342) features a trio of insect builds, each with their own color palette and poseable features. They also come with LEGO flora and fauna — including adorable funghi.

The morpho butterfly is impressively detailed, with adjustable wings and a beautiful wing pattern that looks just like the real thing. It comes with a small array of flowers, too. The Hercules beetle is instantly recognizable, with its large antlers and bright yellow back, while the Chinese Mantis can be put into a variety of positions and even comes with foliage that allows it to camouflage itself.

Each insect comes with its own detailed instruction manual, and looks just as good on the display shelf as in the classroom. As for the brick count, you can expect 1111 pieces spread between the three models and their base stands, so there's plenty to do with the set.

With the Ideas Insect Collection, you can easily create an adorable insect diorama, and while we'd argue it's a great purchase for any LEGO builder, this set is a particularly good fit for educational projects with your loved ones.

Live Science puts the science into sci-fi, bringing you the latest news, features and articles about art and entertainment for anyone with a thirst for knowledge. Whether it’s the hidden secrets in famous works of art or the best zombie movies, our expert writers and editors delve into popular culture to help you connect with the entertainment you love most. From streaming guides for classic film franchises like Jurassic Park to our pick of the best board game deals — whatever your interests, you'll find something fun to fill your free time with here.

Discover more about arts & entertainment

—Mythbusters streaming guide

—Best shark movies of all time, ranked

It’s no secret that Lego’s Ideas range is one of our favorites from the plastic block company. This innovative range invites Lego fans to design their own sets then submit them, via the Lego Ideas website, to be voted on. Once a set reaches 10,000 public votes, it’ll then be assessed by a panel of Lego judges. And, two or three times a year, a handful of sets that the judges have had eyes on are turned into real life, retail Lego sets.

The result is a range filled with some of the most unique, innovative sets. The Lego Ideas Motorized Lighthouse is just one of them, but it absolutely nails everything that the Lego Ideas range should be.

Boasting a fantastic design, some really nifty mechanisms that are rarely seen outside of Lego Technic sets and an engaging build process, the Lego Ideas Motorized Lighthouse isn’t just one of our favorite Lego Ideas builds but one of the best Lego sets of all time. That’s a grand statement to make, but there’s very little to be disappointed about in this true feat of Lego engineering.

Lego Ideas Motorized Lighthouse review: Build

• It takes some time before it begins to take shape
• A pleasant, enjoyable build from start to finish

Being over 2,000 pieces, the Lego Ideas Motorized Lighthouse is a rather time-consuming build. It’s the sort of thing you’re likely to complete over two or three evenings rather than doing in one sitting, likely taking around six hours, give or take, to complete in full. It’s a building process that is clearly split into two parts – and that’s highlighted thanks to the fact that the instructions are spread over two books. The first half sees you building the rocky base and the cottage, and the second half concerns itself with raising the lighthouse.

For the first few sets of bags, there’s very little clue as to what you’re building. Your progress resembles little more than randomly scattered bricks on a base board, but keep going and you’ll eventually start to see details form: a pier, a cave, a set of steps leading up to the top of the cliff. In fact, in those early stages, the Motorized Lighthouse’s fan designer, Sandro Quattrini (who goes by rosesmustbuild on Lego Ideas) purposefully included a mismatched hodge-podge of bricks. A note in the instruction book states it’s a little nod to all the Lego fans who’ve had to cobble together their own designs from whatever bricks they’ve had laying around. It’s a cute little inclusion which made us smile. 

Our only real grumble about the build process of the Motorized Lighthouse is that it’s sometimes hard to find where your pieces need to go. You’re often working across the entire space of your base board, and any newly-placed pieces aren’t highlighted within the instructions. As a result, we occasionally spent a little too long for comfort simply scanning each step, trying to spot the bricks that we haven’t already placed. Lego used to highlight the pieces you needed to place in each step, and it’s a shame that they’ve moved away from that - it made reading the instructions much easier.

But that’s only a small gripe, and it didn’t get in the way of our enjoyment of putting together the Lego Ideas Motorized Lighthouse. Even building the lighthouse tower itself, which we worried would be a little repetitive, ended up being engaging. It’s been designed in such a way that, despite looking very similar on all sides, each piece is built slightly differently and so boredom never sets in. There’s only a handful of small pieces that are replicated, which isn’t a problem.

As great as the lighthouse looks, thanks to its imposing stature, it’s probably the cottage that makes up our favorite part of the build. This tiny little lighthouse keeper’s home is packed with so many lovely details: a bed with a checked duvet; a stove (which lights up the whole cottage!); a writing desk. 

The homely additions of pictures on the wall really finish off this living space. It’s just a shame that, once the model’s finished, you need to remove the whole roof to properly admire it.

Lego Ideas Motorized Lighthouse review: Design

• Electronic components are wonderful
• Packed with lovely, tiny details

The nature of the Lego Ideas program means, essentially, the Motorized Lighthouse has been designed twice. Its original design, submitted by Quattrini to Lego Ideas, is then changed, refined and finalized by a team of Lego designers. In some cases, the changes are minor. But in the case of the Motorized Lighthouse, it really feels like it’s been taken back to the drawing board.

Sandro Quattrini’s original concept does bear some resemblance to the finished, retail model, but the changes it’s gone through are numerous. For one, Quattrini’s design wasn’t minifigure scale: the lighthouse keeper was instead a tiny microfigure. It provided perhaps a more epic sense of scale, but the inclusion of minifigures makes a set more appealing. As such, the design of the cottage has been changed to accommodate, too. It’s now more of a focal point, with more detailed brickwork and a full interior. Even the lighthouse and the cliff have been reworked.

The result is a set that’s far more visually appealing, and has allowed for Lego to include the small design details that make their sets so special. Without the changes, we wouldn’t have had a fully-furnished cottage, or a lighthouse with ladders going all the way inside. There wouldn’t have been a cave hiding a treasure chest, either.

Bringing the Lego Ideas Motorized Lighthouse to life has clearly taken a lot of expertise, and we are in awe of the job the design team has done. From the cottage’s intricate brickwork to the tapered shape of the lighthouse, there isn’t a brick out of place. There's even been a brand new brick created especially for this set (a very rare occurrence): a mini fresnel lens to give the lighthouse an air of authenticity. 

The careful consideration of each part of the design means that the lighthouse is a pleasure to build, and even with the addition of wiring for the motorized functions – the Lighthouse is hiding a battery pack, a medium motor and cabling leading to the LED lights – no part of the process is ever frustrating. 

To the contrary, in fact: we loved the clever ways that the wires are hidden, with their placement considered at every part of the build. The battery pack, too, has been cleverly disguised as part of the cliff, allowing for easy access if you need to change the batteries. Well, providing you can remember which part of the cliff it is: it blends in so well that it’s hard to tell! 

Should you buy Lego Ideas Motorized Lighthouse?

This is a no-brainer: yes, you absolutely should buy Lego Ideas Motorized Lighthouse. Well, providing you have the money and the space for it. But if you're happy to drop $300 on one Lego model, we're very confident in saying that you won't be disappointed with this one. The Motorized Lighthouse is one of our favorite Lego sets ever (and we've built a lot of them). In terms of the building process, the little details, the electronics and, of course, the finished model, everything is close to perfect. With the Motorized Lighthouse, the Lego Ideas range has hit a home run once more.

Other Lego sets to consider

The Motorized Lighthouse isn't the only worthwhile set from the Lego Ideas range. It may be one of the best, sure, but we also love Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night, a brick-built replica of the iconic painting. There's also the wonderful Tree House, complete with leaves made out of plant-based plastic, or The Globe, which might not be geographically accurate but still looks fantastic on your shelf.

Elsewhere in Lego's collection, we heartily recommend the Botanicals range, which includes the Bird of Paradise and the Orchid, which both somehow manage to look like the real things, despite being made out of bricks.

For more ideas about what Lego sets are available, why not check out our guide to the best Lego sets for adults?

One of the most talked-about releases of 2023 was "Oppenheimer", a biopic about the man who invented the nuclear bomb, directed by Christopher Nolan. Not only did it rake in nearly $1bn at the box office, it scooped up seven Oscars at the 96th Academy Awards, including gongs for best picture and best actor for Cillian Murphy's portrayal of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
 

Biopics that focus on famous scientists often must tread a fine line of explaining the science while humanizing the faces behind the discoveries. Here we reflect on 10 of the most significant, influential, and/or accurate science biopics over the past decades.

Read more about J. Robert Oppenheimer

• 8 wild stories about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the 'father of the atomic bomb'
• Who was J. Robert Oppenheimer? Biographer Kai Bird delves into the physicist's fascinating life and legacy
• 'The night turned into day': How Manhattan Project scientists reacted to the world's first atomic bomb test

1. Hidden Figures

• Age rating: PG

Released in 2016, Hidden Figures follows three Black women working as mathematicians at NASA during the space race. The women highlighted include Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan. Each with their own specialties, we see them fight and work through the systemic racism present in the industry to have real impacts on human spaceflight. 

One of the most well-known biopics in recent years, Hidden Figures (loosely based on a book by the same name) rightly served the almost meta purpose of highlighting Black women who truly had been lost to history. The setting and stories at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA are mostly recognized to be true, with some changes made to serve the story. 

This film is a fantastic watch for all ages, and even young kids can be drawn into the pacing and relatable characters. Highly recommended for all viewers.

2. Einstein and Eddington

• Age rating: 12

Originally released as a BBC Two drama, Einstein and Eddington has been widely overlooked despite its stellar cast and storytelling. Starring David Tennant as Sir Arthur Eddington and Andy Serkis as Albert Einstein, this film tells the story of the introduction of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity to the world, and Eddington’s relationship therein. Eddington was instrumental in assisting with the first indirect test of General Relativity during a solar eclipse in 1919. This was a particularly turbulent time in physics as Einstein’s theories and Eddington’s observations were contrasting long-accepted Newtonian physics laws. 

A key story in the film centers on Eddington’s romantic feelings for his best friend at Cambridge, which has never been confirmed by historical records. Regardless, this film is a fantastic retelling of a snapshot in physics history against the backdrop of the First World War. While it might be a bit slow for younger audiences, the stellar acting and fascinating story make this a must-see for fans of science and history. 

3. October Sky

• Age rating: PG

Along the theme of rocket research, October Sky tells the story of four young men from West Virginia who are inspired to take up rocketry after the launch of Sputnik 1. Based on the memoir “Rocket Boys”, this film is a classic coming-of-age story that inspires across recommendations. It beautifully and honestly depicts life in the late 1950s coal mining regions of the Appalachians. 

The film is based on the true story of Homer H Hickam Jr, the son of a coal miner who fought against expectations to become an engineer at NASA, generally faithful to the book and life depicted therein, despite the omission of Wernher von Braun’s Nazi associations. 

Though this film was released in 1999, it remains an inspirational classic for families and folks of all ages.

4. Agora

• Age rating: 12A

Reaching far back in the annals of history, Agora is an English-language Spanish film that tells the story of Hypatia, a woman in late 4th century Roman Egypt who challenges the heliocentric model of our solar system. Starring Rachel Weisz, the film is not without its criticism for anachronistic portrayals and misleading attributions of inventions and theories to Hypatia due to the lack of historical evidence. However, this intensely cerebral drama holds themes that are still relatable today, specifically to women in STEM fields. 

With some violence and intense themes, Agora is not recommended for everyone, but its unique subject and portrayal of science in ancient times makes this a worthy viewing.

5. The Imitation Game

• Age rating: 12A

The Imitation Game recounts the famous story of the Enigma Machine developed during World War II to decrypt Nazi communications. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, the film follows the life of Alan Turing, noted for his work at Bletchley Park and contributions to the machines built. In addition to mathematics and cryptography, the film pays tribute to Alan Turing himself and the challenges he faced in the first half of the 20th century. 

Notably, Alan Turing was prosecuted for homosexuality and underwent chemical castration before dying of suicide in 1954. While a significant amount of liberties are taken with respect to Turing’s personal life and personality, the film nonetheless contributed to the passing of the Policing and Crime Act 2017 (the “Alan Turing law”) which serves as an amnesty law for men who were cautioned or convicted under historical legislation that outlawed homosexual acts in England and Wales. 

This award-winning film is generally acceptable for all ages though the themes may be intense for younger viewers. 

6. Temple Grandin

• Age rating: PG

Starring Claire Daines, Temple Grandin is a 2010 film which examines the life and work of Temple Grandin, a woman with autism who revolutionized treatment of livestock. Based on her own memoirs, this film beautifully examines the stigma of autism and women in scientific fields. Critically well received and winner of multiple awards, Grandin herself praised Danes’ performance as if “going back in a weird time machine”. 

Grandin is currently a professor of Animal Sciences at Colorado State University and a prominent advocate for autism rights and neurodiversity movements. 

Rated PG, this film would be an excellent watch for older children interested in studying and working with animals though caution must be given as the subject matter includes cruel treatment of animals.  

7. Tesla

• Age rating: 12

Chronicling the life of famous inventor Nikola Tesla, Tesla examines the ups and downs of inventions and business. Ethan Hawke brings a fantastic performance in an otherwise straightforward biographical film. Hitting the highlights of Tesla’s life and career, the film misses out on nuance and drama, but is a decent watch for those interested.  

It’s generally appropriate for all ages and may be an interesting watch for young inventors, though realizing there is a significant portion focusing on relationships. The film takes some interesting directorial choices but overall is a faithful adaptation of his life, winning the Alfred P. Sloan award at Sundance Film Festival in 2020.

8. Gorillas in the Mist

• Age rating: 15

Reaching back a few decades, this film is ripe for a rediscovery despite its success at the time. Gorillas in the Mist tells the story of primatologist and conservationist Dian Fossey, following her career change and move to Africa to study rare mountain gorillas. Fossey’s work explored the communication and social behavior of these gorillas, capturing the attention of National Geographic. However, the attention also highlights the poaching crisis of gorillas, turning Fossey into an anti-poaching activist. 

A good amount of the racial imagery in the film is not appropriate and if made in this day and age, one imagines a different approach would be taken. Despite some critics examining the rather neutral treatment of Fossey and her personality, the film is notable for its dozens of award nominations, particularly highlighting Sigourney Weavers’ performance and how it integrated the gorillas both live and artificial. 

The film is fairly violent and distressing, but highlights an important moment in history for the study of mountain gorillas and anti-poaching movements. 

9. Ammonite

• Age rating: 15

The romantic drama Ammonite examines the personal life and struggles of Mary Anning, a fossil collector and paleontologist in the mid-1800s. Starring Kate Winslet as Mary Anning, and Saoirse Ronan as her friend and eventual lover Charlotte Murchison, the film predominantly explores their romantic relationship in the backdrop of seaside fossil collecting in Dorset. 

From a scientific point of view, the film is illuminating to how fossils were discovered, examined, sold, and donated, often ignoring the work (particularly of women) who unearthed them. While there is no historical evidence of Anning’s sexuality, it can’t be discarded as queer history has often been told through a heterosexual lens. Regardless, Mary Anning was a pivotal paleontologist who made dozens of discoveries in Jurassic marine fossil beds along the English Channel. She was frequently, and almost completely, overlooked due to her being a woman at this time. Her story is a fascinating one, and any stories highlighting her contribution to paleontology must be lauded. 

This film is a beautiful, slow drama with the brutal English coast and life in the Victorian era playing a key role. There is a significant amount of nudity and sex so it is not recommended for younger viewers.

10. The Man Who Knew Infinity

• Age rating: 12A

Starring Dev Patel, The Man Who Knew Infinity explores the life of mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan and his life moving from poverty in Madras, India to Cambridge University during World War I. Under the tutelage of Professor G. H. Hardy, played by Jeremy Irons, Ramanujan became a notable theoretical mathematician. His friendship and relationship with Professor Hardy is the key drama in the film, and the struggles of maintaining a life in a new country while sustaining relationships back home. 

With real-life mathematicians collaborating with the film, it’s praised for its accurate portrayal of mathematics and professional mathematicians, often drawing comparisons to Good Will Hunting. It is generally appropriate for all audiences and is a beautiful portrayal of the lives of famous mathematicians.  

Hollywood has come up with some great excuses to raise the dead, from mutant viruses to voodoo magic. Mercifully, the flesh-eating living dead are firmly a fictional concern, but there are some fascinating real-world inspirations behind some of the best zombie movies, so we thought we'd run down some of our favorites.

While the zombie craze across audiovisual media (and literature) may have died down a bit, the sub-genre isn’t going anywhere. It’s been around for decades now, and with good reason; it’s an effective manifestation of humanity’s deepest fears tangible enough to consistently produce entertaining works of fiction. Since it all started with accessible horror movies that have evolved alongside audiences, we thought it’d be a good idea to cook up a list of the best zombie movies of all time that you can watch right now.

The best thing about zombie fiction is that artists have approached it from wildly different angles over the years, as it can easily be mixed with a variety of other premises. Reanimated corpses are an easy concept to sell, and such phenomena can be explained in a many ways, ranging from voodoo magic to frozen viruses.

If we look to stories such as The Last of Us – originally a video game and now enjoying widespread success as a prestige TV series – even mind-controlling fungi come into the picture. Anything goes to make a well-trodden genre fresh once again. And sometimes, all that writers need to hit gold is to focus on the drama amidst all the undead chaos. AMC’s The Walking Dead, based on the hit comic books by Robert Kirkman, has run for 11 seasons and spawned several spinoffs – people clearly love the post-apocalyptic human conflict at the center of it all.

This article, however, is strictly limited to zombie movies. That being said, it’s an entire realm of gory flicks well worth exploring. If you’re in the mood for more flesh-eating horror or simply catastrophic flicks, check our rundown of the Jaws movies ranked, worst to best, or the best disaster movies you can stream, buy, or rent.

1. Dawn of the Dead (2004)

• Release date: March 19, 2004
• Cast: Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, Mekhi Phifer
• Zombie origins: Virus (probably)

Veteran moviegoers traditionally argue that George A. Romero’s original movie is the peak of the zombie genre, especially because of its value as an allegory for mindless consumerism and greed. We strongly agree with much of that sentiment, but Zack Snyder’s 2004 remake – expertly written by now-renowned Marvel and DC filmmaker James Gunn – seemed to capture most of those messages while also adding genuine scares, tense action, and more messed up scenes to the mix. It simply feels like a more complete package and, for our money, it's one of the best-ever movie remakes.

As for the origin of the undead hordes that surround the shopping mall where most of the action takes place, it’s kept a mystery, although the plague seems to function in a straightforward manner, with victims becoming infected after being bitten by previous ghouls which suggests a biological infection like a virus.

Perhaps the scariest thing about Dawn of the Dead is how the entire world goes to hell in less than 24 hours – the opening to Snyder’s remake is unforgettable because it has genuine fun showing us an overnight collapse of modern society.

2. REC (2007)

• Release date: November 23, 2007
• Cast: Manuela Velasco, Ferrán Terraza, Jorge-Yamam Serrano, Pablo Rosso
• Zombie origins: Supernatural virus/demonic possession combo

Horror fanatics might be familiar with Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s REC, a modern Spanish classic that spawned three sequels and a mostly forgettable American remake titled Quarantine (2008). We strongly believed it deserved a spot in this list due to its unique approach to low-budget filmmaking and the relentless pacing it sustains for nearly 80 minutes.

REC may be the most entertaining movie in the list from the science-ish angle as it dabbles in both viral concepts and full-blown supernatural nonsense as the story progresses. What if demonic possessions could be linked to biological outbreaks like viruses? Things get truly unhinged in the second instalment, which threw off many fans of the original movie, but ultimately gave the series a unique narrative identity to go with its ever-evolving visual presentation.

3. Shaun of the Dead (2004)

• Release date: April 9, 2004
• Cast: Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield, Lucy Davis, Nick Frost
• Zombie origins: Virus

Who said zombie flicks can’t be funny first and gross second? Edgar Wright’s hit British comedy went big with its premise while keeping the focus on its off-beat yet relatable characters. 

Often studied as a clear example of post-9/11 anxiety, Shaun of the Dead opened many doors in the realm of comedy for the undead. Later came the Hollywood-made Zombieland (among many other flicks) and several video games, such as the Dead Rising series, which embraced goofy fun in the middle of the zombie apocalypse.

Although Shaun of the Dead seems to work with the traditional zombie mechanics of getting bit and turning into a mindless flesh-eating monster, there’s quite a bit of witty social commentary on the treatment of epidemics like the flu and the public perception of such diseases. At several points in the movie, secondary characters shrug off their illness as a minor nuisance or a passing cold, and the healthy ones don’t freak out about the whole situation right away. 

For a kooky comedy, that feels all too familiar, doesn’t it?

4. 28 Days Later (2002)

• Release date: November 1, 2002
• Cast: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston, Brendan Gleeson
• Zombie origins: Rabies-like virus

Before Shaun of the Dead, the United Kingdom produced another unexpected modern classic with Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later. Written by now-veteran writer-director Alex Garland, this movie might be the darkest one of our list, and that’s saying something. It was responsible for fast zombies taking over the genre as the 2000s progressed, and its most shocking scenes don’t even feature the infected.

28 Days Later launched audiences straight into a deserted UK that broke down after a rabies-like virus – aptly called “Rage” – was unleashed by eco-terrorism gone wrong. It seemingly originated in chimpanzees, but we never learn whether it was man-made or born from nature.

Boyle’s visual approach to every bit of gory violence and unexpected moment of human cruelty in this movie truly elevates it, and it might just be one of the most influential works of the 2000s even if we step outside of the zombie sub-genre to study its reach.

5. Night of the Living Dead (1968)

• Release date: October 1, 1968
• Cast: Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Marilyn Eastman, Keith Wayne
• Zombie origins: Space radiation

No, we hadn’t forgotten about George A. Romero in this list. After all, he’s widely and unquestionably considered the prolific father of the zombie sub-genre. There are many movies to choose from in his lengthy filmography, but we keep going back to his very first-ever, Night of the Living Dead, as the go-to zombie feature that changed horror cinema forever. It was made on a budget of approximately $100,000 and went on to gross more than 250 times that amount of money. The movie’s explicit violence and gore was considered unprecedented for the time, but those elements quickly cemented its cult status.

While Night of the Living Dead never gives a definitive answer to the disease making the dead rise, scientists theorize the reanimations are occurring due to strange radiation from a space probe that exploded in the atmosphere on its trip back from Venus, which adds a nice layer of science fiction to the already otherworldly scenario.

We're probably stating the obvious here, but there is no evidence of radiation, from space or anywhere else, causing any of the symptoms synonymous with zombie outbreaks, unless you count the being dead. Radiation can definitely kill you, it just won't bring you back as a flesh-eating zombie afterwards.

Video games may have become the de facto way to play with friends, but they lose the intimacy of sitting around a table plotting with (or against) friends to be crowned the winner - and the best board games offer that in spades.

Whether you're solving a murder, building a civilization from scratch, or looking for something with incredibly detailed game pieces that feel like artwork, there's a board game for you. We've dug up a mixture of board games with a science-theme, alongside some old classics.

Summer is in full swing, too, so if you're looking for a great board game to play in the evenings on the patio, or something to keep the kids occupied when school is out, we've got something for you.

We've scoured the web for the best board game deals, and whether you're new to the medium or a veteran, here are some of our favorites.

If you're looking for something that blends entertainment and education for you or your kids, then you can also check out our guides to the best chemistry sets and best microscopes for kids.

• Amazing board game deals at Amazon
• Latest board game deals at Best Buy
• Check out Walmart's impressive board game section

Looking for something to build with the kids, or something for you to sink your teeth into solo? This Lego Ideas Tree House deal might be just the thing.

There's something magical about Lego that means it's likely to be around for plenty more decades than it already has been, with the feeling of snapping bricks together and building the best Lego sets an experience that remains unmatched - despite plenty of imitators.

Still, Lego can be expensive so it can pay to shop around for a deal, like this latest offer on the picturesque tree house that's complex to build and offers impressive detail, too. The Lego Ideas Tree House is a gorgeous set, and it's been reduced from its $249.99 MSRP down to $194.99 (a 22% drop) at Amazon. 

The Lego Ideas Tree House (set number 21318) features over three thousand pieces, and tasks builders with constructing a tree, three cabins, and adjoining stairs.

Not only are there multiple colors of leaves to adorn the exterior, but the bricks themselves are made from plant-based plastic, and there's a landscape base to keep it sturdy. There are four mini figures included, as well as a bird figure.

The set was originally released back in 2019, but as we noted in our recently updated Lego Ideas Tree House review, it's lost none of its folkish charm.

