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A 'Holy Grail' for Botanists Has Been Found in California

This long-lost wildflower sighting by Antioch is botany’s holy grail. via @pfimritehttps://t.co/EBFvuWtl0kpic.twitter.com/jc2Yf2X1LX— SFChronicle (@sfchronicle) September 8, 2016Somewhere outside...

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9 Bizarre Schools That We Promise Actually Exist

Gladiator School's leaders in full garb. (Photo: Gruppo Storico Romano/Used with permission)It's back to school week across the U.S. for everyone from preschoolers to graduate students. And while there...

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How the FBI Tied Tupac's Death to Eazy-E, Death Row Records, and the Jewish...

(Photo: marycsalome/CC BY 2.0)A version of this story originally appeared on Muckrock.com.On September 7th, 1996, rap icon Tupac Shakur was gunned down in Las Vegas by unknown assailants, leading to...

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Mapping the Hidden Structures of New York City's Internet Networks

A construction worker sprays a cryptic telecommunication marking. [Photo: Z22/CC-BY-SA-4.0]Some of the most underappreciated, complicated architecture lies hidden beneath the city’s surface. Buried...

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Picturing the Strange and Surreal World of Duos and Dopplegangers

(Photo: Kostis Fokas/ compilation © 2016 by Sandrine Kerfante)Humans have long had a fascination with duos and doubles. The ancient Egyptians believed that every person had a ka, a spirit version of...

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Disaster Response Now Includes Rapid Mapmaking

NASA's rapid-response map of rainfall in Louisiana. (Photo: NASA/JAXA, Hal Pierce)When Louisiana was hit with historic flooding, in August 2016, the federal government’s response teams went into...

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The Future of Animatronics, From Disney to the U.S. Military

This ain't your dad's animatronic... dad. (Photo: Courtesy of Garner Holt Productions/Used with Permission)When you think of animatronics, you may flash to the janky mechanical pizza parlor bands of...

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Here’s What an Underground Nuclear Test Actually Looks Like

Subsidence craters left by underground tests in Nevada. (Photo: Dept. of Energy)North Korea has conducted an underground test of a nuclear weapon, its fifth in a decade. According to South Korea, which...

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Why the Purple Skittle Tastes Different Outside America

Succulent blackcurrants waiting to be picked. (Photo: Public Domain)Pop quiz: What flavor is the purple Skittle? If you grew up tasting the rainbow in the U.S. of A, the answer is clearly grape. But in...

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How Nevada Became the Only State Where You Can Vote for 'None Of These...

An empty senate chamber, circa 1873. (Photo: Library of Congress/LC-DIG-cwpbh-03299)Sometimes voting feels like a very tough SAT question: none of the choices seem right. What to do when you can't put...

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Watch a Mysterious Video of a Truck Driving Through an Interstate Flood

Deadly flooding this year in Louisiana has been a slow-moving disaster for the state, displacing hundreds of thousands of residents and causing millions in damage. It got pretty bad, in other words,...

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Watch This Tiny Rainbow Peacock Spider Dance the Performance of His Life

Male spiders will do a lot for the loving attention of a female. The famous peacock spider has quite the demonstration. He sways, struts, bobs, shudders, waves his arms, and exposes his brightly...

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A Chinese Billionaire is Likely Behind a Huge Aluminum Stockpile in the...

(Photo: mjneuby/CC BY 2.0)In 2014, photos taken from the sky revealed that around six percent of the world's aluminum—or around a million tons—was sitting in a desert in Mexico. As the Wall Street...

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The UN General Assembly Plans Meeting Over 'Superbugs'

SUPERBUGS! (Photo: John Voo/CC BY 2.0)UN meetings aren’t all boring commissions on tariffs and diplomacy, sometimes they are about creating a worldwide defense against “superbugs.” According to Science...

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An Ode to Concrete

Buzludzha monument in Bulgaria. (Photo: decar66/CC BY 2.0)In the middle of the 20th century a new wave of modernism swept over the architectural world, and it was made of concrete. The material’s low...

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Do You Know the New York Accent Better Than a New Yorker?

But what does it sound like? (Photo: W45lin/CC BY-SA 4.0)Can you tell where in New York someone is from based on their accent? A new online survey is testing whether even native New Yorkers can tell...

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Watch a Clip from the Glory Days of the Pageant Swimsuit Competition

It's that time of year you've been counting down on your calendar: pageant season. Who will be deemed most beautiful in each of all those many nations? Who will hit the high notes in the talent...

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There's a Tiny Utopia in the Middle of Queens

An award-winning playground. (Photo: Jack Goodman)New York City has many glorious and terrible attributes. One thing it generally isn’t, though, is utopian. One fifth of the population live below the...

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Driver Jailed After Calling Police to Ask Them to Stop Following Him

Last February, Bruce Dewey, a "laborer of no fixed address," according to British police, had a bad day. He was driving a Honda Legend in West Sussex county, England—about 50 miles south of London—when...

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The Illustrated Map of America's Worst Utopias

(Graphic by Michelle Enemark)There are many who want to believe that a utopia—a perfect society, an ideal world—can exist. Even in America.Yet, as quickly as leaders eagerly build utopias, they often...

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