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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 ...
23 April 2019
Understanding the periodic table through the lens of the volatile Group I metals
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(see also)
theconversation.com
22 April 2019
This Was Supposed to Be a Story About a Bizarre Anti-Vaccine Rally and a Sedated Bear. Then It Got Weird.
gizmodo.com