Awarding the set 4.5 stars out 5, we said: "If you enjoy original, innovative Lego designs, then absolutely, you should buy the Lego Ideas Tree House. Particularly so considering this has been around for three years, and will most likely be heading to the ‘retiring soon’ chopping block. There’s no other Lego set quite like this one; it’s fun, it looks wonderful, and it’s one of the first sets to use sustainable elements. A piece of Lego history, then – and who wouldn’t want to own that?"

Picking out the best Lego sets for adults is no easy feat, simply because there are so many of them. In recent years, Lego has shifted from being a children's toy brand to a company that caters for the whole family. More and more 'adult' sets are added to Lego's range every year — and now there are hundreds of sets to choose from.

Whether you're looking for the best STEM toys or the best science toys, Lego has something to suit. The great thing about this Danish toy brand is that all of its sets are suitable for all ages, but we're focusing here on sets most suitable for adults. They're either marketed as 18+, they're a specifically challenging build, or they make a great display piece.

The sets we're including range in price from below $50 all the way up to $300. Hopefully you'll find something you like that suits your budget. And with Prime Day coming up in the next few weeks, there's a very good chance there'll be discounts on some of the best Lego sets for adults, so watch this space.

The quick list

Best science, nature and engineering-themed Lego sets for adults to buy in 2025

Best science-themed Lego set

Lego Ideas The Evolution of STEM does just what the title suggests: it shows the evolution of science, technology, engineering and mathematics over the years. An apple tree represents Isaac Newton's law of universal gravitation, a cityscape represents how far we've come in recent years, and other models, like an early automobile and a robotic arm, show just some of the major technological advances made over the decades.

The set features three minifigures: George Washington Carver, Isaac Newton and Marie Curie. They're a great selection, although we can't help but wish more were included. Still, it's a minor complaint, as the set as a whole looks absolutely fantastic. Everything is built upon a base of an open book, so it looks like the entire set is literally jumping out of the pages.

The centerpoint of the set is a double helix, which can be rotated by using a wheel hidden at the back of the set. It's a little flimsy, so you'll need to be careful when moving or handling the set, but it's a wonderful touch. A NASA shuttle, the Voyager Probe and a (not to scale) bee are affixed to the helix with transparent sticks to make them look like they're flying. It's a nice touch.

Given the price, we think this is one of the best Lego sets for adults you can buy. It's a very fun, varied build, and the finished model looks absolutely stunning. A win-win.

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Best Lego animal-themed set

We really can't express enough just how much we love the Lego Icons Kingfisher. This set costs $49.99, but considering it's made up of 834 pieces and the finished model spans 8 x 12 inches, that's a real bargain — perhaps one of the best-value Lego sets we've had the pleasure to build, honestly.

But it's not just the value for money that makes the Lego Icons Kingfisher so wonderful: It's its design. This is very much a display-only set with no interactive features, but it looks truly stunning thanks to its clever use of building techniques, colors and brick types. The solid base might be a little fiddly to put together, but once it's built it looks absolutely stunning — and the thickness of it adds a level of sophistication to the set. It looks like a much more expensive model than it actually is.

Aside from the base, which is a little time-consuming thanks to all the small pieces, putting together the Kingfisher is a joy. We love the clever methods used to give the wings their 'feathered' effects, and the Kingfisher's head is strangely realistic to say it's made out of plastic bricks. The finishing touch of a fish between its beak really is fantastic too.

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Best Lego space set

There's a lot to like about Lego Technic Earth and Moon in Orbit, particularly if you're a space fan. Truth be told, we think you'd struggle to find any model that depicts the orbit cycles of the Earth and Moon quite as well as this one does, and with this one, you get the pleasure of building it first.

Like all Technic models, Earth and Moon in Orbit is rather taxing to put together, and we'd recommend at least having some experience of Technic before you jump in. These tend to be much more fiddly and time-consuming than standard Lego models thanks to all the moving parts. It means, though, that when it's complete, the feeling of finishing it is all the more satisfying... providing everything moves as it should, of course.

With a turn of the crank on the side of the set, the Earth will orbit the sun, and the Moon will orbit the Earth. At the same time, the sun will rotate — and a marker moves through the months of the year to denote how much time is passing with each orbit. It's seriously clever, and a great way to teach kids about our solar system.

The only real downside is that it's not the most attractive set. If you're looking for something to put on display, this isn't it: It's 100% a functional, educational set. If you want something pretty to sit on a shelf, you're best off looking elsewhere.

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Best paleontology Lego set

Who doesn't love dinosaurs? The Lego Dinosaur Fossils: T. rex Skull might not be the most impressive dino skeleton available from Lego (that accolade goes to the meter-long Dinosaur Fossils: Tyrannosaurus Rex set), but it's still rather striking. And at a fraction of the asking price of the other T. Rex (this one's just $39.99 compared to a whopping $249.99), there's a lot to like.

The dinosaur's bone structure might not be entirely accurate, but it's still easily recognizable, and we think it looks fantastic on display. The footprint and plaque are a nice touch too, although it's a shame that the plaque is just a sticker rather than a printed piece like you'd find in more expensive Lego sets.

There are some really nice parts of the build, too. The footprint uses some clever building techniques, and the skull feels surprisingly sturdy given its structure. We particularly love the teeth, which look every bit as ferocious as they should.

We just wish there was a little more detail, but given the price point of the set, we can't be too picky. It's a great set for budding paleontologists of any age.

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Best potted Lego flowers

We love Lego Botanicals, but the Orchid might just be our favorite. At a glance, you’d be forgiven for thinking this brick-built plant is the real thing: It’s mightily deceptive and makes a beautiful addition to any room’s décor.

We particularly love the smaller details, like the tiny molded flowers on the stems and the fact that it includes a plant pot complete with roots and bark mix.

It's a fun build too, and there's nothing overly complicated here. As we said in our Lego Icons Orchid review, we think this set makes a great entry point if you've never built a Lego set before — maybe you simply want to see what all the fuss is about. Experienced builders will be able to complete this build in around an hour, and when you're done you have a set that you can enjoy on display for years. That's right: Lego flowers never wilt!

It's very well priced, too. At just $50 you won't need to break the bank to pick this one up, and we think it's worth every penny. The only real downside is that there are some repetitive parts to the build, since you'll be putting together multiple flowers all with the same shape and design. But that's the nature of a set like this, and it's certainly not a deal-breaker.

• Read our full Lego Icons Orchid review for more details.

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Best Lego plant

The Lego Icons Bonsai Tree has been around for several years now. In fact, it was the first ever Lego Botanical Collection set ever released. It still remains a strong entry to the range today, and provided a great starting point for Lego to go on to create more and more flower and plant-based Lego sets.

Perhaps the biggest selling point of the Lego Icons Bonsai Tree is that it comes with two sets of leaves: you can opt for green foliage or pink cherry blossoms, the latter of which is particularly beautiful. It comes in a black pot that’s stood upon a brown plinth, making it look just like the real thing - and making for a gorgeous display piece wherever you decide to place it.

The only real downside is that it's a little flimsy to build. If you struggle to handle tiny Lego pieces, you might find this one a bit frustrating to put together, particularly with its leaves. Speaking of, as much as we love the pink cherry blossom option, look closely and you'll see that the pieces are actually tiny pink frogs! If realism is more your thing, you might want to opt for the green foliage option.

For the botanists among us, the Bonsai Tree really is one of the best Lego sets for adults. It can be a little flimsy to build due to its very small pieces, but that’s easily forgiven once you’ve finished, especially given the low price point of the set.

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Best Lego set for art lovers

We’re big fans of Lego that we can hang on our wall. If you have a lot of Lego sets, shelf and desk space can become quite sparse, so a set that you can mount on any wall is a wonderful idea. Lego Ideas Vincent Van Gogh - Starry Night can indeed be hung up; it’s built into a frame, designed to be so. But thanks to its innovative 3D layered building technique, it’s rather bulky and heavy, so make sure you are mounting it correctly and hanging it onto a very strong wall.

Thanks to the thickness of the set, though, you have the choice whether you want to wall mount or simply stand it on a shelf. It looks fabulous either way, in all honesty. Having a choice of how and where to display is a real boon.

This is a wonderful-looking set that manages to be a faithful recreation of Vincent van Gogh's famous painting. Bricks have been layered and used in a very clever way, ad you'll make use of some unique building techniques to achieve the finished design.

It's a large set that will take several hours, so make sure you set plenty of time aside. If you're brand new to Lego, this probably isn't the best set to start with, as it's a little more complex than most: We'd recommend a slightly smaller build first to get used to Lego techniques before diving into this.

The only real downside is that, as we mentioned in our Lego Ideas Vincent van Gogh - The Starry Night review, it makes use of several similar colors. They can be hard to differentiate from each other, and the printed instructions are never the most color-accurate, which makes things a bit tricky.

• Read our full Lego Ideas Vincent van Gogh - The Starry Night review for more information.

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Best mechanized Lego set

Without a doubt, one of the best Lego sets for adults that you can buy right now is the Motorized Lighthouse. It's a thing of beauty, and an absolutely stunning display piece — not to mention a joy to build.

There's a lot going on, thanks to the motorized functions (which are just fabulous) and so you'll be building around a lot of wires. It makes for a more technical build, and if you enjoy a challenge you'll absolutely relish it. This is essentially a tiny working lighthouse when you're done with it, and seeing all the moving parts come together is seriously satisfying.

As we mentioned in our Lego Ideas Motorized Lighthouse review, a brand new brick was designed especially for this set: a miniature fresnel lens, which gives the lighthouse an air of authenticity. It's a very neat touch. But even away from the realistic working parts, there's a lot to admire, too. The lighthouse keeper's cottage is filled with wonderful details, like art hung on the wall and a bed with a checkered comforter. Those little touches really help Lego sets come to life.

We don't have anything bad to say about the Lego Ideas Motorized Lighthouse, other than the fact it's a little on the pricey side: At $300, it's not the sort of set you can buy on a whim. Considering it something of an investment. Providing you've got the space, though, you won't be disappointed with this set — it'll look fantastic no matter where you place it in your home.

• Read our full Lego Ideas Motorized Lighthouse review for more information.

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Best real-world architecture Lego set

The Lego Architecture range features some of the best sets for adults, and one of our favorites is the Statue of Liberty. This mini-model of the iconic New York monument is every bit as eye-catching as the real Lady Liberty, but takes up much less space. At 17 inches (44 cm) tall she’s not exactly small, but the small footprint makes it the perfect size to display on a shelf or your desk.

It’s a fairly time-consuming build, with lots of small pieces and some fiddly sections. You'll be using the same color again and again, which can be a little repetitive, but stick with it and the finished build is well worth the hard work.

In our Lego Architecture Statue of Liberty review, we said that we wouldn't be surprised if guests had to do a double-take at this Lego set: You'd be forgiven for thinking it was simply a decorative model rather than a Lego set. If you're a little self-conscious about having Lego on display in your lounge, then, this is a great choice.

The Statue of Liberty is missing a face — there's just a flat plate rather than any detail. It's about the only niggle we have with the finished model, but we understand why: The only other real option would be to have a sticker, and that would have been hard to get right. The rest of the details, from the torch to the crown, more than make up for it.

• Read our full Lego Architecture Statue of Liberty review for more information.

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Best Lego set for adults under $30

If you're a botany enthusiast, you'll absolutely love the Lego Botanicals Chrysanthemum. This budget-friendly set costs less than $30, and can often be picked up on sale, too. It might not be the most realistic Lego Botanicals set we've ever seen, but it hardly matters considering how vivid and well-constructed it is.

No matter where in your home you place the Lego Botanicals Chrysanthemum, its bright orange flowers will instantly catch your eye, brightening up any space. If you have a small house or rooms that don't have much natural light, this is a great way of bringing a bit of nature into them. And you don't even have to water it — bonus.

Building Chrysanthemum is a pleasant experience that'll take most people around an hour to 90 minutes to complete. There are no real fiddly sections, and the instructions are excellently laid out, making it a joy to build, even if you're new to Lego. We really think this makes a great set for newcomers, actually, given its price, size and ease of building.

Just be warned: Lego is rather moreish, and once you've built this small set you'll be contemplating $500+ sets in no time.

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Best Lego sets for adults: Comparison

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Best Lego sets for adults: Frequently Asked Questions

Latest updates

June 11, 2025: Added four new sets: Lego Icons Kingfisher, Lego Technic Planet Earth & Moon in Orbit, Lego Botanicals Chrysanthemum and Lego Dinosaur Fossils: T. rex Skull. New imagery added throughout list. Introduction has been refreshed with up-to-date information. Added in a Frequently Asked Questions section, and added a 'related links' box.

How we picked and tested the best Lego sets

Choosing the best Lego sets for adults is a little more subjective than other buyer's guides. What we think the best Lego sets are might differ from someone else. And while we haven't built every Lego set available, we have built a huge range of them, so we have a good breadth of knowledge of what makes a good set.

When it comes to choosing the best Lego sets, there's plenty of things we need to take into consideration. Are the instructions clear? Is the set easy (and enjoyable) to put together? Does it offer a satisfying challenge? Are there any parts of the build which make it a frustrating process? Is the finished model sturdy and well held together?

We also consider the function of the set once it's built. Since we're focusing on sets for adults here, playability doesn't matter so much – we're mostly concerned with how a set will look on display (though moving parts, motors and interactive elements are still a plus).

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Lego Technic sets excel at recreating scaled-down versions of real-life vehicles. However, the way Technic works means that, sometimes, details are missed out or washed over simply because the nature of the pieces don’t allow for it. The Lego Technic Land Rover Defender, however, feels different. This is one of the more precise Technic models out there. Even if you’re not massively familiar with the Defender, this finished model is instantly recognizable. There’s even a full interior with sculpted seats to enjoy, but more on that later.

As you’d probably expect from a Technic model, this isn’t an easy build. Don’t be fooled by the Age 11+ on the box: even the smallest Lego Technic build requires patience and skill. Being so large, this is one of the trickiest out there, hindered by the fact that the instruction booklet isn’t always great at making it clear where certain pieces should go. But if you can cope with the odd frustration during the building process, you’re going to be left with one hell of a model, complete with working steering and plenty of movable parts. Land Rover Defender fan or not, this is certainly a stand-out Lego Technic set and easily one of the best Lego sets out there.

We should add that as of December 2022, the Lego Technic Land Rover Defender set has retired. This means that you probably won’t be able to find it on the official Lego website anymore, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t purchase it at other stores or online retailers such as Amazon/Amazon UK . It’s such a stunning build that it’s worth tracking down.

Lego Technic Land Rover Defender review: Build

• A very time-consuming build
• Made trickier by poor instructions at times

Starting to build the Lego Technic Land Rover Defender can be a daunting task. You’re faced with a 496-page instruction book and 21 bags of pieces. Phew. That’s a lot. Making matters worse, the bags are split up into four number groups, which means at any one time you’re going to have a lot of pieces to sort through. Once you brush off the feeling of being overwhelmed, and there’s a lot to enjoy about putting this behemoth of a vehicle together.

There are three bags numbered ‘1,’ making the start of the build perhaps the least time-consuming. It’s also probably the least enjoyable part, because at no point in these first couple of hours is it ever clear what you’re actually building. You start by putting together a set of axels complete with working suspension, but to the untrained eye it’s simply a mass of interconnecting bits. There’s a nice use of parts, yet with so many tiny pieces it can be quite fiddly.

From here, you’ll move on to begin constructing a separate hive of gears – another complex jumble of interconnected pieces. This is always the trickiest part of any Technic build because what will eventually become the inner structure of your vehicle is where all of the mechanisms lie. So, if you want your steering and gear system to work as it should when you’ve finished, it’s imperative to get everything absolutely correct early on.

Of course, this is easier said than done as the instructions can often feel like they’re working against you. Just be sure to pay close attention, double-check everything you’re building (and again for good measure), and you should be fine.

Building axles and inner mechanics continues into the second set of bags (there are seven of them this time), again requiring the utmost patience and precision. You’ll be building a separate construction here, but eventually your two structures will need to become one. Attaching them together is probably the most awkward part of the whole build as it requires lining up many parts all at once. Once they’re together, though, the Lego Technic Land Rover Defender finally starts to take some shape.

Before you start adding the Defender’s body work, there are some important internal details to add. The working gearbox is particularly impressive, as are the beige-colored seats. They may only be made out of plastic bricks, but they’re a fantastic replica of real car upholstery, complete with shaped headrests. Some smaller details add nice touches too, like a tow hook and an engine model tucked away under the hood.

From the third set of bags onwards – a comfortable mid-point of the Lego Technic Land Rover Defender build – you’ll start piecing together the car’s bodywork. Things get a little more enjoyable here, in part because it’s nice to be able to recognize what you’re building,

You’re not completely done with complicated mechanisms, though, as there’s still some of that to be done thanks to some nifty functional doors. The trunk actually locks, thanks to a clever mechanism controlled by a mounted spare wheel, and the driver and passenger doors have complex hinges in place for smooth opening and closing.

Lego Technic Land Rover Defender review: Design

• Excellent detail that’s close to the real thing
• Though it’s a shame that stickers are relied upon for smaller touches

It’s impossible to truly criticize the design of the Lego Technic Land Rover Defender. This is an expertly-designed model, clearly worked on by people who know the real-world vehicle inside out. From the shape of its bodywork to the features on the dash, it captures the spirit of the Defender down to the very last detail.

Although perhaps some of those details are maybe a little unnecessary. There are over 30 stickers in the set (yes, really) and many of them are tiny. Some are used to add logos and branding to the inside of the vehicle – something that’s perhaps not needed, particularly as placing tiny stickers is incredibly fiddly work. We’d have preferred printed pieces, but that’s a sore point we have with almost all pricey Lego sets.

As a whole, when you’ve finished building the Lego Land Rover Defender it’s a fine model to gaze at and play with. The working steering and moving parts make for an excellent model to move around (it feels too expensive to truly ‘play’ with, but perhaps that’s just our opinion). Even just for it to sit on a shelf and be admired, it does a stand-out job. The choice of color for the body is perfect, its chunky wheels look excellent, and the detail on the roof rack (including a couple of storage boxes) really finish it off.

Should you buy Lego Technic Land Rover Defender?

If you’re already a fan of Lego Technic, you should absolutely consider adding the Land Rover Defender to your collection. If you’re used to building Lego System sets, Technic can be a very different beast, and so a set as large as the Land Rover Defender perhaps isn’t the best place to start. It’s a very tricky build, and if you’re not already familiar with the process it can be frustrating at times. However, if you’re up for a challenge, then jump right in. If you own (or simply admire) a Land Rover Defender in real life, this set feels like a no-brainer.

Other Lego sets to consider

If you’re looking to make a leap to Lego Technic, we suggest starting with something a little smaller. The McLaren Senna GTR is a fantastic-looking model, and with 830 pieces it offers incredible value at $50/£45. In the same range is also a Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 ($50/£45) and a Formula 5 Porsche 99X Electric ($50/£45).

If you’re already a master of Lego Technic and want a big, impressive-looking set without breaking the bank too much, there’s the $200/£170 Ferrari 488 GTE “AF Corse #51” and the $200/£170 McLaren Formula 1 Race Car. The Lego Technic All-Terrain Vehicle ($89.99/£79.99) is also a fun option.

If money’s no object, then you won’t be disappointed with the massive, 3,696-piece Lamborghini Sián FKP 37 with its eye-watering price tag of $450/£390.

Alternatively, if you’d like a realistic-looking vehicle but don’t want to dive into Technic, the Lego Icons range has some models well worth checking out, like the Chevrolet Camaro Z28 priced at $170/£150.

There are few monuments in the world as iconic as the Statue of Liberty. Standing 305 feet tall on New York’s Liberty Island, it’s a statue that almost everyone is instantly familiar with, no matter where in the world they live. 

As such, Lego Architecture’s recreation of the Lady Liberty, measuring about 1/100th of the real thing, is equally recognizable. No detail has been spared in bringing the monument into your living room, even down to the color match and the brickwork on the pedestal.

Being part of the Lego Architecture series, which kicked off back in 2008, that attention to detail is to be expected. This is one of the first ranges to be marketed towards adults, designed to bring real-world structures and buildings to life in Lego form. Undoubtedly, the Statue of Liberty is one of the most impressive (and one of the longest-running) sets in the range, capturing the magnificence of the 19th century statue impeccably.

Check out our other favorite kits in our best Lego sets guide - Lady Liberty currently has the second place spot.

Is it the perfect Lego set? Perhaps not as the nature of it means that you’re going to encounter some repetition while building, and the small pieces means that it’s sometimes fiddly. 

Despite this, it’s certainly up there with our favorites, creating a fine balance between detail, size, and price. It looks fantastic, and it’s not going to break the bank. And, with Lego sets continuing to get bigger and more expensive as time goes on, that’s not something to be sniffed at.

Lego Architecture Statue of Liberty review: Build

• Some fiddly sections
• Having so many pieces of the same color makes the instructions occasionally unclear

As we’ve already alluded to, the Lego Architecture Statue of Liberty has some fiddly sections to build. That’s largely down to the fact that (1) Lego Architecture sets are almost exclusively made up of the smaller types of pieces and (2) the Statue of Liberty is largely only two colors. 

The sea of beige and green means that following instructions can get a little tricky as one brick fades into another. So, you’ll need to pay extra close attention to ensure everything is exactly where it should be, especially when you’re building Lady Liberty herself.

The plinth is perhaps the easiest part of the build, albeit the most repetitive. Being symmetrical on all four sides, it’s fairly easy to follow through to completion, and will likely be the quickest part of the model. When it comes to the statue, however, Lady Liberty’s textured body can cause some problems. We did find that having one or two small pieces out of place doesn’t really affect the overall effect; the texture on the statue is meant to reflect a flowing cape and so a couple of erroneous pieces are almost impossible to spot.

With all that said, a few tricky sections aren’t enough to ruin the experience of putting together the glorious Lego Architecture Statue of Liberty. We were kept fully engrossed in the two or so hours it took us to build this. When the finished model looks as good as this, a few technical niggles are easily forgotten.

Lego Architecture Statue of Liberty review: Design

• Incredible details
• Really does look like a scaled-down version of the real thing

Lego’s Statue of Liberty model is so realistic that it looks like it should have a micro-scale version of Liberty Island to rest on. It’s just beautiful, with so much detail applied to both the plinth – with its intricate brickwork – and the copper statue itself, with bricks being layered to create a textured effect. Finer details, such as the statue’s seven-ray crown and the golden torch in its hand have been recreated, too. 

The only thing we’re missing is a face, but that can be forgiven. We imagine the only way Lego would have been able to recreate that is with a sticker, and we’re glad the set remains sticker-free (although a Lego-style face on the Statue of Liberty would have been pretty funny).

A minor detail, too, but we love the style of box the Lego Architecture Statue of Liberty comes in. Like many Architecture sets, it opens up like a pizza box, making it useful for emptying pieces into (and generally better for storage and reuse). It adds a premium touch to the model, which is very much appreciated.

Should you buy Lego Architecture Statue of Liberty?

While adult Lego fans have more choice than ever when it comes to complex, show-worthy sets, the Lego Architecture range is still one of the best choices. Spot this in the corner of a room and many guests will do a double-take when you tell them it’s made out of Lego bricks. (Not that having Lego in your lounge is anything to be ashamed of, we hasten to add!) 

But if you’re looking for an inconspicuous display piece that also happens to be great fun to put together, then yes, you should absolutely buy the Lego Architecture Statue of Liberty. Particularly if you have any ties or attachment to New York City. What better memento could you have?

Other Lego sets to consider

A more recent entry into the Lego Architecture set that we love is the Great Pyramid of Giza. It’s only slightly more expensive than the Statue of Liberty at $130/£120 and with a much wider footprint it feels rather substantial (technically it’s only half a pyramid, but it still looks incredible and this makes it easier to display).

We also love the Taj Mahal, although this is a very intricate set with lots of small pieces, which will require much more patience than most Lego builds! This retails for $120/£105.

If it’s another NYC keepsake you’re after, why not consider the New York City Skyline? At $60/£45 it features several iconic buildings from the city: the Flatiron Building, Chrysler Building, Empire State Building, One World Trade Center, and, of course, a tiny-in-comparison Statue of Liberty.

Or travelers will adore the Lego Ideas The Globe with it’s antique-style frame and little country and ocean nameplates, all for $230/£200.

There’s a lot to love about the Lego Ideas Tree House. First: sustainability. This is one of the first sets to come with elements made from plant-based plastic. All of the plant and leaf elements in the set are made from sustainably-sourced sugarcane, part of Lego’s initiative to be using only sustainable materials in all core products by 2030. It’s a noble effort and makes the Tree House something of a collector’s curiosity as a result.

