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Giant Snowballs Have Appeared on the Siberian Coast

Nature is getting ready for an epic snowball fight, and it looks like they’re stocking up ammo in Arctic Russia. According to the Siberian Times, villagers near the Gulf of Ob seem to have started...

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What Happens When Crowds Try To Flee For Their Lives

Early Sunday morning on January 27, 2013, the band Gurizada Fandangueira was playing to a packed house at the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria, Brazil. Hundreds of people, including many university...

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The 200-Year Old Book That Sent the East Coast Into a Sex Panic

In June of 1964, at a Hackensack, New Jersey courthouse, pediatrician Dr. William Reilly was called upon to give testimony regarding the dangers of reading about “abnormal” sexuality. In the course of...

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The 1915 Map That Helped All Women Get the Vote

You might have seen what today's electoral map would look like if only women voted. Well, here’s another version of that map—a “suffrage map” from early 20th century America. Suffrage maps played an...

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The Ancients Used Hyena's Foot for Childbirth—And Identified Copper As a...

Watch any modern depiction of the Greeks and Romans on TV and you’ll see an endless montage of exciting sex, often involving scores of topless women and writhing orgies. Fun as these exaggerated...

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An Illustrated Guide of the World's Weirdest Panics, From A to Z

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The Controversial Device That Might Make You Feel the Presence of a Higher Power

In the middle to late 1990s, the frenzy for neuroscientific explanations for everything from why we laugh to how we fall in love was only just gaining a toehold in the popular science. And word was...

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How G.I. Joe Inspired a Movement to Ban War Toys

A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.The '80s were by and large a time of peace for the United States. The Cold War...

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The Long Death of Product 19, the Most Beloved Cereal You've Never Heard Of

When you hear the name “Product 19,” you’ll either flash on an experimental invention from some corporate R&D department, or, if you're one of its fans, you might think of the health cereal, rare...

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Watch This Compilation of Painfully Unsatisfying Moments

UNSATISFYING from PARALLEL STUDIO on Vimeo.You’re craving a soda and have just spent the last five minutes scouring through every pocket of your backpack and looking around on the floor for any lost...

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See the Weird and Fascinating Deep-Sea Creatures That Live in Constant Darkness

A version of this story originally appeared on bioGraphic.com.Although blue is the color most often associated with the world’s oceans, black is a far more apt descriptor for nearly 90 percent of our...

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Help Reunite This Lost WWII Love Letter With Its Owner

On July 5th, 1945, a young British woman named Dorothy penned a letter to her sweetheart, Harry Hughes, a Royal Air Force pilot posted overseas in India. She told him about her day—she had voted in the...

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A Short History of the Awkward Concession Phone Call

On November 4, 1980, President Jimmy Carter went on television to concede to Ronald Reagan. The polls hadn't closed in California yet, but it was obvious Reagan had won. Before his speech, Carter sent...

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What to Pack Before You Go Off The Grid

You never know when disaster might strike. Amidst mass panic, fear, and chaos it’s understandably difficult to keep logic and reason in check. The last thing you’d want to do when it’s time to flee...

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Here Are Even More of Your Election Panic Dreams

Last week, we asked you to send us your election panic dreams. Many, many of you complied. But then dozens more came in, and we're now up to 139 panic dreams and counting.A panic dream can be defined...

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Let These Beautiful Views of Earth From Space Take Your Mind Off Your Worries

As anxiety runs high during these tense times it may be difficult to keep your wits in check. But regardless of the problems and fears that have you panicked (and even sleep deprived), it's important...

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1990s Doomsday Planners Worried About Feminists Breaching Nuclear Waste Sites

The year is 2091, and women are in charge of the United States. According to a missive describing their rise, they occupy 80 percent of top governmental, academic, and corporate positions. The cultural...

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How to Solve Voter Fraud, 19th-Century Style: A Glass Ballot Box

Voter fraud has been a contentious issue during the 2016 presidential election campaign, despite there being scant evidence that it actually occurs. But the methods being employed to combat it—such as...

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Make Your Voice Heard! Vote for the Best Obscure Places in 8 Swing States

Maybe you voted early or by absentee ballot. Maybe you went this morning, or at lunchtime. But doesn't scrolling past all those "I Voted" stickers on your social media feeds make you want to vote for...

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Why Don't They Make Alarms Like This Anymore?

Bright red Dictograph alarms, like the one above, may be the Platonic ideal of alarms—you can just picture that light flashing while the machine screeches its warning. The company that made them...

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