Renaissance paintings just aren’t as green as they used to be

Cretaceous smells, local ghost stories, and listening to manatees. Email not displaying correctly? View in your browser. October 14, 2019 It’s Not Easy Being Green Researchers have long speculated that light exposure and oxygen may have contributed to the darkening process of Renaissance-era paintings. A new study on the once popularly used pigment called verdigris revealed exactly how the green paint faded to dark brown. Read More → CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 300 South Wacker Drive This once-ignored building in downtown Chicago features a 400-foot-tall map of the city where the only splash of color is a bright red rectangle that represents the building’s location and also lights up at night. Read more → Cretaceous Smells From the trees in the forest to the gnarly stench of dinosaur breath, Chicago’s Field Museum now allows visitors to get a whiff of what the Cretaceous period may have smelled like. To pull it off, they used paleontological knowledge, modern chemicals, and a whole lot of (often foul) fiddling. Read more → Community Local Ghost Stories Legend says if you peer into the small mausoleum structure that marks Emo’s Grave in the Jewish section of the Salt Lake City Cemetery, Emo himself will appear. Have an intriguing local legend or hometown ghost story like this one? We want to hear about it. Share now→ PROGRESO, MEXICO Puerto de Altura It would take you approximately an hour and a half to leisurely walk to the end of Progreso, Mexico's four-mile pier, which is one of the longest in the world. Read more → Sponsored by Visit Buffalo Niagara Silo City Miles of enormous abandoned grain silos that line the riverbanks of the Buffalo River are now getting a second life thanks to local artists, architects, musicians, and urban explorers. Read more → Eavesdropping on Manatees In the Bocas del Toro region of Panama, Antillean manatees swim in turbid, weedy waters so murky that one can barely see them. So to study the region’s manatee population, which has been decreasing for a decade, researchers had to get creative. Instead of looking for the manatees, they’re listening for them. Read more → Visit AtlasObscura.com · View in Browser · Unsubscribe · See All Newsletters 61 Greenpoint Ave #622, Brooklyn, NY 11222