Even outside of its sustainable nature, the Lego Ideas Tree House is simply a wonderful model. It stands tall at 14 inches (37 cm), making for quite the statement piece. The detail here is lovely; from the trunks to the branches and the treehouse itself, every element has been carefully considered and made to look as realistic as possible. It does make for some repetitive building, but the end result is good enough that it hardly matters.

Looking for more Lego content on Live Science? Our guide to the best Lego sets will help you choose a new kit to work on. You can also read about how pieces of Lego are still washing up on England’s southwest coast after a shipwreck 25 years ago. 

Lego Ideas Tree House review: Build

• Repetitive sections in the trunk and the tree branches
• But wonderful details in the tree house and on the ground more than make up for it

Coming in at just over 3,000 pieces, the Lego Ideas Tree House remains one of the biggest Lego Ideas sets currently available (beat only by Home Alone and the Grand Piano). Naturally, a set this big takes considerable time to put together; it took us around eight hours to finish the Tree House.

Unfortunately, a number of those hours were spent building rather tedious sections. This is a tree, and so naturally lots of it is simply made up of brown. Expect to spend a lot of time dealing in different shades of brown, and putting together repetitive sections of bricks. The trunk itself is made up of separate panels of bricks which are then arranged into a cylindrical structure. However, putting together each of those panels is rather monotonous. Thankfully, putting together the centerpiece of the build, the treehouse itself, is a highlight and so is building the base.

We love the base of the Tree House. Rather than being built on top of a standard Lego baseplate, the bottom of the tree house is constructed by layering bricks together, offering it a unique shape and a sense of height and scale. There’s even a river running through it and various bricks staggered around the edges to offer up the idea of a textured, uneven terrain. It looks fantastic, especially decorated with a table and chairs, a swing, and a set of winding, rickety stairs that lead up to the treehouse itself.

Onto that treehouse. It’s made up of three separate, circular buildings. They’re all similar in their construction, but are a lot of fun to put together thanks to the wonderful details stashed away inside. Add in finishing touches like railings and rope bridges joining them together – not forgetting the winch system allowing items to be passed upwards from the ground and vice versa – and you have something really special.

Those buildings alone almost make up for the more yawn-inducing part of the build, the worst of which is the tree itself. There are a lot of branches to be built here, all rather repetitive and fiddly. What is neat is that the set comes with two sets of leaves: green for summer and yellow/orange for autumn. Unfortunately, you can’t easily swap the leaves out as they’re built into the branches, and so to replace the color you’ll need to rebuild the entire top section of the tree. As nice as it would be to change them as the actual seasons change, we’re not sure we’ll ever have the inclination to. Whichever color you decide to start out with, you won’t be disappointed as both look amazing.

Lego Ideas Tree House review: Design

• A sturdy, fun set with so much kooky detail
• One of the best to come from Lego Ideas, we think

It’s the little touches in the Lego Ideas Tree House that really make it come to life. One room of the tree house is a bathroom, complete with toilet, huge tub (with ‘water droplets’ inside it!), and little details like a hairbrush and various toiletry bottles. Another is a bedroom, with a beautifully-designed double bed, dressing table, and hat stand. Details like a ship in a bottle decoration, a flower on the dresser, and even a cuckoo clock puts this set in another league. It’s an incredible amount of detail, and it’s so fun to explore.

All these detail makes the Lego Ideas Tree House feel a little like a playset, but with a price tag of $250/£215, we’re not sure you’d want small hands getting too busy with it. However, even as adults we can appreciate the love and care that’s gone into the design.

The special features don’t stop inside the treehouse, either. The trunk of the tree, although it might have been dull to build, comes to life thanks to the bird’s nest stuck on the side, the sawn-off branch, and the way bricks have been layered to create texture. There’s even a sticker paying homage to the set’s designer, Kevin Feeser, here: “Build your dreams K.F.” Such a lovely little touch.

There are some innovative building techniques on display here, which we always love to see. The treehouse buildings sport round porthole-style windows that have been crafted by stacking together two ‘bridge’ pieces, then using rods to secure them in place. The rickety rope bridge is also a highlight, being secure enough for the sake of the set but managing to give the idea of being unstable.

There really is so much to love here and it remains one of our favorite ever sets to come from the Lego Ideas program. It’s a testament to how much creativity exists within the Lego builder community. It captures the fun-loving childish nature of Lego as play while being a technically competent and impressive model. The Lego Ideas Tree House is a real joy to behold – the only trouble is finding enough space to display it when you’re done!

Should you buy Lego Ideas Tree House?

If you enjoy original, innovative Lego designs, then absolutely, you should buy the Lego Ideas Tree House. Particularly so considering this has been around for three years, and will most likely be heading to the ‘retiring soon’ chopping block. There’s no other Lego set quite like this one; it’s fun, it looks wonderful, and it’s one of the first sets to use sustainable elements. A piece of Lego history, then – and who wouldn’t want to own that?

Other Lego sets to consider

If it’s more Lego Ideas sets you’re after, how about the Lego Ideas Globe for $230/£200. This 2,585-piece set brings the whole world into focus in beautiful brickish detail. It might not technically be geography accurate, but it looks pretty cool.

We also love the Typewriter, complete with moving paper roll and a QWERTY keyboard where you can press down the keys (£250/£215). It implements some Lego Technic building techniques so can be a bit tricky at times, but it’s worth it for the finished product.

For more sets aping nature, the Lego Ideas Winnie the Pooh set ($100/£90) offers up another chance to build a tree, albeit with a fantastical 100 Acre Wood twist. And for something a little smaller (and for smaller budgets), there’s the realistic-looking Lego Icons Bonsai Tree, which makes a fantastic desktop display for just $50/£45.

When it comes to unique and interesting builds, it’s safe to say that Lego Ideas is our favorite range. After all, where else could you find a Lego Typewriter, a Tree House, a Lego replica of Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night, and a Fender Stratocaster all next to each other on a store shelf? The range of sets to come from the Ideas program is phenomenal and we’re always excited to see what comes next.

One of 2022’s sets was The Globe, a brick-built spinning globe of the Earth. At 16 inches tall, it’s about as big as you’d expect a globe to be, complete with gorgeous wooden-effect antique frame, printed labels for each continent, and a somewhat hazy representation of the Earth’s layout. It’s a beautiful set, though as much as we enjoy looking at it now it’s built, it isn’t without its problems. Read on for our in-depth review of Lego Ideas The Globe and see if it’s a set worth adding to your own collection.

If it’s more Lego content you’re after, why not check out our best Lego sets guide? Or our many reviews including the Lego Icons Orchid and Lego Technic ATV review. Elsewhere, there’s the story of doctors who swallowed and pooped Lego minifigures for science.

Lego Ideas The Globe review: Build

• A repetitive and boring build…
• … though one that’s easy to share with others

The Lego Ideas Globe has a somewhat unorthodox construction. It makes it interesting to see it come together, though boring to build in practice. You see, to achieve the round shape of the globe (something tricky to do with bricks) numerous panels are clipped onto a frame, curving around to give the illusion of a sphere. It’s very effective, but it means that the construction of the plates – 32 in total, 16 for the top half and 16 for the bottom – is extremely repetitive.

Even building the central belt, an integral part of the structure, is laborious. This is made up of 16 squares that eventually join together, making the central part of the globe. After adding a column that will run vertically through the middle of the globe, you can then start adding those 32 plates.

They’re, thankfully, not all the same shape at least, with a couple of variations to allow them to sit together neatly. However, the building of them doesn’t vary too much. The only unique part of these plates is the pattern on top of them: green and brown tiles arranged to look like the Earth’s continents. Well, roughly. More on that later.

If you have another pair of hands around the house, it might be helpful to get another person (or two) to help with building the plates. We enlisted someone’s help, and it made the busywork much more enjoyable – not to mention quicker and easier.

Perhaps the nicest part of the build is the very first stage: the outer frame. This looks simply fantastic, thanks to an ornate base with brown and gold bricks arranged to look like antique wood. Even this is slightly repetitive, but that can’t be helped due to its construction. When it’s finished and the ‘Earth’ label is in place on the base, it really does look stunning.

Lego Ideas The Globe review: Design

• Overall a striking model
• But the layout of the continents leaves a lot to be desired

We understand that it must be hard to map out the entire Earth onto a globe made out of Lego that’s only 10 inches wide, but some placements here really don’t make any sense. The bigger landmasses – Africa and America – are recognizable at least, although Europe in particular is a bit of a mess. We’re really not sure what’s going on, and we’re certain something could have been done to offer a more accurate representation.

In fact, if you’ve got some green plates laying around in your spare Lego collection, you could probably do a bit of DIY to make it look a little more convincing yourself.

It’s a shame, because in the grand scheme of things it’s fairly minor, but it does let the whole model down. It’s not the only thing: the construction of the globe itself, with the clipped-on plates is innovative, but does leave some unsightly gaps. This is more forgivable, though, since it would be hard to create a convincing spherical shape any other way. It just means that its imperfections are easier to spot when you’re up close to the globe. From across the room, however, you’d easily mistake this for the real thing.

Away from the negatives, there is a lot to love here. As we’ve said, the stand/frame of the Lego Ideas The Globe is simply wonderful, making it look like a premium display item. With the addition of printed labels for each continent as well, it looks really great. Plus, as a fun bonus they glow in the dark too! There’s not a sticker to be seen here, which is always a bonus as they can be quite fiddly. Some nice finishing touches help make this feel like a high-quality model too, like the inclusion of rubberized feet on the bottom of the stand to keep it in place.

Should you buy Lego Ideas The Globe?

We can’t recommend Lego Ideas The Globe as wholeheartedly as some other models. While it has some flaws, it is still a very nice Lego construction. If you have space in your home, don’t mind that the globe isn’t geographically accurate, and don’t bat an eyelid at the $230/£200 price, you likely won’t be disappointed. However, it is a big lump of money, and there are better Lego models out there for around the same price.

The Lego Ideas Typewriter, another real-world object transformed into Lego, shares a similar price point but, in our opinion, goes so much further in looking like the real thing.

Other Lego sets to consider

As we’ve just mentioned, we absolutely love the Lego Ideas Typewriter, which packs in a ridiculous amount of detail for $250/£215. Also in the Lego Ideas range is the brand new Lego Ideas Vincent van Gogh – The Starry Night, a recreation of the famous piece of art retailing at $170/£150. This one can hang on your wall, too, so you don’t need to worry about finding space on a shelf to display it.

The Architecture series is also great if you want to focus on specific parts of the world rather than the whole thing. How about a skyline of Statue of Liberty ($120/£90)? Or go back in time and for $130/£120 you can build a replica of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

There’s a lot of Lego ranges we love, but for ingenuity and truly stand-out sets, you really can’t beat Lego Ideas – and Lego Ideas Vincent van Gogh – The Starry Night is a magnificent example of this. It says a lot about the incredible creativity that comes out of the Lego community when our favorite sets aren’t designed by employees of the company, but instead amateur fan designers, creating for pleasure rather than payment.

Truman Cheng’s winning Lego Ideas submission is every bit as remarkable as Van Gogh’s original Starry Night, reimagined in gorgeous, 3D blocky detail. It truly is a work of art, and one of the absolute best Lego sets for adults. This is a set that really pushes Lego as an art form: how can you look at this and see just a child’s toy?

Truman Cheng – who goes by the handle legotruman on the Lego Ideas website – first submitted Starry Night in July 2020. Just a month later, it reached 10,000 votes of support – the amount needed to be judged by a Lego panel. That judging took place in February 2021, and it took until the summer of 2022 for the set to make it onto shelves. It’s absolutely been worth the wait though, that’s for sure.

Lego Vincent van Gogh – The Starry Night: Build

• Great building techniques
• Easy to make mistakes

We hope you like blue, ‘cause you’re going to be using a lot of blue bricks as you piece together Lego Ideas Vincent van Gogh – The Starry Night. The only downside to this lies at the fault of the instruction booklet: if you’re building in poor light, it can be hard to differentiate pale blues from light blues, and medium blues from dark blues. We’re fairly certain we’ve got a handful of pieces in the wrong place in our own finished model, but, ultimately, it doesn’t matter. That’s the joy of its impressionist nature as a few slightly wrongly-shaded bricks isn’t going to matter.

The build is separated into several key areas. Firstly, there’s the foreground – the village, which jumps out of the frame in wondrous 3D. Then there’s the background and the waves splashing out of it. Next is the professional-looking frame that is beautiful and sleek. Finally, the giant tree growing in the foreground. It’s a very methodical build, with each stage being impressive in its own right. But, it’s only when you’ve finished and seen all the elements together, that you can truly appreciate just how dazzling Lego Ideas The Starry Night actually is.

There are nine numbered sets of bags to get through, and you can expect the build to take around five or six hours, give or take, depending on how experienced you are with Lego. By the end of bag five, the bulk of the model will be in place, with all to come after being the frame itself and some additional details in the night sky and the village below. Some of the latter bags are fairly small – quite a comparison to the bags numbered ‘5,’ filled with hundreds of blue flat bricks in order to construct the sky.

One of our favorite parts of the build, although overshadowed by the art itself, is the frame. Frames made out of Lego are nothing new, and we’ve been seeing them for a couple of years thanks to Lego’s own Art range. But the frame here is far more intricate and decorative than anything we’ve seen before it. Interestingly, it wasn’t featured in Cheng’s initial submission of the set: originally, it was frameless, simply standing up like a 3D card. It’s the main difference from that original concept that has really elevated the set to the next level.

Lego Vincent van Gogh – The Starry Night: Design

• An incredible recreation of an iconic piece of art
• Bit too bulky to actually hang on the wall

How do you critique the design of a Lego set based on a 130-year-old piece of art? Van Gogh’s Starry Night speaks for itself, of course. This is an iconic piece of art that almost everyone will be familiar with: it’s on postcards, art prints, clothing – heck, it’s even on the screensaver of one of our TVs. It’s everywhere! However, we’ve never seen it come to life in quite the way that Lego Ideas Vincent van Gogh - Starry Night does.

It’s instantly recognizable as Van Gogh’s painting, sure, but it’s also something new all of its own. Lego bricks have been used ingeniously to create a range of curves and motion: it’s as if it’s almost moving right in front of your eyes. The addition of the stunning frame and the unique printed pieces for the stars and moon really finish it off, cementing it as one of the most remarkable Lego display sets to date.

Plus, it comes with its own Vincent van Gogh minifig! Armed with a paintbrush, painting palette, and easel, you get your own little artist at work. They've even incorporated his unique brushstrokes onto his little blue jacket, which is a lovely touch. You can also include him as part of the display piece as the set comes with a base you can swivel in front of the scene so Van Gogh can get just the right painting angle.

Our only criticism? The depth of the set means hanging it on the wall will be tricky. Indeed, Lego has intended that some people are going to hang it up, as the back of the frame features a hanging bracket. There’s also a tiny leg to stand it on, so if you feel that having it safely propped up on a shelf or desk, then that’s an option too. However, if you trust the strength of your walls, this will look incredible hung up… we’ll be keeping it safely at desk height, though.

Should you buy Lego Vincent van Gogh – The Starry Night?

If you appreciate art and you’re hungry for a Lego set that offers something out of the ordinary, then absolutely you should buy Lego Ideas Vincent van Gogh. We’ll say it again: this is one of the most remarkably designed Lego sets to date. Its clever use of bricks and unusual building techniques create a true piece of art. This isn’t just a replica of Van Gogh’s work, it’s a piece of art in its own right.

Other Lego sets to consider

If more Lego to hang on your wall is what you desire, then the Lego Art range is worth taking a look at. The new $80/£60 Floral Art set allows you to build one of three floral designs, neatly cast in a white frame. If pop culture is more your thing, you may get a kick out of the Jim Lee Batman Collection ($120/£105).

If you have $250/£215 to spare, though, we recommend going for the World Map. It’s a meter wide and has the highest piece count of any Lego set currently released (11,695 pieces to be precise). Or, for $230/£200 The Globe also makes a beautiful decorative piece, if you can live with the fact that it’s not exactly geographically accurate.

We also love the Typewriter, a fantastic model with working parts that looks just like the real thing and priced at $250/£215. It's a more challenging build, but the end result is worth it!

Gigantic monsters have featured in myth and folklore for centuries, with stories such as the Greek titans or the Biblical behemoth passed down from generation to generation. But since the hulking mass of the radioactive, prehistoric reptile Godzilla first smashed its way onto our cinema screens in 1954, audiences have been gripped by the ‘kaiju’ film genre.

Meaning ‘strange beast’ in Japanese, kaiju movies have inspired all manner of the gargantuan creatures and giant robots that have lumbered their way across our theater screens, and while the Godzilla films remain the most iconic of the genre, there are a number of worthy contenders for the title of best giant monster movie.

Much to the relief of the citizens of Tokyo, you probably don’t need to be reminded that there aren’t any animals that would grow to Godzilla-like proportions (tainted by radioactive waste or not), and for good reasons. The square cube law, a mathematical principle that describes the relationship between an object's volume and surface area, means that as an object grows in size, its surface area and volume will grow at a faster rate. That puts a limit on how big an animal can get in real life before it simply crumples under its own weight.

However, let’s not let science get in the way of a good story, so here is our pick of the best giant monster movies to sink your massive teeth/fangs/claws into. And if you’re still itching for a lesson or two on nature's wonder and fury, or feel the need to reflect on the hubris of humanity, we’ve also got guides to the Jurassic Park movies ranked, and the Jaws movies ranked too.

1. Gojira/Godzilla

• Release date: November 3, 1954
• Cast: Akira Takarada, Momoko Kōchi, Akihiko Hirata, Takashi Shimura

It would feel wrong to start a best giant monster movies list without giving the original Godzilla picture the first spot, ranked or not. Ishirō Honda’s surprise masterpiece pioneered “suitmation” special effects, in which a stunt performer wearing a suit interacts with miniature sets. But, of course, it left a huge mark on both Japanese and international audiences because of its commentary on nuclear weapons and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki… through a giant dinosaur with atomic breath.

A heavily re-edited version for American audiences was released in 1956, but the original Japanese cut is the way to go for obvious reasons. Moreover, the movie holds up visually way better than many kaiju features that were made in the following years thanks to its grounded – and often haunting – disaster sequences, plus a memorable group of main characters.

2. King Kong

• Casts: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot (1933)
  Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, Jessica Lange (1976)
  Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody (2005)

If Godzilla is Japan’s top kaiju, then King Kong is the United States’ most renowned giant beast – he was born 21 years before Big G terrorized theatres. However, Kong originally came from an adventure fantasy horror movie in the vein of 1925’s The Lost World. The original picture elevated stop-motion animation to new heights and gave us some of the most iconic movie scenes of all times, plus an unforgettable take on the “woman meets a misunderstood monster” trope.

Like Godzilla, King Kong has reappeared several times over the decades in a handful of movies, including a mediocre remake in 1976, but Peter Jackson’s 2005 update of the original classic remains the reinvention of Skull Island and the titular giant ape that you shouldn’t miss. Despite its bloated runtime, it’s a bigger-than-life adventure with strong performances all-around and set pieces which still look stellar.

3. Gamera (Heisei trilogy)

• Release dates: March 11, 1995. July 13, 1996. March 6, 1999.
• Casts: Shinobu Nakayama, Ayako Fujitani, Yukijirô Hotaru (1995)
  Miki Mizuno, Toshiyuki Nagashima, Tamotsu Ishibashi (1996)
  Shinobu Nakayama, Ai Maeda, Yukijiro Hotaru (1999)

Japan’s other kaiju star is Gamera, who debuted in the 1965 picture Gamera: The Giant Monster. While the character and the movie were first intended to compete with the success of Godzilla, the franchise eventually became iconic in its own right. Initially a fire-breathing turtle monster exposed to nuclear radiation, Gamera went from destructive to benevolent, eventually becoming a protector of humanity.

There are 12 Gamera movies so far, but the Heisei-era trilogy – comprised of Guardian of the Universe, Attack of the Legion, and Revenge of Iris (Jashin kakusei) – is widely regarded as the franchise’s absolute peak. Critics and fans praised the vibrant and energetic action of these installments, which was coupled with a cohesive storyline and a masterful mix of suitmation and CGI effects.

4. Tremors

• Release date: January 19, 1990
• Cast: Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Finn Carter, Michael Gross

Giant monsters don’t have to be as big as buildings to feel menacing, and a playful tone is sometimes more than welcome. 1990’s monster-centric horror comedy Tremors proved it was possible to distil much of the humor found in 1980s “town invasion” classics such as Gremlins and inject it into a giant monster feature.

In the original movie (it spawned several direct-to-video sequels), the small desert town of Perfection, Nevada, is threatened by prehistoric, worm-like monsters that have emerged from deep underground after a series of mysterious tremors (pun intended). What makes it truly special is the dazzling cast chemistry and a witty script full of clever ideas, though the practical effects are rad as well.

While we don't have any evidence of worms growing to quite the size of the Graboids in Tremors which are about 9m long, there were giant worms wriggling around the floor of the prehistoric oceans.

5. The Host

• Release date: July 27, 2006
• Cast: Song Kang-ho, Byun Hee-bong, Park Hae-il, Bae Doona

Before Bong Joon-ho found massive mainstream success with Best Picture winner Parasite, he was already making big waves with movies such as Memories of Murder and The Host (Gwoemul). The latter tells the story of a mutated fish monster that captures a man’s daughter and the authorities’ efforts to kill it after several deaths.

While the basic premise is straightforward (it was marketed internationally as a riff on Jaws), the actual movie is quite layered and largely plays like a politically heavy satire. The Host can be scary, funny, and sad, and it does it all wonderfully, but we admit it might not be for everyone due to all the context required to grasp its full discourse.

6. Shin Godzilla

• Release date: July 29, 2016
• Cast: Hiroki Hasegawa, Yutaka Takenouchi, Satomi Ishihara, Mikako Ichikawa

If you’re sticking to Godzilla’s best of the best, you shouldn’t skip Hideaki Anno’s (Neon Genesis Evangelion) radical reinvention of the greatest kaiju of all time. As it stands, this reboot won’t have a continuation despite all the critical acclaim, but it doesn’t need one and stands strong as a memorable one-off. Previous knowledge of the Godzilla franchise isn’t required either, since even the titular kaiju underwent a huge redesign that made it more of a giant deep sea animal monstrosity (and then something else).

Mind you, Shin Godzilla isn’t an easy watch; it’s heavy on bureaucratic talk and national politics, and the pacing may be rough for Western audiences. Action is pushed aside – though the more catastrophic scenes are unforgettable – and dialogues and satire take the spotlight. It all creates perhaps the most intelligent of the Godzilla movies, with a nearly perfect 21st century update of the original picture’s concerns and key themes.

7. Cloverfield

• Release date: January 18, 2008
• Cast: Michael Stahl-David, T.J. Miller, Jessica Lucas, Lizzy Caplan

Bad Robot’s Cloverfield represents a crucial inflection point for North American giant monster movies. Through the use of the “found footage” directing style and a tight but well-spent budget, producers J.J. Abrams and Bryan Bruk, writer Drew Goddard, and director Matt Reeves managed to capture much of the classic kaiju genre’s magic (and terror) from a unique angle.

Running under 90 minutes, Cloverfield is economical filmmaking at its finest. There’s a big initial mystery that pays off through huge moments, the cast is likable, and the overall experience is daunting and stressful. Roughly 15 years later, this one remains an outstanding rollercoaster ride. And, word is that a straight-up sequel might be happening sooner rather than later…

8. Pacific Rim

• Release date: July 12, 2013
• Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Rinko Kikuchi, Idris Elba, Charlie Day

Just as Legendary Pictures was readying another North American reboot of Godzilla, Guillermo del Toro went all out with a massive, ultra-nerdy take on the kaiju and mecha (giant robots) genres. Pacific Rim basically felt like a sci-fi anime coming to  life with a Hollywood budget, and that alone made it a modern classic almost instantly.

The ambitious story and worldbuilding also framed the gargantuan conflict as an alien invasion movie, making it even more enticing. While the more character-centric moments – outside of Mako’s personal journey – might not shine as bright as the apocalypse-cancelling sections, this one’s a banger that nobody has been able to replicate yet.

9. Godzilla: King of the Monsters

• Release date: May 31, 2019
• Cast: Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Charles Dance

After a very self-serious 2014 reboot, the second Godzilla movie by Legendary Pictures embraced the post-1954 source material from Toho and delivered a giant monster brawl which ranks among the genre’s best. This didn’t resonate nearly as well with Western audiences, but diehard Godzilla fanatics and those familiar with the traditional kaiju genre praised it as one of Hollywood’s strongest efforts – alongside Pacific Rim and Godzilla vs. Kong – to capture that inherently silly formula.

