The world is more interesting than you think.
Unexpected facts, big ideas, and little discoveries. Find something that sparks your curiosity today.
A little more wonder
The pilot whose historic flight lost to the Titanic
Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel in April 1912. The Titanic sank just before her flight, swallowing the headlines; a…
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Real trauma inspired Dead Space’s monsters
The art team studied police photos of car-crash and trauma victims to make the Necromorphs’ injuries look grotesquely realistic.
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The train station inside a Chongqing apartment block
The station and apartment tower were designed together, with the train passing through a dedicated section of the building. Sound insulation and vibration…
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Heinrich Himmler built a Nazi witch research division
Himmler established the H-Sonderkommando to search medieval records for evidence that the Spanish Inquisition was a Jewish plot against Aryan witches.
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A million seconds is days; a billion is decades
A million seconds lasts about 11½ days. A billion lasts about 31.7 years because it contains a thousand millions. The words sound like neighboring sizes, but…
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Why birds may target red cars
Some retailer studies have found more bird droppings on red cars, though the reason is unclear. One proposed explanation is that red resembles ripe fruit.
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Why you should not take a pulse with your thumb
A thumb can seem like a handy pulse-checking tool, but its own artery can throb under your skin. That means the beat you feel may belong to you, not the…
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IKEA’s biggest retailer is owned by a foundation
Ingka Group, which operates many IKEA stores, belongs to the Dutch Stichting INGKA Foundation. The brand and franchise system sit in a separate corporate…
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Aphids can be born already carrying the next generation
When conditions are favorable, a female aphid can make daughters without mating—and those daughters may already contain developing embryos of their own. The…
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An ancient dugout canoe predates the earliest known wheels
The Pesse canoe from the Netherlands dates to roughly 8000 BC, thousands of years before the earliest known wheeled vehicles. Hollowing a tree trunk created a…
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Mass Effect 2 makes you budget for getting lost in space
Travel between stars in the galaxy map burns the Normandy's fuel, while exploring planets uses probes. Run out of fuel and the game consumes valuable…
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Left 4 Dead grew from Counter-Strike bots armed with knives
Developers found it fun to face swarms of knife-wielding bots with a small, heavily armed team. That experiment helped supply the foundation for the…
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Kenya's mobile libraries travel by camel
The Kenya National Library Service developed a camel library service in the Garissa region to reach communities far from conventional branches. Animals…
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A famous airport story turns walking time into a waiting-time solution.
A famous airport story turns walking time into a waiting-time solution. In a widely repeated account about Houston, directing arriving passengers on a longer…
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Pac-Man's fruit counter helps wreck level 256.
Pac-Man's fruit counter helps wreck level 256. An overflowing counter sends the routine that draws the little fruit icons beyond its intended limits. It…
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Seventeenth-century alchemist Hennig Brand was so convinced he could create the Philosopher's Stone to turn lead into gold that he boiled down 1,500 gallons of human urine in his basement.
Seventeenth-century alchemist Hennig Brand was so convinced he could create the Philosopher's Stone to turn lead into gold that he boiled down 1,500 gallons…
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Some color laser printers leave an invisible-looking signature on the page.
Some color laser printers leave an invisible-looking signature on the page. Tiny yellow dots can encode identifying information such as a printer’s serial…
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Mystics spent decades claiming that thirteen ancient Mesoamerican crystal skulls held massive psychic energy, could cure cancer, and were possibly dropped off by hyper-advanced alien tourists.
Mystics spent decades claiming that thirteen ancient Mesoamerican crystal skulls held massive psychic energy, could cure cancer, and were possibly dropped off…
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Sixteenth-century French astrologer Nostradamus is world-famous for writing vague, mystical quatrains that conspiracy theorists constantly twist to predict modern historical disasters.
Sixteenth-century French astrologer Nostradamus is world-famous for writing vague, mystical quatrains that conspiracy theorists constantly twist to predict…
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Sean Connery was offered the role of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings trilogy along with a massive 15% stake in the box office profits, but he turned it down simply because he didn't understand the script.
Sean Connery was offered the role of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings trilogy along with a massive 15% stake in the box office profits, but he turned it down…
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Marketing executives for the 1999 indie horror film The Blair Witch Project ran such a convincing promotional campaign using fake police reports and missing persons posters that…
Marketing executives for the 1999 indie horror film The Blair Witch Project ran such a convincing promotional campaign using fake police reports and missing…
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Pisa's tower is curved as well as tilted.
Pisa's tower is curved as well as tilted. The lean began during construction as the ground settled unevenly. Later builders tried to compensate by making…
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Your brain runs on roughly twenty watts of metabolic power.
Your brain runs on roughly twenty watts of metabolic power. That is an energy-use comparison, not electricity available from a socket in your head. Cells…
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British colonial authorities actually built a massive scaffold of bamboo over the entire Taj Mahal during World War Two in order to disguise the glowing white marble monument from Japanese bomber planes.
British colonial authorities actually built a massive scaffold of bamboo over the entire Taj Mahal during World War Two in order to disguise the glowing white…
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