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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...
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Shining 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...
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The 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...
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How 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...
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Photos 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...
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We 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...
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The 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...
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Are 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...
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FOUND: 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...
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Fleeting 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...
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Middle 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...
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Spooky 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...
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Dystopia, 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...
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Object 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...
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A 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...
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The 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...
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A 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...
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Exploring 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...
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FOUND: 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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