Despite the noticeable tonal shift (akin to Kong: Skull Island’s), King of the Monsters doesn’t ignore its predecessor, and instead builds upon the solid worldbuilding and mythology that movie established to plant the seeds for a more playful MonsterVerse, starting with the arrival of King Ghidorah and other renowned kaijus from the Japanese franchise. Its human drama may not be the best outside a couple of inspired moments, but everything else is a perfect homage to Toho’s most explosive Godzilla installments.

10. Godzilla vs. Kong

• Release date: March 31, 2021
• Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry

The first phase of Legendary’s MonsterVerse culminated in 2021 with the release of Godzilla vs. Kong – the first face-off happened in 1962 through Toho’s middling King Kong vs. Godzilla. Of course, this movie maintains the course set by Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which translates into a jumbo-sized rollercoaster ride full of zany ideas and ludicrous plotting.

On top of a script which hits all the “fun targets” with relative ease, Adam Wingard’s knack for embracing silly elements and framing the titular monsters in true Japanese fashion really paid off here, and both critics and audiences agreed with this sentiment. As a result, Legendary has fast-tracked a follow-up that is now in post-production and will arrive in 2024.

Why don't why have giant monsters in real life?

We've made a few references to the square cube law in this article, but what exactly is the square cube law and why does it prevent giant monsters from existing?

The square cube law is a mathematical principle that describes the relationship between an objects volume and surface area. In simple terms, that means that as an object grows in size, its surface area and volume will grow at a faster rate. 

This isn't the only limiting factor on the size of life though. We've discussed why we don't have many giant animals anymore before, looking at some of the evolutionary pressures that push against animals growing larger. Science education YouTube channel Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell has a great series of videos about the size limits on life, at both the massive and tiny ends of the scale.

We’re not really sure why the Lego Icons Bird of Paradise carries a price tag of $99.99/£89.99 – literally double the price of all other sets in the Lego Botanical Collection. We can only imagine it’s because of the sheer number of huge, molded Lego pieces needed for its large, luscious green leaves. It’s a striking model alright, there’s no denying that, and we’ve had a great time putting it together too. However, it doesn’t really set itself apart enough to warrant its steep price tag.

Still, if you’re a fan of Lego’s Botanicals range – a sub-series now falling under the new ‘Icons’ theme – you’ll likely not want to miss the Bird of Paradise. You won’t be disappointed with it – we’re certainly not – but we’re not as impressed as we were with other sets in the range, particularly the Lego Icons Orchid.

You can see more great science-themed Lego sets in our guide to the best Lego sets for adults. Now, let's dive into the Bird of Paradise set.

Lego Icons Bird of Paradise review: Build

• A straightforward build with easy-to-follow instructions
• The stems and leaves are a little repetitive

Lego Icons Bird of Paradise is a plant, and so by its very nature it’s largely made up of stems and leaves. That means building a lot of poles, which can get a little repetitive. Thankfully, these are perhaps the quickest part of the model, with the pot (which displays the plant) taking up at least half of your time.

While you’d expect the pot to be hollow, just like a real pot, it’s actually rather solid inside. This gives a nice bit of weight to the model, meaning it’s not likely to get knocked over. The internal structure is made by layering circular builds on top of each other, with an outer shell then placed around its edges to make the pot itself. You’ll have to build eight almost-identical faces for each side of the pot, but built in two lots of four, so they’re not too time-consuming.

The stems of the leaves and flowers are secured into the pot using Technic pieces, and it means the whole thing feels rather sturdy when finished. As long as you don’t yank on any of the stems, they’re not going anywhere. The connectors are handily hidden inside the pot with a pouring of brown studs as the very last step, to represent soil. We were a little dubious, but the finished effect is rather nice.

Lego Icons Bird of Paradise review: Design

• Not as realistic as other Botanicals sets
• Effective use of color

There’s an awful lot of green, black, and brown in the Lego Icon Bird of Paradise, with the only pop of color coming from the oh-so pretty butterfly-like flowers on the Bird of Paradise plant itself. It’s effective, though. Sure, Lego could have designed a more colorful pot – it’s largely all black with a brown stripe – but it means your eye is instantly drawn to those pink, purple, and orange blooms. Quite frankly, it works.

Our biggest complaint with the Lego Bird of Paradise, though, is that it’s just not as convincing as some of the other Botanicals sets. The amount of detail in the Lego Icons Bonsai Tree, for instance, is incredible, especially when you’re glancing at it from a distance. The same is true of the Lego Icons Orchid which, in the corner of the room, can be mistaken for the real thing. There’s no fooling anyone with the Bird of Paradise, largely due to the Technic-style holes punctured into each of the leaves.

Is that a bad thing? Not really as it is Lego after all, and so there’s nothing exactly wrong with it looking like Lego. Yet it’s that touch of realism which makes the Botanicals sets so great, and this one doesn’t quite hold up. Given its more expensive price tag, it’s particularly disappointing.

Should you buy Lego Icons Bird of Paradise?

It depends. If you already have bought all of Lego’s other Botanicals sets and you’re desperate to bring another plant to life, jump right in. However, we’d recommend practically any other set in the range before this one. It’s the most expensive of them all and, in our opinion, not even the best-looking. If you find it on sale, however, go for it. It’s still a very pretty set and one that’s pleasant to build.

Other Lego sets to consider

At the time of writing, the Lego Icons Bird of Paradise is one of many ‘Botanical Collection’ sets available, and we highly recommend the others. There’s the Succulents ($49.99/£44.99), the Bonsai Tree ($49.99/£44.99), the Flower Bouquet ($59.99/£54.99) and, perhaps our favorite, the Lego Orchid (£49.99/£44.99), plus many more.

For those after a smaller and low cost build, there are the Lego Sunflowers, Roses (each $12.99/£11.99), and the even cheaper Tulips ($9.99/£8.99) to choose from – although none of them come with their own vase. Why not buy all three and create your own bouquet?

For something a little different but still sticking with a floral theme, how about the Floral Art set for $79.99/£59.99 which is a mosaic that can hang on your wall?

Lego’s Botanical Collection is into its second year now, with the Lego Icons Orchid being the fifth set to come from the series. A brick-built representation of a real Orchid plant, it’s life-like in its appearance and stature, making a fantastic display piece that isn’t overtly ‘Lego.’

If you're sitting in that cross section of people who love the natural world and Lego sets, then this Lego Icons Orchid might be perfect for you. It's also an ideal display piece for people who want flowers in their home, but can't have them due to allergies. Orchids are also notoriously difficult to keep alive at home, so this might be the best Lego set for anyone lacking a green thumb too.

The nature of the model means it’s rather repetitive to build, but confident Lego fans will have put this beauty together in around an hour. When it’s done, you have a truly wonderful display piece to admire for years to come. 

Lego Icons Orchid review: Build

• Simple, easy-to-follow instructions
• Several repetitive sections

It’ll probably come as no surprise that the Orchid has several repetitive sections. The plant pot, while intricate and cleverly made, involves placing the same tiles again and again in a circular pattern. The stems and the flowers themselves, too, are all essentially identical builds. You’ll likely find it easier to make all six flowers at once to speed up the build somewhat.

What is particularly enjoyable about the process, though, is that the instruction manual gives you interesting titbits along the way. For example, the interior structure of the plant pot – made out of circular frames stacked on top of each other – uses a building method modified from the tower of Hogwarts Castle.

While the instruction booklet is easy to follow for newcomers, with each step detailing only a few bricks at once, it’s not always very clear as to where things go. For instant, arranging the leaves and stems proved a bit of a challenge. Ultimately though, this is one of the few sets that doesn’t matter if it doesn’t exactly match the picture on the box; you could say that having the odd leaf or flower out of place makes it more unique.

Lego Icons Orchid review: Design

• Some innovative design methods used here
• Fantastic display piece

If you’re an ardent Lego fan you’ll get a kick out of some of Lego Orchid’s more unique building techniques. Reprinted Demogorgon minifigure heads from the Stranger Things’ The Upside Down set have been used for smaller blooms, and for the larger petals, a mixture of shields from Nexo Knights and big fig shoulder pads have been used. It may sound quirky, but it works to great effect.

It only takes one glance to see how fantastic the orchid itself: the white petals truly pop against the dark green stems and leaves. But the plant pot deserves some love too. It may have been repetitive to build, but it looks great, and the uncommon slate blue color complements the plant wonderfully. There’s even a mulch effect achieved by sprinkling loose brown Lego bricks in the pot!

Should you buy Lego Icons Orchid?

The target market of the Lego Icons Orchid seems to be adults who are perhaps new to Lego. This is very much designed to be a long-lasting display piece – an item to proudly display in your home that isn’t too childlike or doesn’t scream ‘I PLAY WITH LEGO BRICKS’ to everyone who enters your home.

Not that we have any objection to that, with our own home littered with Lego models of all shapes and sizes. But this perhaps makes a great entry point; it’s not a complex build by any means, and it’s reasonably priced. If you’re a plant lover, it’ll complement any display of real flowers in your home. And, if you fancy something slightly different to build, we’re certain you won’t be disappointed.

Other Lego sets to consider

Lego’s Botanicals Collection is going strong, so if you enjoy building the Orchid, there’s a good chance you’ll love giving life to other brick-built plants too. And with the exception of the Lego Icons Bird of Paradise ($99.99/£89.99) they’re all the same, very reasonable, price of $49.99.

The Lego Icons Flower Bouquet is simply beautiful, with its colorful array of single-stemmed flowers, but you will need your own vase to display them. You can pick it up for $59.99/£54.99.

Also, the new Lego Icons Succulents – an arrangement of cacti – makes a gorgeous display piece at $49.99/£44.99. Plant lovers have truly been spoilt and we can’t wait to see what Lego bring out next.

While not technically what you'd call STEM toys, building Lego sets can help children learn many of the same skills they would pick up with STEM kits, teaching them to follow blueprints and instructions, and giving them an understanding of how objects go together. This is especially true of the more advanced Lego technic kits, like the Lego Technic All-Terrain Vehicle we're looking at today.

There’s a lot of bells and whistles to enjoy on the Lego Technic All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV), with its intricate cog mechanisms that offer up working steering, a nifty suspension system, a winch, and a tilting cargo bed. It’s those elements that ultimately draw us towards Lego Technic models: more complex than standard Lego, their mechanisms set them apart and draw in a slightly different target audience.

As such, just because you enjoy building Lego doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll enjoy putting together a Technic model. If you’ve built a Lego Creator Expert vehicle, you might be familiar with some Technic elements, as these often have working steering elements. But Technic-branded models take things to the next level, dropping design features for functionality. You get more bang for your buck in terms of build time, sure, but often you’re left with a model that is not going to look as pretty on your shelf.

That describes the Lego Technic All-Terrain Vehicle to a T. It’s a deeply involved build, testing even the most patient of Lego builders, taking a good four hours to complete – not bad for an $90 set. However, you’re probably not going to want to put the finished model on your mantelpiece. Which begs the question: is this really worth spending $90 on?

Check out our best Lego sets guide to see what other science-themed sets are out there for adult builders. And if you're looking for educational and fun toys for your kids, check out our guides to the best science kits for kids and the best microscopes for kids too.

Lego Technic All-Terrain Vehicle review: Build

• Some frustrating sections due to unclear instructions
• Overall a challenging and enjoyable build

In true Lego Technic style, you won’t be able to see your All-Terrain Vehicle begin to take shape until the last few stages of the build. Indeed, until at least the half-way point you have nothing but a mass of cogs and sticks. It’s an impressive mechanism (provided everything is in the right place) and it’ll make sense once the wheels and the chassis of the vehicle are in place, but there’s not much reward as you go.

Ensuring every piece is in the right place isn’t always so easy, because the instructions of the All-Terrain Vehicle don’t always do a great job of showing you where a piece should go. On models like this – with sections often being a jumble of small, similar-looking pieces and mostly gray and black – it would be handy to fade out everything on the page other than the pieces you’re placing. But that’s wishful thinking. Get ready to scour each page of your instruction booklet for a minute or two every time while you try to fathom where that next piece should connect.

The Lego Technic All-Terrain Vehicle’s pieces are split into three sets of numbered bags, with a fourth, unnumbered bag for the wheels. Unlike a typical Lego model, you’ll not feel much sense of accomplishment as you move from, say, bag one to bag two, as you won’t have built any discernible features. You’ll have to persevere before you see anything take shape, which can be frustrating.

There are clever mechanisms here, though, which do pay off right away. The springy suspension is great, the steering works well, and four rear wheels all turn in unison. There’s also a cargo bay at the back that lifts upwards as you push down a lever. Getting them right is seriously satisfying – however, diagnosing a problem if not everything moves as it should can be a pain. But then, that’s true of any Lego Technic mechanism. Ultimately, this is a very technically competent set, and it’s these functions that undoubtedly drive the price of the set upwards.

Lego Technic All-Terrain Vehicle review: Design

• Not the best looking set
• Too many stickers

Nobody likes stickers on their Lego models, and so you’ll be disappointed to hear that the Lego Technic All-Terrain Vehicle has plenty of them. Orange and black stickers provide a detailed decal of the model, although, in our opinion. they don’t add a great deal to it. We applied them for the sake of this review, but leaving them off will likely offer up a cleaner aesthetic.

The color scheme of black, orange, and white is pleasant enough, but there’s not enough body work on show for it to really stand out. Thanks to the high suspension, a lot of the inner workings of the ATV are on show – and as impressive as the mechanics may be, they’re not all that sightly to look at. It’s just not a set we’d want to show off.

For that reason, it’s a bizarre choice that Lego has decided to add a few ancillary accessories to it. There are four logs, presumably to show off in the vehicle’s cargo bay, alongside a slightly oversized chainsaw (emblazoned with a sticker that reads “CHAINSAW,” just in case you couldn’t tell what it was). They’re not the worst additions we’ve seen in a set, but still feel mostly superfluous; a way to bump up the set’s piece count and price tag, essentially.

Should you buy the Lego Technic All-Terrain Vehicle?

The All-Terrain Vehicle isn’t a bad Lego Technic set, but it’s also not one of the best. It’s in an awkward price range, neither really cheap nor really expensive. But it also means there are numerous Technic sets at a lower price point that we think offer much better value. That said, the functionality in the model does set it apart from some others, and as such it offers a slightly more challenging build than cheaper sets. 

So, if you value a challenge during the building process, you’ll likely enjoy putting together the Lego Technic All-Terrain Vehicle. But, if you want a set that you can also enjoy as a pleasant-looking display piece when you’re done, there are better sets to choose from. We can’t fully recommend this as a worthwhile Lego Technic set, so unless you’ve already exhausted most of what’s out there, you’re best off choosing something else.

Other Lego Technic sets to consider

In our opinion, there are some better Lego Technic sets available at a lower price point than the All-Terrain Vehicle. The $50 McLaren Senna GTR is a wonderful vehicle; it’s surprisingly large in scale and actually has more pieces than the ATV for $30 less. There’s also the Jeep Wrangler, offering similar functionality like a winch and working steering, again for just $50.

If money’s no object and you want a truly impressive Technic challenge, there’s the $450 Cat D-11 Bulldozer, complete with motorized functions that you can control via an app. Or, for something a little more showy, there’s the Ferrari Daytona SP3 retailing for $400.

It may not seem like a simple Mythbusters streaming guide would be the key to happiness, but test it out and you’ll see it is. In the market for a bit of learning? Explosions? A mustache envied by walruses the world ‘round? Mythbusters provided all that and more in a consistently entertaining package that was as driven by the genuine search for scientific fact as it was the goblin-inspired lust for chaos.

In case you’re unfamiliar, Mythbusters was a show hosted by special effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman that ran on the Discovery Channel from 2003-2016. In each episode, they’d take a myth, urban legend, or general question — something like “Do cats really always land on their feet?” — and attempt to determine its veracity through scientific testing.  

Part of the show’s appeal was how seriously the Mythbusters took the testing, often  going to elaborate lengths to recreate the events of the myth in question. The fact that those lengths typically involved explosions, robots, or both certainly didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t just for show. At the end of every episode, viewers could not only feel confident that the Mythbuster crew had done their best to attack the question from all angles but also have legitimate scientific learnings as a takeaway.

Given that it’s been off the air for years, it may not immediately be obvious how to watch Mythbusters should you have a hankering for boisterous science. Fear not, for everything you need is contained within this handy Mythbusters streaming guide.  

How to watch Mythbusters online?

The easiest answer to how to stream Mythbusters is to go direct to the original source, which in this case is the Discovery Channel; you can stream Mythbusters on either Discovery+ or Discovery Go. If neither of those suit, US viewers can also find it on Fubo.tv, Google Play, iTunes, Amazon, or Vudu. Those of you in the UK will want to check out Pluto, Amazon, or  Amazon Freevee. 

From a strictly financial perspective, your best (by which we mean least expensive) option for devouring the entire Mythbusting oeuvre is going the Discovery Plus route. Google, Amazon, and Apple have all 19 seasons available, but you’ll have to buy them a la carte.

Need more alternatives? Certain Verizon plans quality for six free months of Discovery+ whether you’re a new or existing customer.

If you’re abroad and want to watch stuff blow up, you can simply use a VPN, which will allow you to access geo-restricted content by connecting you to a server based in your country. In other words, you can get all that US-based goodness without actually being in the US. Ah, technology. 

There are plenty of VPNs to choose from, but our current favorite is ExpressVPN.

What is Mythbusters?

Mythbusters is a science/entertainment show that aired on the Discovery Channel from 2003-2016 and was hosted by special effects masters Adam Savage and Jaimie Hyneman. Each episode would test a particular myth or urban legend to determine if it was true (“Confirmed”), false (“Busted”), or indeterminate (“Plausible”). Though they tested a wide range of subject matter over the show’s duration, the Mythbusters did place some restrictions on what they were willing to explore. Nothing that would put people or animals at risk was allowed, conspiracy theories like the JFK assassination were shunned, and so-called “oogie-boogie” myths — things from the paranormal end of the spectrum — were also typically given a miss. 

What made the show such compelling viewing was the rigor with which the Mythbusters would test each episode’s myths: Typically, they would first attempt to replicate the myth itself and if that didn’t work, they’d try to recreate the outcome of the myth. The fact that said testing almost always involved the construction of a Rube Goldberg-esque contraption, explosive device, robot, or other kind of barely-contained mechanical chaos just made the science that much more fun to watch.   

The show typically took place at Hyneman’s special effects company, M5 Industries, where the team would assemble the contraptions that were necessary to safely test the myths. Several M5 staff members would eventually become the “Build Team”, a secondary set of mythbusters testing their own theories in each episode.   

Each episode typically covered two myths, but sometimes grouped a bunch of experiments around a certain theme. One episode was dedicated to prison break experiments, for example, while another dealt with legends about pirates. And of course no show airing on the Discovery Channel was going to miss an opportunity to do something for Shark Week. 

Mythbusters cast

The main hosts of Mythbusters were Jaime Hyneman and Adam Savage. The beret-bedecked Hyneman was the stoic voice of reason while Savage embodied the frantic energy of a child hopped up on sugary cereal. Together, they brought decades’ worth of experience from working on major motion pictures to the show, which not only gave them lots of fodder for myths — some of the shows’ best experiments came from trying to replicate high-octane action sequences — but also the ability to perform the testing safely. And when they didn’t feel like they were up to the task of doing something safely, they brought in an expert who was. 

The first Build Team was Tory Belleci, Kary Byron, and Scottie Chapman, all of whom worked at M5. When Scottie left, robot specialist Grant Imahara, known for his work on BattleBots, joined the team and swiftly became an audience favorite. Both the main hosts and the Build Team regularly consulted with experts to add a bit of background flavor or context for the myth being tested: They might chat with a cryptologist to provide some history about Bigfoot or the Jersey Devil, for example. 

The best Mythbusters myths?

Asking someone to choose the best Mythbusters myth is like asking them to choose the best Jurassic Park movie. There are a few that are suitable correct answers, and anyone not choosing one of those clearly can’t be trusted. There’s room for personal taste, of course, but anyone’s list of favorites should include at least one of these:  

Cement Truck Mix-Up: It’s a simple premise inspired by a real-life conundrum. Can you get hardened cement out of a cement mixer using dynamite? The Mythbusters quickly discover the answer is a resounding yes. The swift and definitive result inspires them to keep upping the amount of cement and explosive until they finally get the result they were really looking for all along: the biggest boom they’d ever done. 

Compact Compact Rocket Sled: What would happen if an unlucky compact car found itself sandwiched between two 18-wheelers colliding head-on? That’s what the team attempts to discover when they use a rocket sled going 700 mph to simulate the force of the accident. Gobsmacking physics ensue. 

Rocket Car: This myth, about whether or not you could make a Chevy Impala fly by strapping a rocket to it, hits all the best Mythbuster boxes. Rockets? Check. Remote control? Check. Absurd speed? Check and check. The team actually tried this team twice, with the second attempt edging out the first when it comes to sheer spectacle. Also, really, really don’t ever try this at home. Really. 

Lego Ball: Look, not every great experiment has to result in an explosion. Checking the accuracy of a YouTube video, the ‘Busters assemble a massive ball made from one million Lego bricks. How much damage will it do as it rolls down a hill? You already know the answer, but watching it happen in real time is immensely satisfying. 

Sinking Car: Some Mythbusters episodes are less about creating a spectacle and more about being genuinely helpful. Sometimes it was good for a laugh, like watching the Build Team testing hot pepper remedies, but other times touched on more serious scenarios, like in this episode that covered a series of myths all around escaping a sinking car. Knowing what to do — and what not to — should you ever find yourself in a rapidly submerging vehicle may very well save your life. 

Lead Balloon: We’ve all heard of something going down like a lead balloon, but is it possible to make something like that actually rise? Adam Savage has said this was his favorite build on the show, and while it’s not as flashy as a rocket car, it’s easy to see why he’s proud of it. 

Our Jurassic Park streaming guide has everything you need to sit down and watch through the entire franchise, including Jurassic World: Dominion.

The sixth installment in the long-running saga, Jurassic World: Dominion, finally delivers on the promise of prehistoric creatures and humans co-existing in a modern world where genetic power has been unleashed. But getting to this point has taken nearly three decades; Steven Spielberg and Michael Crichton kicked off the dino-mania with 1993’s Jurassic Park, and then a barrage of sequels quickly followed. However, there’s a sizable gap between Jurassic Park III (2001) and Jurassic World (2015), as the franchise needed a reinvention of sorts to avoid extinction.

Getting through six movies – plus one TV show if you’re a completionist – might take you some time, so our Jurassic Park/World streaming guide aims to at least make your trip to the nearest online movie or TV service as easy and painless as possible. Frantically looking for the right streamer or VOD platform can be tiring, but we’ve got you covered, whether you’re in the U.S. or in the U.K.

Thankfully, Jurassic Park/World is a rather popular movie saga, and the animated TV series Camp Cretaceous is distributed by Netflix worldwide, so you won’t have to dig up any dinosaur bones to find the rip-roaring fun you seek. With options abound, we’ll walk you through them all one by one.

Find the biggest TV you can, turn up the volume, and let prehistoric life find a way into your living room with this handy guide. If you just want to watch the good Jurassic movies, check out our guide to the Jurassic Park movies, ranked to see which ones ruled the Earth, and which were great big piles of coprolite.

Jurassic Park streaming: How to watch Jurassic Park movies online in the U.S.

This section contains an overview of the best places to watch the Jurassic Park/World movies, which are the bulk of the franchise right now, in the U.S. After Jurassic World: Dominion barged into theaters worldwide during June 2022, the current saga is now complete. That means there’s a clear story arc that starts with Jurassic Park and ends with Jurassic World: Dominion, despite some ups and downs.

The Jurassic Park/World franchise is owned by Universal, and that means NBCUniversal’s Peacock platform, which is slowly rolling out worldwide, will eventually be the home of the entirety of one of the company’s signature IPs. For now, however, the movies can be found on plenty of different platforms and services, so read on below to find stream, rent, and buy options.

