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The Most Modern of Modern Sports
The secret runaway success of Kenneth Gandar-Dower’s racing cheetahs.
Written by Jennifer Noonan • 15 April 2019 • Read/Listen →
Written by Jennifer Noonan • 15 April 2019 • Read/Listen →
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A Pregnant Pause
In January of 1963, husband and wife George and Charlotte Blonsky submitted a patent application for a revolutionary invention. George, a mining engineer...
Nugget:
Every Breath You Take
In June of 1965, a 27-year-old gentleman by the name of Angus Barbieri checked himself into the Maryfield Hospital in Dundee, Scotland. His complaint was...
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Schumann Resonances
Three times a day, every day--roughly 9am, 2pm, and 8pm Coordinated Universal Time--an extremely low frequency electromagnetic pulse races around the Ear...
Long-Form:
A Debaculous Fiasco
The most expensive, bizarre, and obscure work ever created by Dr. Seuss.
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The Original Ghostbuster
In the early 1980s, a certain Mr. Vic Tandy found himself working for a medical device manufacturer in Warwick, in the county of Warwickshire, England. W...
Long-Form:
Drawing the Shorter Straw
Visionary Argentine filmmaker Quirino Cristiani created full-length animated films between 1917 and 1931. He has since been all but forgotten.
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Involuntary Indefatigability
Only one fictional character has ever been honoured with a front-page obituary in the New York Times: Hercule Poirot, one of Agatha Christie's two recurr...
Long-Form:
The Curse of Konzo
In 1981, an international group of doctors identified the devastating disease behind a perplexing outbreak of paralysis in northern Mozambique.
Long-Form:
A Jarring Revelation
Amanda Theodosia Jones was a 19th-century poet, entrepreneur, and inventor who found inspiration in some unlikely places.
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Scraping Bottom
When Germany was divided in two after the Second World War, military leaders recognized the need for liaison between the Soviet-occupied East Germany and...
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The Colors of Numbers
Synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which certain sensory concepts are strongly linked to each other in seemingly random but persistent ways. Tho...
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Yankee Swap
One of the more controversial trades in baseball history was announced on 04 March 1973, just before the start of the 1973 baseball season. Mike Kekich a...
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The Mystery Lake of the Himalayas
Nestled in a valley high in the Himalayas in northern India is a small lake named Roopkund, known locally as Mystery Lake. The area around Roopkund Lake ...
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Echoes of NASA
On 13 May 1960, a NASA Thor-Delta rocket carried the agency's new Echo 1 satellite into a 1,000 mile orbit around the Earth. It was a 156.995 pound metal...
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Cracking the Case
A lengthy study of 'crack babies' born to cocaine addicts in Philadelphia in the 1980s and 1990s ended in 2013 with an unexpected result. The average IQ ...
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Water Proof
In 1936, Russian scientist Vladimir Lukyanov was confronted with the problem of devising a system to improve the quality of Russian concrete and the effi...
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The Democratic People’s Republic of Begonias
An iconic sight in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the Kimjongilia. This hybrid begonia was bred by a Japanese botanist and presented to Sup...
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Strange Brew
According to a 1957 US government study entitled The Effect of Nuclear Explosions on Commercially Packaged Beverages, canned and bottled sodas and beers ...
21 April 2019
20 April 2019
Luna 15: The Soviet Probe That Tried to Gatecrash America’s First Moon Landing
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(see also)
amusingplanet.com
19 April 2019
Jerrie Cobb dies at 88; denied a trip to space, she was first female astronaut candidate
latimes.com
Discovery may help explain why women get autoimmune diseases far more often than men
medicalxpress.com
