Fleeting Wonders: A Multicolored Smile in the Sky
(Photo: Louise Longson/Facebook)Is that a smile in the sky or are the heavens just happy to see you?Actually, the answer is neither. On October 25, residents of the small Oxfordshire village of...
View ArticleShining a Spotlight on Tough-As-Nails L.A. Crime Reporter Agness Underwood
Portrait of Agness "Aggie" May Underwood. (ca. 1933, Herald-Examiner Collection/Los Angeles Public Library)At a time when most female journalists were writing advice columns and reporting on...
View ArticleThe Psychic Who Doesn't Believe in Ghosts–and Doesn't Think You Should Either
A spiritualistic séance by Väinö Kunnas (Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)This article originally appeared on Motherboard.Fog still lingered in the séance room from the previous performance when...
View ArticleHow Haitian Slave Culture Gave Life to Zombies
Vodou altar during a celebration for Papa Guédé in Boston. (Photo: Calvin Hennick/WikiCommons CC BY 3.0)Zombies have infested our culture. There are zombie movies by the hundreds, zombie literature by...
View ArticlePhotos From a Perilous 464-Day Sled Journey Across the Frozen Arctic Ocean
At the North Pole on April 6, 1969. Left to right: Roy ‘Fritz’ Koerner, Ken Hedges, Allan Gill and expedition leader Sir Wally Herbert. Said Sir Wally of the journey, "It seemed like conquering a...
View ArticleWe Are Still Rattling Chains and Crunching Leaves To Signal It's Halloween
Halloween sound effect albums never go out of their crrepy, goofy style. (Image: Youtube)A chain rattles, and the wind blows. A skeleton moves its bones, and a woman shrieks. A wolf growls and a ghost...
View ArticleThe Psychology Behind Why We Believe in Conspiracy Theories
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the moon. (NASA/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)This article originally appeared on Motherboard.According to a 2013 poll, as many as 12 million Americans believe in the...
View ArticleAre Prey Animals Scared All The Time?
Gerard Rijsbrack's "Deer Hunt," from the late 18th century. (Image: Gerard Rijsbrack/Portail des collections des musées de France, Public Domain)In September 1865, a young Charles Darwin first set foot...
View Article100 Wonders: The Park Of Monsters
In a small town called Bomarzo, 42 miles north of Rome, the woods are full of monsters.Created in the mid-16th century by Prince Pier Francesco Orsini, the Park of Monsters is a surreal sculpture...
View ArticleFOUND: A Patch of Arctic Garbage
The Arctic Ocean (Photo: U.S. Geological Survey)There's basically no place on Earth that humans have not spread plastic. In a new study published in Polar Biology, researchers report on the presence of...
View ArticleFleeting Wonders: An All-Woman Cosmonaut Crew on a Simulated Moon Mission
Get ready for all-woman crew of Russian cosmonauts, moon! (Photo: Gabriel Lascu/Flickr) At this very moment, six Russian women are locked in a mock spaceship on a mission to the moon, being closely...
View ArticleMiddle Schooler Halloween Strategies for Maximizing Candy and Coolness
Cool costumes, babies. (Photo: Juhan Sonin/Flickr)Though Halloween comes every year, coolness is forever in flux. This raises the question: how do you succeed at Halloween while also maintaining your...
View ArticleSpooky Scary Skeletons, From The Bible To Tumblr
This undead CGI skeleton warrior, made with a program called DAZ studio, is not very scary. (Image: Carioca/WikiCommons)Maybe it's happened to you: you're minding your own business, clicking around the...
View ArticleDystopia, Death, and the Growing Popularity of Dark Tourism
Auschwitz. (Photo: Ambroise Tezenas)This article originally appeared on Motherboard.In 2012, as New Orleans was still recovering from the tumult of Hurricane Katrina, residents and politicians did...
View ArticleObject of Intrigue: the Prosthetic Iron Hand of a 16th-Century Knight
(Photos: Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg/Wikipedia)Fierce German mercenary knight Götz von Berlichingen loved a good feud. As a soldier for hire in the early 1500s, he and his rogue crew of...
View ArticleA Ride-Along With the Underground Railroad Rescued Kitty Network
(Photo: Popel Arseniy/shutterstock.com)The following is an account of events experienced first-hand.The rendezvous was arranged for a motel parking lot just off the I-44 freeway in Oklahoma. (“Please...
View ArticleThe Suffragettes Who Learned Martial Arts to Fight for Votes
Famous suffragette Edith Garrud demonstrates a jujitsu move on a policeman. (Photo: Tony Wolf/Public Domain)Beneath the folds of their Victorian dresses, the jujutsuffragettes concealed wooden...
View ArticleA Matter of Taste: Inside the Edible Sex Toy Industry
His and Hers Candypants, in strawberry and watermelon flavor. (Photos: Amazon)Eating and sex have a lot in common: they’re both necessary human activities that we’ve managed to find pleasure in. With...
View ArticleExploring the Over-the-Top Texas Tradition of Homecoming Mums
A selection of homecoming mums from Peace, Love and Mums. (Photo: Courtesy Peace, Love and Mums)The long held stereotype goes that everything is bigger in Texas: louder, brasher, imposing in its...
View ArticleFOUND: A Disney Film Missing Since 1928
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit stars in the film (Photo: Cory Doctorow/Flickr)In 1928, Walt Disney released a short film, featuring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a Mickey Mouse-looking fella with a little bit of...
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