Jurassic Park

• U.S. streaming: HBO Max, DIRECTV, Spectrum On Demand
• U.S. to rent: Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Store, Redbox, DIRECTV, FlixFling, AMC On Demand, Alamo on Demand
• U.S. to buy: Spectrum on Demand, AMC on Demand, DIRECTV, Redbox, Alamo on Demand, Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Store

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

• U.S. streaming: HBO Max, HBO Now, DIRECTV, Spectrum on Demand
• U.S. to rent: Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Microsoft Store, Redbox, DIRECTV, AMC on Demand
• U.S. to buy: Microsoft Store, Vudu, YouTube, Spectrum on Demand, AMC on Demand, DIRECTV, Redbox, Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies

Jurassic Park III

• U.S. streaming: HBO Max, HBO Now, DIRECTV, Spectrum on Demand
• U.S. to rent: Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Microsoft Store, Redbox, DIRECTV, AMC on Demand
• U.S. to buy: Spectrum on Demand, AMC on Demand, DIRECTV, Redbox, Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Store

Jurassic World

• U.S. streaming: fuboTV, DIRECTV
• U.S. to rent: Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Store, Redbox, DIRECTV, AMC on Demand
• U.S. to buy: Spectrum on Demand, AMC on Demand, DIRECTV, Redbox, Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Store

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

• U.S. streaming: fuboTV
• U.S. to rent: Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Store, Redbox, DIRECTV, FlixFling, AMC on Demand
• U.S. to buy: AMC on Demand, DIRECTV, Redbox, Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Store

Jurassic World Dominion

• U.S. streaming: Peacock on October 7, 2022
• U.S. to rent: Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Store, Redbox, DIRECTV, AMC on Demand, Spectrum on Demand
• U.S. to buy: Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Microsoft Store, DIRECTV, AMC on Demand

Jurassic Park streaming: How to watch Jurassic Park movies online in the U.K.

This section contains an overview of the best places to watch the Jurassic Park/World movies in the U.K. Much like in the States, the franchise will eventually hit Peacock for streaming since it’s NBCUniversal’s shiny new platform. But for now, all the movies – minus Jurassic World: Dominion – can be found across many platforms and services in this territory as well. So, whether you’re looking to steam, rent, or buy, this guide has you covered.

Jurassic Park

• U.K. streaming: Sky Go, Now TV, Virgin TV Go
• U.K. to rent: Amazon Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Rakuten TV, Sky Store
• U.K. to buy: Amazon Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Sky Store, YouTube, Rakuten TV, Chili, Microsoft Store

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

• U.K. streaming: Sky Go, Now TV, Virgin TV Go
• U.K. to rent: Chili, Rakuten TV, Amazon Video, Sky Store
• U.K. to buy: Amazon Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Sky Store, YouTube, Rakuten TV, Chili, Microsoft Store

Jurassic Park III

• U.K. streaming: Sky Go, Now TV, Virgin TV Go
• U.K. to rent: Chili, Rakuten TV, Amazon Video, Sky Store
• U.K. to buy: Amazon Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Sky Store, YouTube, Rakuten TV, Chili, Microsoft Store

Jurassic World

• U.K. streaming: Sky Go, Now TV, Virgin TV Go
• U.K. to rent: Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, Chili, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Rakuten TV, Apple TV, Sky Store
• U.K. to buy: Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, Chili, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Rakuten TV, Apple TV, Sky Store

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

• U.K. streaming: Virgin TV Go
• U.K. to rent: Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, Chili, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Apple TV, Sky Store
• U.K. to buy: Rakuten TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, Chili, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Apple TV, Sky Store

Jurassic World Dominion

• U.K. streaming: Virgin TV Go
• U.K. to rent: Amazon Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Sky Store, Chili, Microsoft Store, YouTube
• U.K. to buy: N/A

Jurassic Park streaming: How to watch Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous follows a group of teenagers that win an exclusive trip to Jurassic World’s exclusive “dino camp” before all hell breaks loose. While a good chunk of the show runs in parallel to the first Jurassic World movie and the beginning of its sequel, Camp Cretaceous stands on its own as a remarkable animated spinoff – for all ages – with plenty of heart, thrills, and twists.

As we mentioned before, the first animated series of the Jurassic World franchise is available on Netflix worldwide. The famous movie/TV service struck a deal with production companies Universal Pictures, DreamWorks Animation, and Amblin Entertainment to handle both domestic and international distribution through streaming.

However, some platforms have recently started selling the first three seasons (out of five total) in both the U.S. and the U.K. For now, the fourth and fifth seasons are exclusive to Netflix though.

• U.S. to buy: Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, Vudu
• U.K. to buy: Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, Microsoft Store, Sky Store

Cue the "Jaws" music and stay out of the water, as we're about to run down the best shark movies of all time.

Since "Jaws" first appeared on movie screens back in 1975, audiences have been captivated by sharks. Since then, we've seen a whole shiver of shark movies from intense thrillers and pulpy horror flicks, to ridiculous monster movies featuring the massive (and mercifully extinct) Megalodon.

Sharks often get a bad rap in movies, being cast as malicious villains and human-eating predators and while fatal encounters between sharks and humans do occur, they're extremely rare. In 2021, there were only 73 unprovoked shark bites recorded worldwide, of which nine were fatal. Still, that natural fear of the unknown and hidden predators lurking under the surface does make for an extremely effective movie villain.

There are some lighter, more family-friendly portrayals of sharks out there too, if you or your kids love these majestic creatures but don't want to sit through 90 minutes of terror. Animated classics such as "Finding Nemo" and "Shark Tale" both have a little more fun with these beautiful creatures.

To celebrate Discovery Channel's Shark Week, which runs from July 24 to July 30 this year, Live Science writers have put together our list of the best shark movies. These aren't necessarily the most scientifically accurate portrayals of our finned friends — in fact, some of them are downright ridiculous — but they're extremely entertaining. 

Check back here at Live Science throughout Shark Week for stories about the latest shark science, and you can visit Discovery Channel and Discovery+ to see their complete line up of Shark Week programming or view our Shark Week streaming guide.

Oh, and spoiler warning for the movies mentioned below!

6. Deep Blue Sea

• Release date: July 28, 1999
• Cast: Thomas Jane, Saffron Burrows, Samuel L. Jackson

Genetically-engineered super sharks you say? Count me in. 1999's Deep Blue Sea takes us to an underwater marine biology lab that has been performing experiments on mako sharks to increase their intelligence. And oh no, look at that, the super sharks have escaped, who could have predicted this?

Our heroes have to battle their way through the facility as they're hunted down by the brainy sharks. We see a pack of sharks that put the raptors in Jurassic Park to shame as they swim backward, recognize guns, and use a guy on a gurney as a battering ram to smash a window (no, we're not joking). 

We also get to see one of the best death scenes in all of cinema as Samuel L. Jackson's character gives a heroic rallying speech, only for a shark to jump out of the water and eat him. Oh, and LL Cool J teaches us how to make the perfect omelet. Seriously, this movie has it all.

Even without the genetic alterations we see in Deep Blue Sea, mako sharks are impressive and majestic creatures. Considered to be the fastest sharks in the ocean, shortfin mako's can reach speeds of up to 46 mph for short bursts.

Chosen by Ian Stokes, Tech & Entertainment Editor

• Watch Deep Blue Sea on HBO Max

5. The Meg

• Release date: August 10, 2018
• Cast: Jason Statham, Bingbing Li, Rainn Wilson

What could be more terrifying than climbing into a claustrophobic submersible and diving to the deepest, darkest part of the sea? Unexpectedly discovering that there's something lurking in the depths that is very big, very scary, and definitely not happy to see you (or maybe it's a little too happy to see you, because you look absolutely delicious). 

In the special-effects juggernaut "The Meg," a team of scientists finds that the massive megalodon — the largest shark species that ever lived, and which went extinct millions of years ago — isn't extinct after all. The ocean's a big place and humans can't visit most of it, so it's not that hard to imagine that even 75-foot-long (23-meter) sharks could lurk thousands of feet below the surface, as they do in the movie. That body size, while impressive, is a slight exaggeration; in real life, megalodon grew to be about 60 feet (18 m) long (by comparison, great white sharks usually reach lengths no greater than 21 feet, or 6 meters).

Megalodon teeth disappeared from the fossil record about 2.6 million years ago, which tells scientists that the enormous sharks that once shed those teeth are no more. But it's still fun to see a spectacular and realistically animated CGI version of what could happen if a couple of megalodons had managed to survive to the present day.

Chosen by Mindy Weisberger, Channel Editor

• Watch The Meg on DIRECTV

4. Shark Tale

• Release date: October 1, 2004
• Cast: Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Renée Zellweger

Set in an underwater metropolis called Southside Reef, Shark Tale (2004) tells the story of an unlikely pair of friends: Oscar, a puny reef fish who dreams of ascending the city's social ladder, and Lenny, a great white shark who happens to be the son of a prolific mob boss. 

Leonard "Lenny" Lino breaks the mold of a typical, scientifically accurate great white shark in that he's a vegetarian who eats kelp and sea grasses instead of fish, seals, sea lions, or dolphins. Lenny's chosen diet more closely resembles that of a bonnethead shark than that of a great white, since bonnetheads consume copious amounts of seagrass in addition to crabs, shrimp, and fish.

Lenny's father, Don Lino, disapproves of his son's lifestyle and pushes him to hunt and kill fish so that he and his brother, Frankie, might someday take over the "family business."

But after Frankie dies in a tragic anchor-related accident, Lenny flees home to hide out with Oscar the fish. The two then devise a convoluted scheme that moves Oscar to the "top of the reef" and keeps Lenny out of sight of his meat-eating, mob boss father. Naturally, the scheme quickly gets out of hand and chaos ensues — and the star-studded cast makes a million Godfather and Jaws references along the way.

Chosen by Nicoletta Lanese, Staff Writer

• Watch Shark Tale on Peacock (U.S.) or Virgin TV Go (U.K.)

3. Open Water

• Release date: August 20, 2004
• Cast: Blanchard Ryan, Daniel Travis, Saul Stein

Scuba diving in The Bahamas was supposed to be a relaxing excursion for Susan Watkins and Daniel Kintner, but their time in the water quickly goes from relaxing to horrific when they resurface only to discover that their tour boat has left them behind after a miscount. With no means to make contact with the boat's captain, the couple finds themselves stranded in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean fighting for their lives against the blazing sun, dehydration, and a bloom of relentless jellyfish. But, just as things couldn't get any worse, a shiver of Caribbean reef sharks begins circling beneath them, ready for their next meal. 

Measuring nearly 10-feet in length, reef sharks look eerily similar to great white. Yet, unlike their more aggressive counterparts, they try to avoid human encounters. However, once provoked or threatened, they've been known to lash out in a "threat display" where they'll swim back and forth in a rapid-fire motion as a warning sign, which is exactly what they do in the film.

Based on true events, Open Water (2003) is about as close to reality as a Hollywood shark film can get — the actors wore chainmail as protection during filming — and will make even the bravest of swimmers think twice before dipping their toes into the ocean's murky depths.

Chosen by Jennifer Nalewicki, Staff Writer

• Watch Open Water on Amazon Prime

2. Finding Nemo

• Release date: May 30, 2003
• Cast: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould

This Pixar classic follows Marlin (confusingly, a clownfish) who is joined by Dory, a regal blue tang, in the search for his lost son, Nemo. Almost immediately, the duo meet Bruce, a great white shark, and his two shark pals, Anchor and Chum.

Despite flashing their pointy teeth, the sharks don't plan to gulp down Marlin and Dory (at least not initially). The sharks are practicing their pledge: "Fish are friends, not food," which apparently doesn't hold any water, because a drop of Dory's blood prompts Bruce to forget about his fish-free diet goals.

We commend the artists behind "Finding Nemo," as Bruce was accurately depicted with serrations in his knife-like teeth. The great white shark even has multiple rows of teeth on his bottom jaw (although these rows are missing from the top of his jaw — whoops!). 

And we know animals often get anthropomorphized, but who gave Bruce such a human-looking tongue? While sharks do have tongues (scientifically called a basihyal), they're actually made out of cartilage, not muscle, meaning that sharks can't move their "tongues" like humans can, according to the International Wildlife Museum in Tuscan, Arizona.

However, Bruce's social nature with the other sharks does have scientific backing, sort of. Great white sharks swimming near Guadalupe Island, off the western coast of Mexico, have been spotted swimming in social clubs, often patrolling for food with close buddies or in same-sex pairs, Live Science previously reported.

Chosen by Laura Geggel, Channel Editor

• Watch Finding Nemo on Disney+

1. Jaws

• Release date: June 20, 1975
• Cast: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss

The great white granddaddy himself. Spielberg's 1975 masterpiece staked out an entire genre of monster films and ruined outdoor swimming for generations. 

Jaws is a lot more than just a shark film. Sure, the short of it is that it's about a great white shark that's really gotten into eating people. The long, however, is of a small town, pressed by economic necessity, that is forced to keep its beach open for tourist income despite warnings from scientists of mounting danger — followed by the heroic effort of three men to hunt and kill the beast. 

Consider all that in light of the Covid pandemic and you'll see why the film has gained some rewatchability. But above its analysis of why institutions fail; where the personal and political intersect; and the chilling elemental wrath of nature, the real red meat of the film is in its deft treatment of its characters. It takes a good amount of time building up our sympathies for them before sending them out on a leaky boat to hunt a giant man-eater, making the film the most compelling study of shark fear this side of getting eaten by one. 

Perhaps the greatest element of the movie is that the mechanical shark designed for it never actually worked when Spielberg needed it to. This forced him to keep the titular finned fiend's appearances down to an absolute minimum, a decision that actually made the shark's evil presence feel ubiquitous. Jaws lurks ceaselessly throughout the film's Hitchcockian thrills — plucking up tension in the subtle tugs of fishing lines, the impassive shark's-eye glides of the underwater cameras, and the accelerating heartbeat of John Williams's stomach-knotting score. 

Sadly, what the film did for cinema, it certainly didn't do for sharks — at least when it comes to their public image. The flick caused a massive shift in our perception of the mostly shy and reclusive animals, transforming them from largely understudied, liminal creatures to internationally reviled, vengeful killing machines. This fed into an uptick in hunting and killing of sharks by humans; partly fuelling a crash in populations in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean by 89% in hammerhead sharks, 79% in great white sharks, and 65% in tiger sharks in the years since the film's release.

Maybe it's the sharks' turn to make a movie about us?

Chosen by Ben Turner, Staff Writer

• Watch Jaws on Tubi TV and Spectrum on Demand

Conservators at the National Galleries of Scotland recently experienced quite a surprise after they X-rayed a painting by Vincent van Gogh. Hidden on the reverse side of the painting "Head of a Peasant Woman," which Van Gogh completed in 1885, was a previously unknown self-portrait of the Dutch painter staring back at them.

The hidden self-portrait had been obscured by layers of glue and cardboard that had been attached to the back of the canvas; museum officials suspect the materials were applied sometime during the early 20th century to help protect the artwork for an upcoming exhibition, National Galleries representatives said in a statement.

"It was absolutely thrilling," Lesley Stevenson, the museum's senior paintings conservator, told The Guardian about the discovery. "We weren't expecting much [of the] modest little painting" when they performed the scans, she said. But museum experts quickly revised their expectations when they looked at the X-rays. "We don't see much of the peasant woman, but what we have is the lead white, the much heavier pigment [Van Gogh] used for his face, showing up after the X-ray goes through the cardboard."

Related: Hidden artwork found beneath Picasso 'Blue Period' masterpiece

Van Gogh painted "Head of a Peasant Woman" as part of a series of works focused on the working-class residents of Nuenen, a small farming community in the southern portion of the Netherlands where he lived briefly in the 1880s. The woman in the painting is Gordina de Groot, a farm worker. She wears a flowing white headpiece, and her face is partially obscured by shadows.

In a letter that Van Gogh penned about the series in 1885 to Anton Kerssemakers, a friend and fellow artist, he described his fascination with his working-class subjects. "I'm working with almighty pleasure these days, for I would much rather paint figures than anything else," he wrote. "The heads of these women here with the white caps — it's difficult — but it's so eternally beautiful. It's precisely the chiaroscuro — the white and the part of the face in shadow, that has such a fine tone."

Van Gogh was also fond of creating self-portraits, producing about 20 paintings of himself toward the end of his lifetime while he was living in Paris, The Washington Post reported. Recreating his own image was a thrifty way for him to practice portraiture without spending money to hire models, according to The Washington Post.

Art historians at the National Galleries hope that the hidden self-portrait may offer insights into the life of the troubled Van Gogh, who took his life with a revolver at the age of 37. The museum is currently investigating how to best remove the unwanted layers of protective materials without harming the painting.

The painting and an image of the self-portrait will be on display later this summer as part of the museum's upcoming A Taste for Impressionism exhibition, which runs from July 30 through Nov. 13.

Originally published on Live Science.

In 1986, the band "The Bangles" sang about "all the old paintings on the tombs" where the figures they depict are "walking like an Egyptian." Though he was neither an art historian nor an Egyptologist, songwriter Liam Sternberg was referring to one of the most striking features of ancient Egyptian visual art — the depiction of people, animals and objects on a flat, two-dimensional plane. Why did the ancient Egyptians do this? And is ancient Egypt the only culture to create art in this style?

Drawing any object in three dimensions requires a specific viewpoint to create the illusion of perspective on a flat surface. Drawing an object in two dimensions (height and breadth) requires the artist to depict just one surface of that object. And highlighting just one surface, it turns out, has its advantages.

"In pictorial representation, the outline carries the most information," John Baines, professor emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Oxford in the U.K. told Live Science. "It's easier to understand something if it is defined by an outline." 

Related: What did ancient Egypt's pharaohs stash inside the pyramids?

When drawing on a flat surface, the outline becomes the most important feature, even though many Egyptian drawings and paintings include details from several sides of the object. "There is also a great focus on clarity and comprehensibility," Baines said.

In many artistic traditions, "size equals importance," according to Baines. In wall art, royalty and tomb owners are often depicted much larger than the objects surrounding them. If an artist were to use a three-dimensional perspective to render human proportions in a realistic scene with a foreground and background, it would go against this principle.

The other reason for depicting many objects on a flat, two-dimensional plane is that it aids the creation of a visual narrative. 

"One only has to think of [a] comic strip as a parallel," Baines said. There are widely accepted principles that organize how ancient Egyptian visual art was created and interpreted. "In origin, writing was in vertical columns and pictures were horizontal," Baines said. The hieroglyphic captions "give you information that is not so easily put in a picture." More often, these scenes don't represent actual events "but a generalized and idealized representation of life." 

However, not all pictorial representation in ancient Egypt was purely two-dimensional. According to Baines, "Most pictorial art was placed in an architectural setting." Some compositions on the walls of tombs included relief modeling, also known as bas relief, in which a mostly flat sculpture is carved into a wall or mounted onto a wall. In the tomb of Akhethotep, a royal official who lived during the Fifth Dynasty around 2400 B.C., we can see two scribes (shown below) whose bodies are sculpted into the flat surface of the wall. As Baines explained, the "relief also models the body surface so you can't say that it's a flat outline" because "they have texturing and surface detail in addition to their outlines." 

In many examples dating as far back as 2700 B.C. in the Early Dynastic Period, artists painted on top of a relief to add even more detail, as seen in the image of the two scribes below.

Egyptian visual art used "more or less universal human approaches to representation on a flat surface," Baines said. 

"It [Egyptian art] influenced art in the ancient Near East," such as ancient Syrian (or Levantine) and Mesopotamian art, Baines said. The same conventions can be seen in many other ancient traditions of art. Maya art also uses pictorial scenes and hieroglyphic script. Although classical Greek and Roman art is an exception, there are even examples of similar artistic conventions for two-dimensional drawing and painting from medieval Europe. As Baines explained, "It's a system that works very well and so there's no need to change it." 

Originally published on Live Science.

'Star Trek' actor William Shatner says he is ready to get to space for real.

A new video from Blue Origin follows the 90-year-old's thoughts as he gets ready for a suborbital venture to space, expected to take place no earlier than Wednesday (Oct. 13). The video also sounds like Shatner isn't as "terrified" as he acknowledged he was feeling about the upcoming flight, a few days ago.

"I'm going up to space; I don't know how many people can say that," Shatner said  in opening the video. (He is expected to be the oldest person to fly, after Mercury 13 aviator Wally Funk broke the record on another Blue Origin flight in July, at age 82.)

You can watch the launch live here and on the Space.com homepage, courtesy of Blue Origin, or directly via the company's YouTube. The webcast will begin at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT).

Live Updates: William Shatner's Blue Origin launch on New Shepard
Related: Star Trek movies, ranked worst to best

The real-life number of people who have been to space stands at less than 600, the vast majority of them being professional agency astronauts. But Shatner represents part of a small, yet growing population of non-professional spaceflyers, most of whom paid lots of money for the opportunity. 

Blue Origin hasn't yet disclosed how much one of its New Shepard flight seats go for, but it's likely quite a bit given that competitor Virgin Galactic just reopened its own manifest for $450,000 per person.

Shatner said his 11-minute flight to the edge of space on Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft will be "life-changing, not because of the aerial adventure, but because of the people I'm meeting and talking to." He also acknowledged the number of people he has come across who are fascinated by his fictional counterpart, Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

"Star Trek" has been a notable influence on professional astronauts, with some having appeared on the show over the years. While the franchise the 1960s show engendered covers futuristic spaceflight largely centuries from the present day, Shatner himself said he is pleased to be a part of the start of what could be more space tourism, since Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin just started crewed flights this year.

"We're just at the beginning, and how miraculous the beginning is, and how extraordinary it is to be part of this beginning," Shatner said. He noted there is a "mystique" of space and that he will look forward to the view from his window.

"There is an adventure in my life I would not have had if I had not done this," Shatner says near the video's end. Joining him on that spaceflight will be Blue Origin's Audrey Powers, Planet Labs co-founder Chris Boshuizen, and Glen de Vries, co-founder of clinical research software platform Medidata Solutions (now Dassault Systèmes).

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.  

'Star Trek' actor William Shatner says he is ready to get to space for real.

A new video from Blue Origin follows the 90-year-old's thoughts as he gets ready for a suborbital venture to space, expected to take place no earlier than Wednesday (Oct. 13). The video also sounds like Shatner isn't as "terrified" as he acknowledged he was feeling about the upcoming flight, a few days ago.

"I'm going up to space; I don't know how many people can say that," Shatner said  in opening the video. (He is expected to be the oldest person to fly, after Mercury 13 aviator Wally Funk broke the record on another Blue Origin flight in July, at age 82.)

You can watch the launch live here and on the Space.com homepage, courtesy of Blue Origin, or directly via the company's YouTube. The webcast will begin at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT).

Live Updates: William Shatner's Blue Origin launch on New Shepard
Related: Star Trek movies, ranked worst to best

The real-life number of people who have been to space stands at less than 600, the vast majority of them being professional agency astronauts. But Shatner represents part of a small, yet growing population of non-professional spaceflyers, most of whom paid lots of money for the opportunity. 

Blue Origin hasn't yet disclosed how much one of its New Shepard flight seats go for, but it's likely quite a bit given that competitor Virgin Galactic just reopened its own manifest for $450,000 per person.

Shatner said his 11-minute flight to the edge of space on Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft will be "life-changing, not because of the aerial adventure, but because of the people I'm meeting and talking to." He also acknowledged the number of people he has come across who are fascinated by his fictional counterpart, Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

"Star Trek" has been a notable influence on professional astronauts, with some having appeared on the show over the years. While the franchise the 1960s show engendered covers futuristic spaceflight largely centuries from the present day, Shatner himself said he is pleased to be a part of the start of what could be more space tourism, since Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin just started crewed flights this year.

"We're just at the beginning, and how miraculous the beginning is, and how extraordinary it is to be part of this beginning," Shatner said. He noted there is a "mystique" of space and that he will look forward to the view from his window.

"There is an adventure in my life I would not have had if I had not done this," Shatner says near the video's end. Joining him on that spaceflight will be Blue Origin's Audrey Powers, Planet Labs co-founder Chris Boshuizen, and Glen de Vries, co-founder of clinical research software platform Medidata Solutions (now Dassault Systèmes).

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.  

'Star Trek' actor William Shatner says he is ready to get to space for real.

A new video from Blue Origin follows the 90-year-old's thoughts as he gets ready for a suborbital venture to space, expected to take place no earlier than Wednesday (Oct. 13). The video also sounds like Shatner isn't as "terrified" as he acknowledged he was feeling about the upcoming flight, a few days ago.

"I'm going up to space; I don't know how many people can say that," Shatner said  in opening the video. (He is expected to be the oldest person to fly, after Mercury 13 aviator Wally Funk broke the record on another Blue Origin flight in July, at age 82.)

You can watch the launch live here and on the Space.com homepage, courtesy of Blue Origin, or directly via the company's YouTube. The webcast will begin at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT).

Live Updates: William Shatner's Blue Origin launch on New Shepard
Related: Star Trek movies, ranked worst to best

The real-life number of people who have been to space stands at less than 600, the vast majority of them being professional agency astronauts. But Shatner represents part of a small, yet growing population of non-professional spaceflyers, most of whom paid lots of money for the opportunity. 

Blue Origin hasn't yet disclosed how much one of its New Shepard flight seats go for, but it's likely quite a bit given that competitor Virgin Galactic just reopened its own manifest for $450,000 per person.

