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Lots of Ancient Pagodas and Temples Were Damaged in the Myanmar Earthquake
Bagan before the quake. (Photo: Corto Maltese 1999/CC BY 2.0)A 6.8-magnitude earthquake hit Myanmar Wednesday, killing at least four and damaging scores of structures, including several pagodas in the...
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9 Incredible Meteorite Craters That Look Straight Out of 'Deep Impact'
The human species may not (yet) have encountered extraterrestrial life, but our planet is pockmarked with the scars of alien visitors of a different sort: the giant rocks that have come hurling out of...
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The Trunk Murders and 'Sausage Ghost' of 1920s New Orleans
New Orleans' French Quarter, at the corner of Ursuline Avenue and Royal Street. (Photo: Ken Lund/CC BY-SA 2.0) Tucked between dog-eared title records and 19th-century floor plans were the dismembered...
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Behold a Glorious Vintage Map of Yosemite National Park
Yosemite, 1931. (Photo: Joseph Mora/Part of the David Rumsey Map Collection)Yosemite National Park is almost impossible to visualize in its entirety, with its 747,956 acres of mountains, rivers,...
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Get Lost in the Stacks of These 10 Beautiful University Libraries
Duke Humfrey's reading room at the Old Bodleian Library. (Photo: Diliff/CC BY-SA 3.0)Summer is nearly over; no more frolicking at music festivals and sleeping till afternoon. It's time to hit the books...
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Found: A Mysterious, Dangerous Hole In This Guy's Backyard
It wasn't quite this big, but you get the idea. (Photo: skitterphoto.com/Public Domain)After owning his home for over 25 years, a resident in Edmonton, Alberta recently discovered that a simple...
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Cape Cod Beach Closes Due To Seal Poop Overload
A harbor seal looking pleased with himself. (Photo: Andreas Trepte/CC BY-SA 2.5)Joy-seeking swimmers: were you hoping to catch some of the summer's waning rays at Cahoon Hollow Beach in Wellfleet,...
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Hundreds of Reindeer Killed by Lightning in Norway
(Photo: Norwegian Environment Agency)A ranger at Hardangervidda, in central Norway, was walking around Friday when he came upon a gruesome discovery: over 300 dead reindeer, killed, officials, think,...
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Six Scientists Just Emerged from a Dome After a Year Simulating Life on Mars
(Photo: Carmel Johnston)This day last year six scientists entered a dome on a mountain in Hawaii and lived as you might on Mars. They slept in tight quarters and only entered the outside world in...
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Why Portland-Themed Businesses Are Big in Japan
A large record collection and vintage knickknacks grace the wood-paneled interior of Paddlers Coffee. (All Photos: Amelia Ayrelan Iuvino) Tokyo is the most populous metropolitan area in the world, with...
View ArticleWatch These Performers Form an Incredible Four-Tiered Human Pyramid on Waterskis
Forty-eight performers remain poised on waterskis as they glide down a waterway in Linyi, Shandong, China. Slowly and with impressive ease, 24 of these acrobatic waterskiers climb onto each others...
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How to Keep a Zibaldone, the 13th Century's Answer to Tumblr
A page from the Zibaldone da Venice, a 14th-century hodgepodge. (Image: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)One day in Venice, sometime near the end of the 14th century, a busy merchant found...
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A Brief History of the College Textbook Pricing Racket
(Photo: m01229/CC BY 2.0)A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.When I recently wrote about airport stores, one of the...
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The Tiny Amazonian City That Supplies Aquarium Fish to the World
A young piabeiro (aquarium fisherman) heads out to collect Cardinal Tetras using a simple hand net. (All photos: Mike Tuccinardi)Deep in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, the tiny city of Barcelos stands as...
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One of the 100 Desks in the U.S. Senate Chamber is Full of Candy
Hershey products from Pennsylvania are among the sweets stashed in the candy desk. (Photo: Bev Sykes/CC BY 2.0)Here's an unusually sweet political secret: one of 100 desks in the U.S. Senate chamber...
View ArticleWatch Gene Wilder Behind the Scenes as the Original Willy Wonka
Roald Dahl's book Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was brought to life in 1971. Chocolate rivers, candy-laden trees and edible tea cups; the film made a child's imagination explode with...
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Found: A Huge Reef Hiding Right Behind the Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef (Photo: Nathan Hughes Hamilton/CC BY 2.0)As it turns out, the Great Barrier Reef, might not be the only great thing sitting in that portion of the ocean. According to Smithsonian...
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After Nuclear Blasts, Scientists Say It's Probably Time to Start a New Epoch
A mushroom cloud forms after a nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in the western Pacific Ocean in 1954. (Photo: Public domain)If humans weren't trying to consciously destroy the Earth, you wouldn't really...
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There's Some Clown Hysteria in South Carolina After a Lot of Mysterious Clown...
Endless clowns. (Photo: StockSnap/CC0)Concerned citizens have been abuzz about a recent rash of clown sightings in the woods outside the Fleetwood Manor apartment complex in Greenville, South Carolina....
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In 1975, a Cat Co-Authored a Physics Paper
THIS IS A DRAMATIZATION. (Photo: Kachalkina Veronika/Shutterstock.com)When one reads a physics paper in an esteemed journal, one does not generally wonder if it was written by a cat. But such was the...
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