Shatner said his 11-minute flight to the edge of space on Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft will be "life-changing, not because of the aerial adventure, but because of the people I'm meeting and talking to." He also acknowledged the number of people he has come across who are fascinated by his fictional counterpart, Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

"Star Trek" has been a notable influence on professional astronauts, with some having appeared on the show over the years. While the franchise the 1960s show engendered covers futuristic spaceflight largely centuries from the present day, Shatner himself said he is pleased to be a part of the start of what could be more space tourism, since Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin just started crewed flights this year.

"We're just at the beginning, and how miraculous the beginning is, and how extraordinary it is to be part of this beginning," Shatner said. He noted there is a "mystique" of space and that he will look forward to the view from his window.

"There is an adventure in my life I would not have had if I had not done this," Shatner says near the video's end. Joining him on that spaceflight will be Blue Origin's Audrey Powers, Planet Labs co-founder Chris Boshuizen, and Glen de Vries, co-founder of clinical research software platform Medidata Solutions (now Dassault Systèmes).

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.  

'Star Trek' actor William Shatner says he is ready to get to space for real.

A new video from Blue Origin follows the 90-year-old's thoughts as he gets ready for a suborbital venture to space, expected to take place no earlier than Wednesday (Oct. 13). The video also sounds like Shatner isn't as "terrified" as he acknowledged he was feeling about the upcoming flight, a few days ago.

"I'm going up to space; I don't know how many people can say that," Shatner said  in opening the video. (He is expected to be the oldest person to fly, after Mercury 13 aviator Wally Funk broke the record on another Blue Origin flight in July, at age 82.)

You can watch the launch live here and on the Space.com homepage, courtesy of Blue Origin, or directly via the company's YouTube. The webcast will begin at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT).

Live Updates: William Shatner's Blue Origin launch on New Shepard
Related: Star Trek movies, ranked worst to best

The real-life number of people who have been to space stands at less than 600, the vast majority of them being professional agency astronauts. But Shatner represents part of a small, yet growing population of non-professional spaceflyers, most of whom paid lots of money for the opportunity. 

Blue Origin hasn't yet disclosed how much one of its New Shepard flight seats go for, but it's likely quite a bit given that competitor Virgin Galactic just reopened its own manifest for $450,000 per person.

Shatner said his 11-minute flight to the edge of space on Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft will be "life-changing, not because of the aerial adventure, but because of the people I'm meeting and talking to." He also acknowledged the number of people he has come across who are fascinated by his fictional counterpart, Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

"Star Trek" has been a notable influence on professional astronauts, with some having appeared on the show over the years. While the franchise the 1960s show engendered covers futuristic spaceflight largely centuries from the present day, Shatner himself said he is pleased to be a part of the start of what could be more space tourism, since Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin just started crewed flights this year.

"We're just at the beginning, and how miraculous the beginning is, and how extraordinary it is to be part of this beginning," Shatner said. He noted there is a "mystique" of space and that he will look forward to the view from his window.

"There is an adventure in my life I would not have had if I had not done this," Shatner says near the video's end. Joining him on that spaceflight will be Blue Origin's Audrey Powers, Planet Labs co-founder Chris Boshuizen, and Glen de Vries, co-founder of clinical research software platform Medidata Solutions (now Dassault Systèmes).

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.  

'Star Trek' actor William Shatner says he is ready to get to space for real.

A new video from Blue Origin follows the 90-year-old's thoughts as he gets ready for a suborbital venture to space, expected to take place no earlier than Wednesday (Oct. 13). The video also sounds like Shatner isn't as "terrified" as he acknowledged he was feeling about the upcoming flight, a few days ago.

"I'm going up to space; I don't know how many people can say that," Shatner said  in opening the video. (He is expected to be the oldest person to fly, after Mercury 13 aviator Wally Funk broke the record on another Blue Origin flight in July, at age 82.)

You can watch the launch live here and on the Space.com homepage, courtesy of Blue Origin, or directly via the company's YouTube. The webcast will begin at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT).

Live Updates: William Shatner's Blue Origin launch on New Shepard
Related: Star Trek movies, ranked worst to best

The real-life number of people who have been to space stands at less than 600, the vast majority of them being professional agency astronauts. But Shatner represents part of a small, yet growing population of non-professional spaceflyers, most of whom paid lots of money for the opportunity. 

Blue Origin hasn't yet disclosed how much one of its New Shepard flight seats go for, but it's likely quite a bit given that competitor Virgin Galactic just reopened its own manifest for $450,000 per person.

Shatner said his 11-minute flight to the edge of space on Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft will be "life-changing, not because of the aerial adventure, but because of the people I'm meeting and talking to." He also acknowledged the number of people he has come across who are fascinated by his fictional counterpart, Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

"Star Trek" has been a notable influence on professional astronauts, with some having appeared on the show over the years. While the franchise the 1960s show engendered covers futuristic spaceflight largely centuries from the present day, Shatner himself said he is pleased to be a part of the start of what could be more space tourism, since Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin just started crewed flights this year.

"We're just at the beginning, and how miraculous the beginning is, and how extraordinary it is to be part of this beginning," Shatner said. He noted there is a "mystique" of space and that he will look forward to the view from his window.

"There is an adventure in my life I would not have had if I had not done this," Shatner says near the video's end. Joining him on that spaceflight will be Blue Origin's Audrey Powers, Planet Labs co-founder Chris Boshuizen, and Glen de Vries, co-founder of clinical research software platform Medidata Solutions (now Dassault Systèmes).

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.  

The heavens look gorgeous through the lenses of expert astrophotographers. Nebulas, galaxies, the moon and sun, and even the stars take on an artistic glow when captured with the right eye, equipment and light. Here's a look at stunning astronomy images from the Royal Observatory Greenwich's Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. (Read more about the competition and its winners.)

The Golden Ring

The overall winner of the 13th annual Astronomy Photographer of the Year award is photographer Shuchang Dong of China, who took this unearthly shot of an annular solar eclipse from the Ali region of Tibet on June 21, 2020. The image also won in the "Our Sun" category of the competition.

The photograph is "moody, serene, perfectly captured and expertly processed. You feel as if you could reach into the sky and place this onto your finger," said contest judge Steve Marsh.

(Equipment used: Fujifilm XT-4 camera; Sun: 386 mm f/10 lens, ISO 160, 1/2000-second exposure; Moving cloud: ND1000 filter, 386 mm f/16 lens, ISO 160, 1-second exposure)

The Sun sharing its Crown with a Comet

Runner-up in the "Our Sun" category goes to a stunning image of an eclipse, which shows the tendrils of the sun's upper atmosphere (corona) as well as bright spots seen during eclipses called Bailey's Beads. Most surprising is comet C/2020 X3 (SOHO), swooping in from the far right side of the image. French photographer Vincent Bouchama caught this shot from Argentina. 

(Equipment used: William Optics ZenithStar 61II APO telescope, Williams Optics Flat 61 lens at f/5.9, Vixen GPD SkySensor 2000PC mount, Canon EOS 760D camera; Sky, sun and comet: ISO 200–800, 1/800–0.6-second exposures; Moon: ISO 200–800, 0.6-second exposures; Prominences and Baily's beads: ISO 200, 1/4000-second exposures)

Curtain of Hydrogen

A prominence of hydrogen dances off the sun in this image captured by American Alan Friedman from Buffalo, New York. This image took home a "highly commended" in the "Our Sun" category.

"This beautiful large prominence graced the limb of the Sun over several days and was recorded in good seeing conditions," Alan said in a statement. "Good seeing conditions here refer to the steadiness of the Earth's atmosphere rather than to cloudless skies. Only when the atmospheric turbulence is low can fine details and structures be seen with clarity."

(Equipment used: Astro-Physics 92 mm f/4.8 Stowaway refractor telescope working at 1.7 m focal length with Baader FFC, 90 mm Coronado Solarmax Ha filter, Astro-Physics 1200 mount, Grasshopper 2MP monochrome streaming camera, 1/1000-second exposure)

Polar Lights Dance

The Northern Lights dance over the approach to the Kara Strait in Russia in this image taken in a 25-second exposure by Russian photographer Dmitrii Rybalka that won the Astronomy Photographer of the Year "Aurorae" category. 

"I was keeping watch at night as Third Officer on the bridge of the ship, when I noticed in the sky a tiny white band approaching like a snake," Rybalka said in a statement. "I knew already, this is it, this is that I was waiting for. I took my camera, went to the bridge wing, took my position and started waiting, like a hunter waiting for its prey. A few minutes later, the sky was full of bright green lights dancing in darkness and shining over everything on their way."

(Equipment used: Sony ILCE-7M3 camera, 28 mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 100, 25-second exposure)

Proper Welcome for the Moon

Finnish photographer Thomas Kast caught the aurora in conjunction with the moonrise in Lapland. This image was the runner-up in the "Aurorae" category of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. 

"It was a quiet, calm night at this lake watching the moonrise when suddenly the aurora became very strong and started to dance quickly," Kast said. "Further out on the lake there was fog which gave the Moon a nice circle as well. The reflections were magical!"

Equipment used: Nikon D850 camera, 15 mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 400, 1.6-second exposure

Goðafoss Flow

The semifrozen Goðafoss waterfall in northern Iceland provides an icy counterpoint to the Northern Lights in this image, which took home a "highly commended" in the "Aurorae" category of this year's photography competition. Photographer Larryn Rae captured this image on a 14-degree Fahrenheit (minus 10 degrees Celsius) night when the full moon and the aurora flooded the landscape with light.

Equipment used: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV camera, 24 mm f/2.5 lens, ISO 2500, 16 x 2.5-second exposures

The Milky Ring

Taking the prize in the competition's "Galaxies" category is Chinese photographer Zhong Wu's "The Milky Ring." This image is a 360-degree image of the Milky Way stitched together with photos taken in China and New Zealand. 

Equipment used: Nikon D810a camera, 40 mm f/1.4 lens, ISO 8000, 1000 x 6-second exposures

The Nebulae of the Triangulum Galaxy

American Russell Croman took runner-up in the "Galaxies" competition with this sparkly spot of the heart of the Triangulum Galaxy, which he took from New Mexico. 

"In ideal circumstances, it is just possible to see this galaxy with the naked eye despite being more than two and a half million light years away." Russell said in a statement. "Most magnified images concentrate on the vibrancy and clarity of the billions of stars within. Here, we have something rather different, highlighting the delicate nebulosity of the galaxy. The planets forming around the new stars within those stellar nurseries may one day teem with life of their own."

Equipment used: Takahashi FSQ106 EDX4 530 mm telescope at f/5 and PlaneWave 14" CDK 2543 mm telescope at f/7.2, Chroma filters, Software Bisque Paramount MX+ and Paramount ME-II mounts, RB-SII-Ha-OIII composite, 49.5 hours total exposure 

A Smiley in Space

Recognized as "highly commended" by the Astronomy Photographer of the Year judges, this image seems to smile back at the viewer. An edge-on view of the galaxy NGC 1055 forms a wry smile, while stars in the Milky Way in the foreground seem to twinkle like eyes. The photographers are from France and Australia and captured this image from Chile. 

Equipment used: Planewave CDK 17" telescope at f/6.8, Astrodon filters, Software Bisque Paramount ME mount, SBIG STXL-11002 camera, L-RGB-Ha composite, 27.5 hours total exposure

Beyond the Limb

This shot that seems to come from an alien galaxy is the winner of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 13 "Our Moon" category. As the competition name suggests, it is in fact the surface of Earth's moon, with the crescent of Venus rising above its horizon. French photographer Nicolas Lefaudeux captured this image in daylight. 

Equipment used: Celestron C11 2800 mm telescope at f/10, iOptron iEQ30 mount, Basler ACA2500-14GC camera. Occultation: 1 x 2.5-millisecond exposures. Venus: 50 x 2.5-millisecond exposures. Moon: 200 x 15-millisecond exposures 

Lunar Halo

Taking the runner-up spot in the "Our Moon" category is Swedish photographer Goran Strand. Strand's image shows the light of the moon reflecting in suspended ice crystals above a snowy landscape in Östersund, Sweden. The tracks belong to a local rabbit. 

Equipment used: Nikon Z6 II camera, 14 mm f/5.6 lens, ISO 200, 6 x 15-second exposures

Iridum to Imbrium

The lunar landscape gets its due in this "highly commended" image in the "Our Moon" category. Australian photographer Stefan Buda increased the color saturation on this image to highlight the desolation of the moon's surface. 

Equipment used: Self-built Dall-Kirkham 405 mm telescope at f/16, self-built Alt-Azimuth fork mount, Astrodon RGB filters, ZWO ASI120MM camera, 9,000 x 0.0625-second exposures

Lockdown

The pandemic lockdown of early 2020 led to this image captured in Windsor in the United Kingdom. This image took home the winning prize in the "People and Space" category of this year's Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. 

Equipment used: Sony ILCE-6600 camera, 8 mm f/4 lens; Foreground: ISO 1600, 8-second exposure; Sky: ISO 1000, 844 x 30-second exposures

A Lonely Ship Under the Stars

The comet NEOWISE streaks across the sky above a ship passing through the Nieuwe Waterweg canal near Rotterdam. Photographer André van der Hoeven captured the blurred lights of the moving ship and the comet's long tail superimposed against a purple-blue sunset. The image won runner-up in the "People and Space" category. 

Equipment used: Tamron 24–70 mm telescope at f/2.8, Nikon D810a camera, ISO 800, 5-second exposure

Break of a New Day

German photographer Nicholas Roemmelt captured this shot in the snowy mountains of Tyrol, Austria, as astronomical dawn broke over his camping spot. The judges awarded this photograph a "highly commended" recognition in the "People and Space" category. 

"The beginning of the astronomical dawn usually marks the end of the shooting for the astro landscape photographer as the Milky Way and its wonderful colours are quickly fading. But this short period in between the night and the very beginning of the new day has always been a very special moment for me," Nicholas said. "It is probably the most calm time of the day and somehow 'soothes my soul.'"

Equipment used: Canon R(a) camera; Sky: 20 mm f/4 lens, MSM rotator, ISO 6400, 5 x 60-second exposures; Foreground: f/2.8 lens, ISO 2500, multiple 1/10–8-second exposures

A colourful quadrantid meteor

American photographer Frank Kuszaj wasn't planning to capture a meteor the night he took this photograph, which took him the top prize in the competition's "Planets, Comets and Asteroids" category. He and his friends were planning to photograph nebulae and distant galaxies. But a Quandrantid meteor zoomed by in a green flash, and Kuszaj just happened to be in the right place to capture it in blazing color. 

Equipment used: Sony a7R III camera, SkyWatcher Star Adventurer star tracker, 70 mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 3200, 1-minute exposure

Perseverance

The planet Mars gets all the focus in this runner-up image in the "Planets, Comets and Asteroids" category of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 13 competition. U.K. photographer Damian Peach named the photograph "Perseverance" both in honor of the Mars Rover of the same name and because it took more than 100 nights of observation to catch the perfect conditions for this photograph. 

3° from the Sun - The Horn Extensions of Venus

The atmosphere of Venus glows with residual light from the sun in this "highly commended" image in the "Planets, Comets and Asteroids" category. 

"This picture of Venus took my breath away. I was drawn to the contrast between darkness and light. The extended crescent resembles our Moon and yet is different, evoking a sense of familiarity and otherworldliness at the same time," said competition judge Imad Ahmed.

Luna Dunes

The dunes of Death Valley National Park echo the desolation of the moon in this winning shot in the "Skyscapes" category of the 2021 competition. U.S. photographer Jeffrey Lovelace hiked deep into the park's dunes to capture this shot just after sunset. 

Equipment used: Sony ILCE-7RM4 camera; Sand and sky: 70 mm f/8 lens, ISO 400, Sand: 30-second exposure, Sky: 1-second exposure; Moon: 200 mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 100, Moon face: 2.5-second exposure, Moon edge: 1/100-second exposure

Moon over Mount Etna South-East Crater

Mount Etna erupts in Sicily while the moon floats above it all in this runner-up shot in the "Skyscapes" category. 

"In February 2021, Etna showed intense volcanic activity spewing ash columns and lava fountains more than 500 metres high. These were mostly located near the new south-east crater which poured numerous lava flows into the Bove Valley," photographer Dario Giannobile said. "They were short in duration but accompanied by intense activity that fractured the structure of the crater from which the flows poured. On 25 February, Mount Etna again showed intense activity and I placed myself at the Piano Bello refuge, calculating the exact position so that the Moon would set near the crater, aligning itself just above."

Equipment used: Canon EOS 6D camera, Sigma 150–600 mm lens at 347 mm f/5.6; Foreground: ISO 800, 5-second exposure; Moon: ISO 100, 1/125-second exposure

Van Gogh's Sketchpad

An unreal skyscape appeared over Lugu Lake in Yunnan, China in early 2021, and photographer Jin Yang was there to capture the brilliant colors of the clouds, earning a "highly commended" in the "Skyscapes" category. 

"This incredible phenomenon lasted for ten days in total and promised good luck for the New Year in Chinese folklore," the photographer said. "If Van Gogh saw this beautiful scenery, he would certainly marvel at the extraordinary craftsmanship of nature saying how fantastic it is."

Equipment used: Canon 6D2 camera, Sigma 546 mm f/8 lens, ISO 100, 1/640-second exposure

California Dreamin'

U.S. photographer Terry Hancock captured this shot of the California Nebula from Whitewater, Colorado, spending seven nights photographing this nebula 1,000 light-years from Earth with narrowband and broadband filters. It took home the top prize in the "Stars and Nebulae" 2021 category. 

Equipment used: Takahashi FSQ130 telescope at f/5, Chroma Narrowband filters, Paramount ME mount, QHY600M camera, L-RGB-Ha-SII-OIII composite; 16.1-hours total exposure

Clouds in IC 2944

IC 2944, also known as the Running Chicken Nebula, shines in red and blue in this runner-up image of the "Stars and Nebulae" category of the 2021 astronomy photography competition. Romanian photographer Bogdan Borz captured this image of the nebula — 6,000 light-years away — from Chile.

Equipment used: Astro Systeme Austria 500 mm Newtonian telescope at f/3.8, Astrodon filters, ASA DDM85 Equatorial Mount, FLI Proline PL16803 camera, Ha-SII-OIII composite, 2 hours 42 minutes total exposure

The Colour Splash of Cygnus Loop

"The layers and structures of the Cygnus Loop are so sophisticated," U.S. photographer Min Xie said of the supernova remnant visible in this "highly commended" image in the 2021 "Stars and Nebula" category.

"This is an image that every astronomer and astrophotographer wants to see at least once in their lifetime: the entire, pure Cygnus supernova remnant, cleared from every disturbing element," said László Francsics, competition judge. "As a result, this calm, emblematic bubble structure emerges from the dark, with uncountable details. This astro-image is a unique photograph."

Equipment used: Takahashi FSQ-106EDX III telescope with f/3 0.6x reducer, Chroma filters, Astro-Physics Mach1GTO CP3 mount, ZWO ASI1600MM-Cool camera, Ha-SII-OIII composite, 168 hours total exposure

Family Photo of the Solar System

The Young photographers category of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition honors photographers under the age of 16. The winning image was taken by a 15-year-old Chinese student who captured shots of every planet in the Solar System besides Earth during the lunar Year of the Rat (2020-2021). 

Equipment used: Celestron C8 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, UV/IR cut filter, Celestron AVX mount, ZWO ASI-224-MC camera; Sun: 200 mm f/10 lens, Baader filter, 750 x 18-millisecond exposures; Moon: Omni 2x Barlow 200 mm f/10 lens, 2,250 x 10-millisecond exposures; Planets: Omni 2x Barlow 4000 mm f/20 lens; multiple 7–46-millisecond exposures

Nebula

Indian teenagers Hassaana Begam and Aathilah Maryam H. took the runners-up place in the youth category for this striking shot of the nebula complex NGC 6914, located about 6,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. 

Equipment used: SkyWatcher Equinox ED120 double refractor telescope at f/19, Astrodon filters, NEQ-6 Pro mount, QSI 660 WSG-8 camera, 5.75 hours total exposure

Starry Beach in Space

Three young competitors were awarded "highly commended" in the Youth category of the 2021 astronomy competition. The first, Dutch 13-year-old Davy van der Hoeven, was recognized for this moody view of the California Nebula. 

"This image makes me think of a beach where the waves are hitting the coast during a stormy evening," van der Hoeven said. "I made this image with my father's telescope and camera on a winter evening in November."

Equipment used: WO Spacecat51 telescope at f/4.9, SkyWatcher NEQ6 mount, QSI 583WS camera, 26 x 1200-second exposures 

Neptune and Triton

Julian Shapiro, 13, of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was highly commended for this image in the Young photographer category. Shapiro used his telescope to locate and photograph Neptune and its largest moon, Triton. 

Equipment used: Celestron NexStar 8SE telescope at f/10, Celestron AVX mount, ZWO ASI-224MC camera, 120 x 1-second exposures

Satellite Cluster around 47 Tucan

The youngest recognized photographer in the 2021 competition is Alice Fock Hang, who captured this image of the globular cluster 47 Tucanae from Les Makes on the Island of Reunion. 

"47 Tucan is one of the jewels of the southern sky and is located just above the Small Magellanic Cloud in the balmy summer nights of the southern hemisphere," Hang said. "It is a colourful cluster with a shining heart – a pearl in the Universe."

Equipment used: Takahashi Epsilon 210 telescope at f/2.9, Astro-Physics mount, Nikon D610 camera, ISO 800, 90 x 2-minute exposures

Falcon 9 soars past the Moon

Photographer Paul Eckhardt took the 2021 Manju Mehrotra Family Trust Prize for Best Newcomer for this strikingly composed image of the Falcon 9 rocket zipping in front of the moon. This prize is awarded to astrophotographers with less than two years’ experience who are entering the astrophotography competition for the first time. 

Equipment used: Sony ILCE-6500 camera, 210 mm f/8 lens, ISO 400, 1/350-second exposure

Celestial fracture

This artistic composition won the Annie Maunder Prize for Image Innovation, given to artists who create the best images from publicly available data. U.K. photographer Leonardo Di Maggio created this piece with photographs taken of Saturn by the Cassini mission. 

"The patterns formed by Saturn, its rings and its moons are truly magnificent," Di Maggio said. "The photographs have echoes of architecture, nature, art and design, and are just as artistically inspirational as they are crucial for scientific study."

A cloudy day on Jupiter

Sharing the Annie Maunder Prize for Image Innovation this year is Sergio Diaz Ruiz, a Spanish photographer who created this colorful image of Jupiter's clouds from Hubble Telescope data. "High clouds on Jupiter create intricate and beautiful shapes that swirl all over the planet," Ruiz said. 

Originally published on Live Science.

As an artist, the legendary Michelangelo Buonarroti left behind some big shoes to fill. But in real life, the great painter's shoes weren't big at all — and neither was Michelangelo. 

Italian researchers recently examined three shoes that were found in Michelangelo's home after his death and are thought to have belonged to the Renaissance artist: a pair of leather shoes and a single leather slipper (the companion was stolen in 1873), in the collection of the Casa Buonarroti Museum in Florence, Italy.

The researchers' analysis is the first to estimate physical characteristics of the artist based on measurements of personal objects such as footwear, and they found that Michelangelo, while still an artistic giant, stood no more than 5 feet 2 inches (1.6 meters) tall.

Related: 11 hidden secrets in famous works of art 

While this is relatively short for a European adult man by today's standards, at the time Michelangelo was alive (1475 to 1564) that height would not have been unusual, said scientists with the Forensic Anthropology, Paleopathology and Bioarchaeology Research Center (FAPAB) in Avola, Italy.

FAPAB researchers Francesco Galassi, a paleopathologist, and Elena Varotto, a forensic anthropologist, measured the shoes and then calculated the wearer's foot dimensions and height, and their results aligned with a description of Michelangelo by the 16th-century artist and writer Giorgio Vasari. Vasari wrote that Michelangelo was "broad in the shoulders" but the rest of his body was "somewhat slender in proportion" and his stature was average, according to the study.

The shoes were all similar in size, suggesting that both pairs (when the slipper pair was complete) were worn by the same person. However, even though the shoes have long been attributed to Michelangelo, it's also possible that they belonged to another man in the artist's household, such as a family member or one of Michelangelo's descendants, the scientists wrote. 

Michelangelo may have been in poor health toward the end of his life, and likely had gout and lead poisoning as well as severe arthritis in his hands, according to clues found in Michelangelo's own writings and in painted portraits of the artist, Live Science previously reported. As Michelangelo's remains have never been exhumed and analyzed, it's difficult for scientists to be certain about the artist's condition when he died at the age of 88. However, studies such as this can help to fill in some of the physical details about Michelangelo toward the end of his lifetime, the authors reported.

The findings were published in the September 2021 issue of the journal Anthropologie.

Originally published on Live Science.

A 500-year-old wax sculpture attributed to Michelangelo might hold the famed Renaissance artist's fingerprint, a new analysis finds.

Michelangelo reportedly created the wax sculpture as a study for a larger sculpture he planned for St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, according to a statement from BBC Two, which just released the new season of "Secrets of the Museum" featuring the figurine. However, the larger sculpture was never completed, and now the model belongs to the Victoria and Albert Museum, or the V&A, in London.

Called "A Slave," the wax figurine had been on display, but curators moved it from an upper-level gallery during the unusually warm spring in 2020 to a cooler storage area when the museum temporarily closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Times. Five months later, curators checked up on the figurine in storage, and they noticed a never-before-seen fingerprint or thumbprint on the sculpture's derrière. 

Related: 11 hidden secrets in famous works of art 

Perhaps the changing temperatures and humidity levels modified the figurine's wax composition, which made the print more apparent, art scholars told the Times. Given that Michelangelo reportedly created the sculpture, it's possible that the fingerprint is his.

"It is an exciting prospect that one of Michelangelo's prints could have survived in the wax," Peta Motture, a senior curator at the V&A, said in the statement. "Such marks would suggest the physical presence of the creative process of an artist. It is where mind and hand somehow come together."

Michelangelo destroyed many of his wax models before he died, Motture said. In fact, just before his death at age 88 in Rome in 1564, Michelangelo had many of his drawings and papers burned in two bonfires; he had other drawings burned in 1518, according to The New York Times. It's unknown why he ordered his work burned, but renaissance biographer Giorgio Vasari opined that maybe Michelangelo didn't want people to know the supreme effort he put into his work, as he wanted to appear as a genius whose work was perfect. Or, perhaps Michelangelo burned his work to prevent plagiarism, The New York Times reported.  

Because so much of Michelangelo's work was destroyed, "a fingerprint would be a direct connection with the artist," Motture said.

That said, many of Michelangelo's masterpieces — including the paintings on the Sistine Chapel and the statues of Pietà and David — are on display for the public. 

While in Florence, Italy, Michelangelo made the 7-inch-tall (17.6 centimeters) figurine with the fingerprint, some time between 1516 and 1519. Later, he used the figurine as a model to create the marble statue "Young Slave," which is unfinished. This larger statue was designed for the tomb of Pope Julius II. But the design for the pope's tomb was later changed, and so now the unfinished statue — which has a few differences from the earlier model — sits at the Accademia gallery in Florence, according to the V&A. 

"A Slave" was acquired in 1854 by the Museum of Ornamental Art at Marlborough House, which later became the V&A. In 1924, a member of the public fell and knocked over the figurine, smashing its limbs, The Telegraph reported. The museum carefully pieced it back together, and did a "pretty amazing" repair job, Victoria Oakley, a conservator at the V&A, told The Telegraph. But after the accident, additives that the artist, presumably Michelangelo, imbibed in the wax began to seep out, which created a dark spot on the surface, she said.

To check the claim that the finger or thumb print on the figurine's rear is really Michelangelo's, V&A staff plan to compare it with a fingerprint on a 1530 terracotta statue known as "Two Wrestlers," which is known to have a fingerprint from Michelangelo, the Times reported.

The BBC Two documentary "Secrets Of The Museum" first aired July 20 and will run for the next six weeks.

Originally published on Live Science.

If Baby Yoda (aka Grogu the Child) from the "Star Wars" TV series "The Mandalorian" stole your heart, you can grab a version for your very own for Amazon Prime Day. Tuesday (June 22) is the last day to save 35% on a Amazon Echo Dot device complete with Baby Yoda ears thanks to its Mandalorian The Child Stand.

The 3rd Gen. Echo Dot with Mandalorian The Child Stand is normally $64.94, but for Prime Day you can save $23 to grab it at $41.94. The bundle includes both the Echo Dot and its Mandalorian stand in several colors (Charcoal, Heather Grey, Plum or Sandstone). It's  a speaker, Alexa connection and  could be the perfect present for the Jedi master in your life, or a galactic gift to give yourself. We're not sure how long this deal will last, but will update it here if stock runs out.

Amazon Prime Day 2021: The best space deals to watch 
The best Star Wars Prime Day deals and gifts for 2021

The Child, more commonly known as baby Yoda, is a fan favourite among Star Wars fans all over the world and you can now be reminded of it every time you use your Echo device. The Echo dot is Amazon’s most popular smart speaker and most compact, making the stand the perfect accessory for it.

The smart speaker will allow you to voice control your music: streaming from popular platforms like Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and others. You can also get news updates on demand from Alexa (the built in voice) as well as play games, track your fitness and more!

 Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

If you or your loved one can't get enough of Star Wars, this Mandalorian LEGO set of the Razor Crest might be the perfect gift. Kids can role-play the heroic warrior, the Mandalorian, who enters the Star Wars universe after the fall of the Empire. Take off in bounty hunter Din Djarin's gunship military craft Razor Crest. The 1,023-piece construction set comes with a dual LEGO minifigure cockpit, two spring-loaded shooters, a cargo hold with ramps and carbonite bounty elements inside. There's also a sleeping area and a detachable escape pod for your kids to let their imaginations run free. And wait for it … the cutest baby Yoda minifigure is included.

The ultra-cool starship also comes with three other LEGO minifigures in addition to baby Yoda. And to up the stakes in your child's play, the kit includes an IG-11 figure. Make sure to stop this bounty hunter droid from capturing an alien known as the Child. Of course, after the battle, IG-11 gets repaired and reprogrammed as a nurse and protector of the Child … and an ally of the Mandalorian.

The Razor Crest dreadnought craft measures about 5.5 inches (14 centimeters) high, 15 inches (38 cm) long and 11 inches (28 cm). Once you or your child has tackled the build, you can display the marvel when it's not "in play." 

More Star Wars deals:

—The best Star Wars Prime Day deals and gifts for 2021

—Save 20% on this Lego Star Wars Jedi Ski Speeder Microfighters set for Prime Day

—Lego's A-wing Starfighter from 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker' is 37% off

The Force is strong with the Star Wars deals for Amazon.com's annual Amazon Prime Day megasale on Monday and Tuesday (June 21-22). We've been scouring the web for all the best Star Wars Prime Day gifts to give loved ones — including yourself, of course.

Here we list the best deals for the Padawan or Jedi Master in your life — from clothing to toys to lifestyle products. It will take some Jedi mind tricks to figure out what your superfan will enjoy, but we promise you these deals are easier to navigate than the Kessel run or the forests of Endor.

And be sure to check out Space.com's other Prime Day deals roundups:

Best Star Wars video game deals

New Star Wars books

Best Star Wars gift ideas and deals

Star Wars Lego sets for fans and collectors

Did Marie Antoinette really utter the infamous words, "Let them eat cake"?

The quick answer to this question is a simple "no." Marie Antoinette, the last pre-revolutionary queen of France, did not say "Let them eat cake" when confronted with news that Parisian peasants were so desperately poor they couldn't afford bread. The better question, perhaps, is: Why do we think she said it? 

For background, the quote has been slightly exaggerated in its translation from French to English. Originally, Marie Antoinette was alleged to have said, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche," or "Let them eat brioche." While this sweetened bread is more expensive than an average baguette, it isn't exactly the icing-laden, multi-tiered gateaux you might have imagined the queen had in mind. That said, this hyperbolic translation doesn't change the point, at least from a propagandist standpoint; it still suggests that the French queen was arrogant and out-of-touch with the working class. With callous aristocrats like this in charge, things will never improve for the average French citizen. Vive la révolution!

Related: How many French revolutions were there?

But the "brioche" quote is problematic, too, because there's no reliable evidence that the queen ever said it. "Marie Antoinette never uttered these words or anything else along these lines," said Denise Maior-Barron, an adjunct professor at Claremont Graduate University in California, whose research examines contemporary portrayals of Marie Antoinette's character. "As for Louis, he is present in all the films that feature Marie Antoinette, but depicted as a meek, pathetic consort. Another gross misrepresentation indeed."

France has endured no shortage of revolutions. The first, in 1789, ended very badly for Marie Antoinette and her husband, Louis XVI. The following century then saw the country flip flop between monarchies and republics, with each side fighting a propaganda war in addition to armed skirmishes. It was during one of these later revolutions, long after Marie Antoinette's execution, that the misquote first came to pass. 

"It did not come to be misattributed to Marie Antoinette during the 18th century, but during the Third French Republic starting in 1870, when a careful program of reconstructing the historical past took place," Maior-Barron told Live Science. 

In the 1870s, the republicans, who successfully dethroned Napoléon III after he conclusively lost a war against Prussia, were building on a longstanding campaign to undermine Marie Antoinette's legacy and reputation. "The masterminds of the French Revolution destroyed the French monarchy by continually attacking, and eventually destroying, its most important symbols: the king and the queen of France," Maior-Barron said. "For this reason the 'Let them eat cake' type of clichés persist."

This century-long effort to tarnish Marie Antoinette wasn't just about securing the republican cause, however; it was also tinged with sexism — after all, her reputation seems to have taken far more of a beating than that her husband, who was actually in charge of France. 

"The French Revolution tried to exclude women from political power," said Robert Gildea, a professor of modern history at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

While women were far from liberated when Louis XVI was on the throne, it was theoretically possible for the wives and mistresses of kings or other important officials to hold power — albeit unofficially. The revolutionaries, however, sought to further disenfranchise women from the national conversation. Marie Antoinette wasn't the only woman to lose her head during France's first transition to a republic. "Olympe de Gouges, who wrote the 'Declaration of the Rights of Women and of the Female Citizen,' was also guillotined," Gildea told Live Science.

Related: Why does the letter 'S' look like an 'F' in old manuscripts?

In the preamble to the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette was accused of wielding too much power over her husband, Gildea explained. In light of this, it's easy to see how propagandists were motivated to engage in a character assassination of Marie Antoinette, and the rumor mill surrounding her name certainly flourished around the time of the first revolution while she was still alive. "She was accused of having male and female lovers and even of an incestuous relationship with her son," Gildea said. 

In fact, the "brioche" quote wasn't even original, and even had a history of being used against noble women. The philosopher and writer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose work later influenced the revolution, may have been the first person to pen the phrase in 1767. "'Let them eat brioche' is initially found in one of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's novels, in which he attributed this line to one of his fictitious characters belonging to the 18th-century French aristocracy," Maior-Barron said.

In Marie Antoinette's case, however, the queen's slanderers may have been motivated by more than just pure sexism — she also presented a very real threat to the republicans. Marie Antoinette was born into the powerful Habsburg Austrian royal family before she married Louis. When the armed insurrections against the French crown began to pick up steam, she wrote to her brothers back home to try and get them to invade France and save the monarchy. "When these powers did invade France, Marie Antoinette was seen as a traitor," Gildea said. 

In the end, the Habsburgs failed to stop the revolution, Marie Antoinette was decapitated and the victors were left to write the history books.

Originally published on Live Science.

A 4,000-year-old stone slab, first discovered over a century ago in France, may be the oldest known map in Europe, according to a new study.

The Saint-Bélec Slab dates back to the early Bronze Age (2150-1600 B.C.) and was first discovered in 1900 in a prehistoric burial ground in Finistère, Brittany. It made up one of the walls of a cist, a stone box that housed the bodies of the dead. The slab was likely made before it was reused in the burial towards the end of the early Bronze Age (1900-1640 B.C.), according to a statement.

At the time of the discovery, the broken slab, which is 12.7 feet (3.9 meters) long, was moved to a private museum, and France's Museum of National Antiquities acquired it in 1924. It was then stored in a French castle, where it gathered dust until it was re-discovered in the castle's cellar in 2014. But only recently are researchers beginning to understand the interesting story behind this prehistoric slab.

Related: In photos: Early Bronze Age chariot burial

In 2017, a group of researchers in Europe started analyzing the engravings on the slab using high-resolution 3D surveys and photogrammetry, a process of analyzing an object through taking detailed photographs. They discovered that the slab had all the markings that would be expected of a map, such as motifs joined by lines. They also found that lines represented a river network, and its makers seemed to have deliberately used a  3D shape to represent a valley.

The researchers compared the engravings on the slab with elements of the French landscape and concluded that the slab represented an area of about 18.6 miles by 13 miles (30 kilometers by 21 km) along the River Odet in western France. 

"This is probably the oldest map of a territory that has been identified," in Europe, study author Clément Nicolas from Bournemouth University told the BBC. The map was likely used by a Bronze Age prince or king to mark ownership over a particular area and suggests that we shouldn't underestimate the cartographical knowledge of past societies, Nicolas said.

The territory was likely owned by a strongly hierarchical political entity that controlled the area tightly in the early Bronze Age, according to the statement. 

The fact that it was later buried may mean that it was the end of their power, or it could have been a rejection of the power the elites held over society at the time, the authors hypothesized in the new study.

The findings were published in April in the French journal Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française.

Originally published on Live Science.

Written in tiny faint letters on the top-left corner of Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream," is a mysterious inscription that reads, "Could only have been painted by a madman!" 

Experts have long debated the identity of the inscriber, with some suggesting a dissatisfied vandalizer is the author, while others pointed fingers at the Norwegian painter himself. Now, a new analysis finds that the mysterious phrase was almost undoubtedly inscribed in Munch's handwriting.

The faint inscription, written in pencil, is visible to the naked eye but it isn't very clear. "It's been very difficult to interpret," Thierry Ford, the paintings conservator at the National Museum of Norway said in a statement. "Through a microscope, you can see that the pencil lines are physically on top of the paint and have been applied after the painting was finished." But it wasn't clear when or why.

Related: 11 hidden secrets in famous works of art

This version of "The Scream" was one of four versions painted by the artist, but the only one with such an inscription, according to The New York Times. 

The inscription was first mentioned by a Danish art critic in 1904 when the painting was on exhibit in Copenhagen, about 11 years after Munch painted it. The critic thought, at the time, that a member of the public wrote the message, according to the statement. 

To understand the mystery, Mai Britt Guleng, the curator at the National Museum of Norway and the team took infrared photographs of the painting. The scans made the carbon from the pencil marks much clearer.  The researchers compared the inscriptions with Munch's handwriting in his diaries and letters, and analyzed the details of the painting's first showing in Norway.

"The writing is without a doubt Munch’s own," Guleng said in another statement. "The handwriting itself, as well as events that happened in 1895, when Munch showed the painting in Norway for the first time, all point in the same direction."

The researchers hypothesize that Munch wrote this phrase after his painting was exhibited for the first time domestically at the Blomqvist gallery in Norway in 1893 (he had previously exhibited the painting several times abroad). This exhibition in Norway drew much criticism, with one art critic Henrik Grosch writing that the painting is proof people should not "consider Munch a serious man with a normal brain," according to the statement. 

At the time, the Student Society in Kristiania held a discussion event about his paintings, where some people expressed positive views about his art, but others, such as medical student Johan Scharffenberg questioned Munch's mental state. Munch was likely there and evidently took those comments to heart, as he brought up the event in his letters and diary entries several times in the decades following, according to the statements. 

Munch was also very concerned, in general, about hereditary diseases, as multiple members of his family suffered from mental illness.

"The theory is that Munch wrote this after hearing Scharffenberg's judgment on his mental health, sometime in or after 1895. It is reasonable to assume that he did it quite soon after, either during or following the exhibition in Kristiania," Guleng said. "The inscription can be read as an ironic comment, but at the same time as an expression of the artist's vulnerability."

This painting will be displayed at the new National Museum of Norway once it opens in Oslo in 2022. 

Originally published on Live Science.

A nearly-life-size depiction of a kangaroo — realistic genitalia included — is the oldest known rock painting in Australia. Scientists recently pinpointed its age to 17,300 years ago with a technique that had never been used on Australian ancient art before: measuring radioactive carbon in wasp nests from rocks near the artwork. 

The kangaroo painting extends across the ceiling of a rock shelter and spans nearly 7 feet (2 meters), which is roughly the height of a modern kangaroo. This and other paintings in northwestern Australia's Kimberley region share certain stylistic features with the earliest cave art from Europe and Asia, the researchers reported. Very old animal paintings such as these are typically life-size (or close to it); they represent anatomy in a similar way, and their outlines are only partly filled-in with sketched lines. Because of these features, the paintings were thought to be among Australia's oldest. 

However, to precisely date such art, scientists often turn to radiocarbon dating, which measures the ratio of different versions, or isotopes, of carbon in an object. But it requires organic material, which is scarce in rock paintings.

Related: Photos: Ancient rock art of Southern Africa

In places such as the Chauvet Cave in France, ancient drawings are etched in charcoal and hidden deep inside limestone caverns, preserving the organic matter in the charcoal pigments and making radiocarbon dating possible. Chauvet art has been directly dated to between 34,000 and 29,000 years ago, the study authors wrote.

But such preservation is exceptionally rare, and the paintings thought to be Australia's oldest are usually exposed to the elements, "in more open rock shelters in sandstone country," said lead study author Damien Finch, a doctoral candidate in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne.

"Here, the pigment used is invariably an iron oxide that cannot be dated directly," Finch told Live Science in an email. "If charcoal was used as a rock art pigment in ancient Aboriginal rock art, then we have yet to find any surviving examples in Australia."

So the scientists turned to mud wasps nests built under, above and near the art. Over a period of five years, they collected and analyzed 27 nests associated with 16 different rock paintings in Drysdale River National Park, painted in the region's oldest style. "We then use the pattern of all the maximum and minimum dates that apply to paintings of the same style, to estimate the period when they were painted," he explained. "The accuracy of this estimate increases as more and more nests are dated."

They found that most of the paintings were likely made between 13,000 and 17,000 years ago. As for the kangaroo painting, six nearby nests provided both minimum and maximum dates, enabling the scientists to estimate its age. 

For millennia, people have used art to convey their perspective on the world around them; the oldest known animal art — an exceptionally hairy pig, found in a cave in Indonesia — dates to approximately 45,000 years ago. While it's impossible to know for sure what compelled the earliest human artists to create representational paintings, their work literally paints a picture of the long-ago ecosystems they inhabited, complementing scientific evidence about climate and sea levels "as well as the plants and animals available at that time," Finch said. 

"Now, for the first time, we can combine what we see in the paintings with what we know about the environment as it existed at the same time, around the end of the last ice age," Finch said. "I am sure future researchers will draw these threads together with what we know now about the age of the rock art."

Putting dates to ancient art is also critical for reconstructing the missing pieces of Australia's past that were shaped by Aboriginal people thousands of years ago, said Cissy Gore-Birch, chair of the Balanggarra Aboriginal Corporation in Australia, which manages land administration on behalf of the Balanggarra People.

"It's important that Indigenous knowledge and stories are not lost and continue to be shared for generations to come," Gore-Birch said in a statement.

The findings were published online Monday (Feb. 22) in the journal Nature Human Behavior.

Originally published on Live Science.

An important copy of  Leonardo da Vinci’s famous “Salvator Mundi”  painting is back in the hands of an Italian museum after being stolen at some point in the last year. No one knew it was missing.

Police found the copy, which shows Jesus with his right hand raised in a blessing and the left holding a crystal orb, in an apartment in Naples, according to CNN. Painted in the 1510s, possibly by one of da Vinci's students, the artwork replicates the most expensive painting in the world which has not been seen in public since a $450.3 million sale in 2017 (possibly to a representative of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, CNN reported).

The museum where this duplicate was kept, Museodoma San Domenico Maggiore, has been closed for months due to COVID-19 and no one had noticed it missing, The Guardian reported.

Related: 5 things you probably didn't know about Leonardo da Vinci

Some art historians have raised doubts that the original "Salvator Mundi" of which this stolen painting is a copy is authentic. As ArtNet News reported when the painting was auctioned off at Christie's in New York three years ago, the original had been lost for centuries. Art historians previously believed the work that sold for $450.3 million was the work of lesser-known artist Boltraffio before a consensus emerged in the 21st Century that it was the lost Leonardo "Salvator Mundi."  Some researchers still doubt it is a true Leonardo. In either case, the copy appears to have been based on the $450.3 million painting

Like the stolen-and-recovered copy by a da Vinci student, the "original" depicts Jesus looking right at the viewer in a stolid pose. A more recently discovered sketch, reported on by ArtNet News, shows Jesus with his head turned to the side wearing a softer expression. Some have suggested this sketch outlined the true "Salvator Mundi," which would indicate the one sold in 2017 was not a Leonardo.

In either case, the copy is now back in the Naples museum's possession after its brief jaunt as contraband. A 36-year-old owner of the apartment has been arrested, according to The Guardian, though it remains unclear how the piece was stolen.

"Whoever took the painting wanted it, and it is plausible that it was a commissioned theft by an organization working in the international art trade," said Naples prosecutor Giovanni Melillo, according to The Guardian.

Originally published on Live Science.

Eight years and one month ago, a Master of Fine Art student at the University of Hertfordshire fitted a beer can with photographic paper and created a low-tech pinhole camera. She then placed the can on a telescope at the university's Bayfordbury Observatory and eventually forgot about the project. 

Now, the resulting photograph has been rediscovered — and it may be the longest-exposure photo ever taken. 

"I had tried this technique a couple of times at the Observatory before, but the photographs were often ruined by moisture and the photographic paper curled up," photographer Regina Valkenborgh, now a photography technician at Barnet and Southgate College, said in a statement. "I hadn't intended to capture an exposure for this length of time and to my surprise, it had survived." 

Related: Spaced out! 101 astronomy images that will blow your mind

The photograph shows the sun's journey through the sky since 2012; 2,953 arcs of light tracing its path as the sun rose and set. Part of the telescope's dome is also visible at the left of the photograph. On the right is a gantry structure designed to straddle the observatory, which was built halfway through the exposure. 

Prior to this photo, the longest-exposure picture was thought to be four years, eight months, taken by German artist Michael Wesely, according to the university. Wesely takes long-exposure photographs of various scenes, such as the renovation of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City. 

Long-exposure photography requires very small apertures, or openings in the camera lens, in order not to flood the photographic paper with light. The beer-can camera is a type of pinhole camera, a very simple device without any lens at all. Light enters through the only opening in the camera — the pinprick-sized hole — and falls on photosensitive paper inside. This creates an inverted image of whatever the camera "sees." Because of the long exposure time, only slow-moving or permanent objects appear in the resulting image; fast-moving objects are lost. 

Valkenborgh's image was rediscovered by the Bayfordbury Observatory's principal technical officer, David Campbell, who found and removed the unassuming beer can from the telescope. 

"It was a stroke of luck that the picture was left untouched, to be saved by David after all these years," Valkenborgh said. 

Originally published on Live Science.

Attention, Lego fans! If you love aliens and UFOs, or spaceflight and sci-fi, we've got the perfect sets for you and your kids. From the cutest (or creepiest?) alien minifigures, to alien spaceships, to Star Wars droids and real NASA spacecraft, this gift guide is bursting with fun ... and learning. 

Whether you're looking for the perfect gift for the alien- or sci-fi-loving Lego fan in your life, or you want to add to your personal collection, we've got you covered. Don't forget to check here back regularly, as we'll be adding new deals. 

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Putting out the inferno that tore through the roof of Notre Dame in April 2019 was only the beginning of saving the iconic cathedral. 

From the precarious spaghetti of burnt scaffolding hanging over the building to the potential for the walls to collapse on themselves, architects and conservation experts had — and still have — a daunting task in front of them. A new special from NOVA, the science series on PBS, takes viewers through the challenges. It's a journey that travels from within the cathedral itself, to the catacombs below Paris, to the forests of Normandy that might provide the wood to reconstruct the building's massive roof. 

"We are thrilled to be able to tell the inside story of the dramatic rescue of Notre Dame," NOVA co-executive producer Chris Schmidt said in a statement. "In the first days after the fire, no one was sure whether the huge bell towers, walls or flying buttresses would remain standing. The exhaustive process of diagnosing the damage and embarking on the restoration of the great cathedral relies on new technologies and medieval craftsmanship alike." 

Related: 10 historical treasures that the world lost in the last 100 years

Fire at Notre Dame

Along with the Eiffel tower and the Louvre Museum, Notre Dame de Paris is one of the most iconic buildings in Paris. On the evening of April 15 last year, a stream of smoke began to rise from the roof of the Gothic cathedral, which was put in the spotlight by Victor Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." The cathedral was constructed between 1163 and 1345. Parisians gathered on the streets to watch in horror as flames burst from the roof, eventually collapsing the cathedral's spire (constructed in the mid-1800s during a restoration of the building). 

The new documentary reveals the damage the fire left behind: twisted scaffolding above the building from the renovation project that had been going on at the time, giant holes in the limestone vault ceiling, a mass of melted lead from the destroyed roof contaminating everything. The lead, in particular, makes repairs challenging. Workers must don protective gear and respirators to clean up the mess. Even the cathedral's stained-glass windows, which were mostly spared the worst of the damage, are covered with a thin layer of lead dust. Cleaning them is simplified, occasionally, by the fact that some windows haven't been washed in more than 100 years, so the lead clings to a thin film of dust instead of the glass itself. 

The state of the building after the ashes cooled is almost unfathomable in its precariousness. There was a chance that should the arches of the vault crumble, the supportive flying buttresses on the outside of the cathedral would push in on the walls, collapsing the entire structure. Architects had to custom-build timber supports to place within the buttresses to relieve the pressure and prevent a potential collapse. In the meantime, a tangle of scaffolding sways in the breeze above the cathedral, setting off motion alarms that warn workers to evacuate in case of a collapse. 

Melding the modern and medieval

Beyond the massive challenge of stabilizing the building, the team working to save Notre Dame must also search for clues about how the building was constructed in the first place. In one scene, Historical Monuments Research Laboratory geologist Lise Leroux uses microfossils in the stone from the vault ceiling of Notre Dame to trace the source of the rock in the medieval quarries beneath Paris. This necessitates a trip deep into the quarry tunnels, which were later turned into the famous catacombs.

Meanwhile, timber experts analyze the burnt timbers from "the forest" — the wooden framing that held up Notre Dame's lead roof. This roof structure was made from some 1,300 oak trees and was completely destroyed in the fire. It may be possible, according to NOVA, to source new oak from Normandy. Oak is a strong wood that provides good structural support, and the French Senate passed a bill in May 2019 requiring the new roof to hew to traditional construction.

The documentary largely tracks the work done before the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Friends of Notre Dame de Paris, all work paused between March and early June 2020 due to the pandemic. Currently, crews are still working to remove the damaged scaffolding from above the cathedral — approximately 30,000 pieces weighing a combined 300 tons. It may take decades until the full work of repairing the cathedral is complete. 

The special, Saving Notre Dame, premieres Wednesday, November 25, 2020 at 9 p.m. E.T./8 p.m. C.T. on PBS and will be available for streaming online and on the PBS video app.

Originally published on Live Science.

Is it ... a statue that's melted in the heat? Forky from "Toy Story 4?" A clay figure crafted by a preschooler? President Donald Trump? 

In yet another extraordinary restoration-gone-awry, a 20th-century Spanish statue of a smiling woman next to a flock of livestock has turned into a slightly confused-looking lump with large holes for eyes, a button nose and a grimacing mouth. 

The once-elegant statue, first unveiled in 1923, is sculpted on the front of a bank in the northern city of Palencia, according to The Art Newspaper. Now, people have likened the restored statue to a "potato" and President Donald Trump, according to The Art Newspaper.

“It looks like the head of a cartoon character," Antonio Guzmán Capel, an artist who first pointed out the botched restoration, said in a Facebook post. "I'm sure whoever did it got paid for it," Capel said. "But the bigger crime was committed by the person who commissioned it and then tried to carry on as though nothing was wrong."

Related: In photos: The world's oldest cave art

This statue is just one in a long line of botched restoration efforts in Spain. In 2012, an 81-year-old church member repainted a 19th-century fresco of Jesus that ended up looking like a monkey and earned the nickname "Monkey Christ," according to NPR. 

In 2018, an amateur restorer painted a 15th-century Spanish wooden statue of the Virgin Mary, Saint Anne and the infant Jesus in neon colors, according to NPR. Early this year, a furniture restorer turned a copy of a famous "immaculate conception" painting of the Virgin Mary by 17th-century Spanish artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo into a smudged, unrecognizable mess, Live Science previously reported. 

Conservation experts continue to call for stricter regulations to restorations. This is "NOT professional restoration," Spain's Professional Association of Restorers and Conservators wrote on Twitter. 

"Restoring is not repairing, serious interventions must follow criteria, which are internationally approved, as well as those applied by the IPCE [the Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute], and other accredited entities that exist in Spain," the Valencia-based conservator Illanos Argudo, wrote on Twitter, The Art Newspaper reported.

Originally published on Live Science.

A hidden drawing by Pablo Picasso has been found beneath one of the artist's abstract paintings, called "Still Life."

A team from the Art Institute of Chicago was interested in looking more closely at the painting, which is held at the institute, to help understand its complex layers of paint and areas where the painting appears to be wrinkled. To do so, they used X-ray and infrared imaging, and to their surprise they saw a hidden drawing of "a pitcher, a mug, a rectangular object that may be a newspaper" propped up on what appears to be a tabletop or seat of a chair, the team wrote in a paper that was published July 21 in the journal SN Applied Sciences. 

Related: 11 hidden secrets in famous works of art

It wasn't uncommon for Picasso to paint over previous works of art but usually he painted directly over them and incorporated the previous work into the new work, the team wrote. In this case, the team — Allison Langley, Kimberley Muir and Ken Sutherland — found that Picasso blocked out the newfound drawing using a "thick white layer" of paint before painting the abstract piece. 

"This seems somewhat unusual in Picasso's practice, as he often painted directly over earlier compositions, allowing underlying forms to show through and influence the final painting," the team wrote in the paper. 

As a result of Picasso's blocking method, "no evidence of the earlier composition" can be seen from the surface of the abstract painting. the team wrote. 

They didn't speculate in their paper about why Picasso covered up the hidden drawing. The team is certain that the hidden drawing is Picasso's, noting that a similar work by the artist is now in the Gothenburg Museum of Art in Sweden. 

The painting "Still Life" has a date on it saying Feb. 4, 1922 suggesting that it was painted about that time. Picasso gave it to Gertrude Stein, a "friend and collector of the artist and an important patron of modern art in early-twentieth-century Paris," the team wrote. He painted it during his so-called linear or Cubist phase, from late 1921 to 1922, in which the artist depicted 3D objects along different geometric planes and from different vantage points. The result was supposed to portray a painting that was closer to the mind's eye view.

In addition to revealing the hidden drawing, the imaging uncovered earlier attempts at conservation and restoration using an acrylic resin and a paint put into cracks in the surface. This aided modern-day conservation efforts, as the researchers were able to remove this resin and paint in the cracks to reveal the painting's original colors. Researchers from the team did not return requests for comment at press time.

The painting "Still Life" has a date on it saying Feb. 4, 1922, suggesting that it was painted about that time. Picasso gave it to Gertrude Stein, a "friend and collector of the artist and an important patron of modern art in early-twentieth-century Paris," the team wrote. 

He painted it during his so-called linear or Cubist phase, from late 1921 to 1922, in which the artist depicted 3D objects along different geometric planes and from different vantage points. The result was supposed to portray a painting that was closer to the mind's eye view.

In addition to revealing the hidden drawing, the imaging uncovered earlier attempts at conservation and restoration using an acrylic resin and a paint put into cracks in the surface. This aided modern-day conservation efforts, as the researchers were able to remove this resin and paint in the cracks to reveal the painting's original colors. Researchers from the team did not return requests for comment at press time.

Originally published on Live Science.

The famed Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci may have been blessed with the same "quick eye" that may give top tennis and baseball players an edge. In Leonardo's case, this super-vision may have enabled him to see and capture fleeting moments in his paintings — such as the enigmatic half-smile of the Mona Lisa.

This ability to see details in even the fastest-moving or fleeting phenomenon may be a result of a higher flicker fusion frequency, said David Thaler, a geneticist at the University of Basel in Switzerland. He added that the trait could explain how some baseball players can spot the seams of the ball in flight, for example, or how some tennis stars can react to a super-fast ball.

For Leonardo, a high flicker fusion frequency could explain how he was able to describe the changes in the shape of falling drops of water, and recognize the fleeting expressions seen in many of his paintings. 

In the case of the Mona Lisa, "what I'm proposing is that Leonardo caught a moment of breaking into a smile," he said. "It is not a posed smile held steady, but that passing instant when the smile is in the act of becoming."

Related: In Photos: Leonardo Da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa'

Leonardo's painting of The Last Supper — a fresco on the wall of a church in Milan — also captures the fleeting expressions of the apostles, supposedly after Jesus Christ told them that "one of you here will betray me," Thaler said.

What is a quick eye?

Thaler was first inspired to investigate Leonardo's vision by a comment the artist wrote in one of his notebooks on the flight of dragonflies.

"The dragonfly flies with four wings, and when those in front are raised those behind are lowered," Leonardo wrote.

"I thought, 'That's cool, I'm going to see myself,'" Thaler said. "It was summer and there were dragonflies around." 

But "I looked as hard and carefully as I could, but to me the wings on flying dragonflies were always a blur," he said. His friends, too, could not discern the flying motion. "I started to read and think more seriously about what it means to have a fast eye."

Related: 5 things you probably didn't know about Leonardo Da Vinci

Thaler's research shows that a dragonfly's back wings are out of sync with the front wings by about a hundredth of a second.The comment in his notebooks suggests that Leonardo could see that hundredth of a second difference, which corresponds to a flicker fusion frequency of 100 hertz, or 100 times a second — roughly twice the flicker fusion frequency of most humans, he said.Thaler believes that the "quick eye" of Leonardo and some modern sports stars could have a genetic basis, perhaps in the genes that govern the development of the potassium channels in the cells of the retina.

It's been shown that several nonhuman species, such as insects, have marked genetic differences in their retinas that enables them to see much faster motions — and differences in the development of cells in the retina might cause differences in the vision of humans too, he said.

Artistic vision

Other famous artists have shown the same ability to capture fleeting moments in their work, such as the Japanese printmaker Katsushika Hokusai, who created the iconic woodcut "Under the Wave of Kanagawa" — also known as "The Great Wave", Thaler said.

Hokusai, who lived from 1760 until 1849, also made a woodcut of a dragonfly in flight that shows the correct motion of the insect's wings. "At least one other artist seems to have had such a fast and accurate eye," Thaler said.

Related: Flying machines? 5 Da Vinci designs that were ahead of their time

Thaler said a DNA sample from Leonardo's might be able to show if his quick eye was based on the genes that regulated the development of his retinas, or if it came about from training and close observation.

His new research has been published by the Leonardo Da Vinci DNA Project, which hopes one day to recover Leonardo's genetic material from his paintings. "If they do manage to get the sequence, that's the part I would be interested in," Thaler said. 

Thaler also sees signs of Leonardo's sensitivity to visual phenomena — perhaps including his "quick eye" — in his use of "sfumato" in his paintings, an artistic technique that details or blurs aspects of a painting in order to bring them in and out of focus.

Whole images are constructed by the brain from a series of much smaller, instantaneous images, each of which had full clarity only in the small foveal region of the retina, he said. Ordinary people, however, don't perceive this mental stitching process and visualize a scene as a cohesive whole with one central focus.

In contrast, Leonardo's expert use of sfumato — in the Mona Lisa, for example, and in his Salvator Mundi — could derive from an ability to see these instantaneous images and recognize their partial focus, he said.

Originally published on Live Science.

A botched restoration has left yet another famous painting unrecognizable. 

This time, the restoration has left a painting of the Virgin Mary looking more like a kindergartener's lopsided self-portrait. The painting was a copy of  "The Immaculate Conception of El Escorial,"  of the Virgin Mary was one of a famous series by the 17th-century Spanish artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. The original version by Murillo is hanging in the Prado Museum in Madrid, and this copy is likely to be by Murillo as well, according to a statement from the Association of Conservators-Restorers (ACRE) of Spain. ACRE is an advocacy group that has publicized the botched artwork as part of an effort to change the rules around restoring paintings in the country.

According to a Spanish-language report in Europa Press, the private collector who owned the copy hired a furniture restorer to fix up the old painting. He returned the painting in an unrecognizable, smudged state. After the collector complained, the restorer made another attempt to fix the painting, and returned it looking even less like the original artwork.

Europa Press noted that the incident recalls an earlier, unsuccessful restoration in Spain that famously ruined a fresco of Jesus wearing a crown of thorns and known as the Ecce Homo de Borja (it was on display in a church in Borja, Spain) by Cecilia Giménez. 

(According to The Guardian, the wrecked aftermath of the Ecce Homo de Borja, nicknamed "Monkey Christ," became a tourist attraction after the image was shared widely online.)

Related: 11 hidden secrets in famous works of art

Some in Spain are now calling for tighter rules on the country's art restoration market.

These sorts of mistakes are surprisingly common, María Borja, coordinator of ACRE, told Europa Press.

"We're only familiar with the cases that society denounces in the press or social media, but there are many instances where people who have no training meddle," Borja said. 

Borja and her group, ACRE, are highlighting the case as part of an effort to change Spanish law. ACRE wants to amend a rule governing the handling of art to require that only trained professionals attempt these sorts of restorations. (In fact, ACRE denounces the use of the word "restoration" to describe what was done to the immaculate conception painting, and instead indicates this was "vandalism.")

For now though, the circumstances that led to this unfortunate restoration are completely legal, however Murillo collectors might feel.

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Shot more than a century ago, a scene showing "Buffalo Bill" as he conducts an interview with an Oglala Lakota leader looks as if it were filmed yesterday.

This old film clip was recently remastered using artificial intelligence (AI), and the result lookslike high-definition video. The artist behind this transformation is giving Live Science readers a first look at the astonishing result. 

Though still black and white, the remastered footage no longer appears jittery and sped-up, as silent films usually do. Motion in very old movies looks unnaturally fast because the hand-cranked film cameras of the day captured fewer frames per second (fps) than cameras do now. 

Digital artist Matt Loughrey, who restores historic photographs at My Colorful Past, developed a process that brings film clips from the late 19th century and early 20th century into the present. Loughrey uses AI to recreate the missing visual information between the original frames in these films. By enabling motion to advance as smoothly as it does in contemporary film and video, Loughrey's remastered footage looks eerily modern, even when it was shot more than 100 years ago. 

Related: Photos: The reconstruction of teen who lived 9,000 years ago 

In 1914, William "Buffalo Bill" Cody, the American showman, Pony Express rider and creator of popular "Wild West" shows, conversed with Oglala Lakota leader Siŋté Máza, also known as "Chief Iron Tail," in Plains Indian Sign Language. The original footage of their conversation was shot at about 19 fps, as was common for film during that time; to put that into perspective, the frame rate for modern film is 24 fps, and high-definition (HD) video is 60 fps. 

A higher fps rate is one reason why details in HD video look so sharp, particularly when compared with films from the silent era, Loughrey told Live Science. To create that "modern" effect in the "Buffalo Bill" clip and other films that are even older, Loughrey designed an algorithm that generates new frames between the film's original frames. However, this differs from motion interpolation, another video processing technique, which merely duplicates and merges existing frames, he said.

"What you get at the end is, in one sense, an optical illusion, because a lot of those frames never existed," Loughrey explained. "This is filling in the gaps with best guesses."

The algorithm processed about a minute of the Buffalo Bill footage in about 40 hours, generating thousands of new frames. In the final playback, with footage playing at about 60 fps, the people in the film move in what appears to be real time — unlike the accelerated, jerky motion in the original film clip.

"You can see Cody's pocket watch moving. You can see his hair moving," Loughrey said. "Even though you know physics was the same then as it is now, when you see that physics is the same, it's like visual vertigo."

Loughrey created that same disorienting effect in a remastered clip of Broadway in New York City that was filmed in 1896 at 16 fps. In the remastered clip, which plays at 71 fps, people cross the street, clamber on a construction site and stroll down the sidewalk; despite the 19-century architecture, vehicles and clothing, the way that the people are moving highlights tiny details that make the scene look as immediate as if it were shot in the present day. 

"It's like some version of time travel," Loughrey said. "There's all these little stories going on, you just wouldn't catch that at 16 frames a second."

You can see more of Loughrey's film and photo restoration work on Instagram.

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Originally published on Live Science.

The Statue of Liberty is famous for her torch-bearing arm, but newly discovered blueprints reveal that this arm was revised to be more slender at the last minute, changing the plans of the French engineer Gustave Eiffel who helped design the statue. 

Eiffel, of course, is famous for his tower in Paris. But he also determined how to make the already drawn design of the Statue of Liberty structurally sound; that was no easy feat given that New York Harbor experiences ferocious winds. 

The newly analyzed blueprints show that Eiffel originally designed Lady Liberty's arm to be more robust and vertical — in a word, sturdier — than it is today, according to Smithsonian magazine, which first covered the story. But the blueprints reveal that someone else, perhaps the statue's sculptor, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, went in with red ink and revised the arm to be more slender and tilted, making it more aesthetically pleasing, but also more fragile. 

Related: 19 of the world's oldest photos reveal a rare side of history 

Paris auction

The blueprints were brought to light when, in 2018, California map dealer Barry Lawrence Ruderman bought a folder of Eiffel's historic papers at an auction in Paris. According to the auction catalog, the papers included blueprints for the Statue of Liberty, a unique prize because there are only two other known surviving copies of these blueprints; one is at the Library of Congress and the other is in a private collection in France, according to Ruderman's gallery, Antique Maps Inc.

Inside the folder, Ruderman and Alex Clausen, director of Ruderman’s gallery, found a pile of tightly folded papers that looked too delicate to open without destroying. So, they sent the historic documents to a conservator, who put the papers in a humidified chamber to make them more pliable. The technique worked; Ruderman and Clausen soon found themselves poring over not just blueprints but 22 original engineering drawings of Lady Liberty, many with notes and calculations in the margins.

'"When we first realized what we had, we were awestruck," Ruderman told Live Science in an email. "The Statue of Liberty is quite possibly the most famous modern man-made object on the planet, and we were holding the engineering work that made its public display possible."

A gift from France

The Statue of Liberty was originally intended to celebrate the end of slavery, according to the statue's new museum, The Washington Post reported last year. Only later did the statue turn into a beacon for immigrants, especially with the addition of Emma Lazarus' poem — "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" — that was cast onto a plaque and placed inside part of the statue in 1903. 

The French poet Édouard de Laboulaye first conceived of the statue. He loved America, but was an abolitionist who raised funds for freed slaves. After the American Civil War, Laboulaye and his fellow abolitionists decided to recognize America's milestone with a gift. Laboulaye commissioned the sculptor Bartholdi to design the statue, which was modeled after the Roman goddess of liberty, according to the National Park Service (NPS). 

Bartholdi realized that he needed an engineer to give the copper statue structural integrity. So, he turned to Eiffel. At the time, Eiffel was known for designing railroad bridges, and he used that knowledge to make the statue flexible enough to sway in the wind without toppling over. Even today, Lady Liberty can sway up to 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) and the torch up to 6 inches (15.2 cm) in 50 mph (80 km/h) winds, according to the NPS.

The newly analyzed blueprints show Eiffel's handiwork, including calculations and the iron trusswork designs that would support the Statue of Liberty. Historians have long thought that Bartholdi revised Eiffel's schematic for the statue's arm, and it appears that these blueprints finally give concrete evidence of that, Edward Berenson, a historian at New York University and author of "The Statue of Liberty: A Transatlantic Story" (Yale University Press, 2012), told Smithsonian magazine.

"It looks like somebody is trying to figure out how to change the angle of the arm without wrecking the support," Berenson said.

The revisions are dated to July 28, 1882, after construction for the statue had begun. It's unclear what Eiffel thought of these changes; he had moved onto other projects by that time, and had his assistants act as liaisons with Bartholdi. "That may be one reason why Bartholdi decided he could make modifications, because he knew that Eiffel was not totally hands-on,” Berenson said.

The statue formally opened in 1886. Since then, Lady Liberty's slender arm has posed problems at various times. For instance, in 1916, a German saboteur blew up a munitions depot on a nearby island, a blast that measured the equivalent of a magnitude-5.5 earthquake, Smithsonian magazine reported. This blast caused more than $100,000 worth of damage to the statue, and closed her torch to visitors henceforth. 

In the 1980s, engineers suggested fortifying the statue's arm, but preservationists intervened, saying that the statue shouldn't waver from Bartholdi's vision. 

To see digital versions of these altered blueprints, visit Antique Maps.

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Originally published on Live Science.

Strange things are afoot on the planet Earth. In a series of events that could themselves form the plot of a sci-fi nightmare, we find ourselves in the middle of the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. Residents across the US, like many countries, are being encouraged to work from home and enforce a self-quarantine inside their homes and apartments. 

For the foreseeable future then, the television is going to be our best friend and ticket to salvation. 

So that you don't have to spend hours searching with a less-than-perfect UX through thousands of movies, some good, some bad and everything in-between, we've compiled a list of the best science-fiction movies and television shows currently on Netflix.

• Want to try Netflix? You can get a 30-day free trial now
• Sign up for Netflix starting at $8.99/month.

Movies

Blade Runner (The Final Cut)

Synopsis: In the smog-choked dystopian Los Angeles of the future, a specialist cop, called a "blade runner" is called out of retirement to hunt down a four "replicants" who have escaped to Earth seeking their creator for a way to extend their short life spans.

Why you should watch: Quite frankly, this movie should be on the national curriculum; it's one of the best films ever made and inspired a whole new sub-genre of sci-fi: cyberpunk. Harrison Ford is at his broodiest and consequently produced one of the best performances of his career. Sean Young, Rutger Hauer and Daryl Hannah also star.

Moon

Synopsis: With only three weeks left in his three-year contract, Sam Bell is getting anxious to finally return to Earth. He is the only occupant of a lunar-based manufacturing facility along with his computer and assistant, called GERTY. When he has an accident however, he wakens to find that he is not alone.

Why you should watch: The directorial debut of Duncan Jones, this is not a big-budget sci-fi, because it doesn't need to be. It's beautifully character driven story with an exceptional solo performance from Sam Rockwell. 

Snowpiercer

Synopsis: In a future where a failed global-warming experiment kills off most life on the planet, a class system evolves aboard the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe via a perpetual-motion engine.

Why you should watch: It took the recent success of "Parasite" at the Academy Awards for the work of Boong Joon-ho to be bought to mainstream attention, but "Snowpiercer" is also one of his and it's really very good. Chris Evans leads an amazing cast that includes John Hurt, Ed Harris, Jamie Bell, Tilda Swinton and Alison Pill.

Hellboy (2004)

Synopsis: In the final days of World War II, the Nazis attempt to use black magic to aid their dying cause. The Allies raid the camp where the ceremony is taking place, but not before a demon, Hellboy, has already been conjured. Joining the Allied forces, Hellboy eventually grows to adulthood, serving the cause of good rather than evil.

Why you should watch: The first attempt to bring the legendary Dark Horse Comics character to the big screen is still the best. Writer and director Guillermo del Toro did an outstanding job and together with excellent casting, makes for a high-quality and enjoyable sci-fi-fantasy film.

John Carter

Synopsis: John Carter is a war-weary, former military captain who's inexplicably transported to the mysterious and exotic planet of Barsoom (Mars) and reluctantly becomes embroiled in an epic conflict. It's a world on the brink of collapse, and Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.

Why you should watch: Like many under-valued sci-fi franchises ("Tron," "The Last Starfighter" and "Buckeroo Banzai" to name just three) the potential of "John Carter" was never truly realized and as a result of politics within Disney, this movie wasn't promoted properly and suffered as a result, which is a shame, because it's an epic adventure and thoroughly enjoyable. 

Event Horizon

Synopsis: In 2047 a group of astronauts are sent to investigate and salvage the starship Event Horizon, which disappeared mysteriously seven years before on its maiden voyage. With its return, the crew of the Lewis and Clark discovers the real truth behind the disappearance of the Event Horizon – and something even more terrifying.

Why you should watch: Not your family sci-fi this one, more of a sci-fi horror, but that's not to say it isn't thoroughly enjoyable. Sam Neill leads an impressive cast that also includes Jason Issacs, Laurence Fishburne and Sean Pertwee.

The Signal

Synopsis: Three college students on a road trip across the Southwest experience a detour – the tracking of a computer genius who has already hacked into MIT and exposed security faults. When the trio find themselves drawn to an eerily isolated area, suddenly everything goes dark. When one of the students regains consciousness, he finds himself in a waking nightmare.

Why you should watch: This little known movie is a tense thriller with an epic twist at the end. A great cast – including Olivia Cooke, Brenton Thwaites and Laurence Fishburne – together with a well-written script, add up to an edge-of-seat sci-fi thriller.

Mute

Synopsis: A mute man with a violent past is forced to take on the teeming underworld of a near-future Berlin as he searches for his missing girlfriend.

Why you should watch: The unofficial sequel to "Moon," this was Duncan Jones second major sci-fi motion picture and it does not disappoint. Paul Rudd and Alexander Skarsgård lead the cast and deliver strong performances in this vastly underrated sci-fi thriller. 

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