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
Duke Nukem Forever spent 14 years becoming available
Announced in 1997, the game finally reached stores in 2011 after a famously prolonged development. By release, the wait itself had become part of its…
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The only Oscar to win an Oscar
Composer Oscar Hammerstein is the only person named Oscar to win an Academy Award statuette.
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Your touchscreen inherited a 19th-century typewriter layout
QWERTY emerged while inventors repeatedly rearranged early typewriter keyboards, and the Sholes and Glidden machine brought it to market in 1874. Explanations…
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Ancient desert mummies with European traits
The 4,000-year-old Tarim Basin mummies were found with blonde hair, high cheekbones, and plaid clothing, surprising researchers because they lived in an…
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The fake movie trailers that became real films
Audience enthusiasm helped turn joke trailers such as Machete and Thanksgiving into feature films.
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Legend of the ancient Oak Island money pit
The supposed treasure remains undiscovered despite millions of dollars in digging; flood tunnels have also claimed several lives. Excavators have found…
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Walt Disney was the original voice of Mickey Mouse
When Mickey Mouse debuted in the late 1920s, the studio couldn’t afford professional voice actors, so Disney voiced him himself. He supplied Mickey’s…
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Spielberg removed E.T.'s guns, then regretted the edit
For the 2002 rerelease, agents pursuing the children had their guns digitally replaced with walkie-talkies. Spielberg later said concern about showing…
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The Terminator's metallic sound started with a frying pan
Composer Brad Fiedel struck a cast-iron pan with a hammer to create a metallic sound for the score. Recording and using that impact gave the futuristic…
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Starbucks began by selling coffee you had to brew yourself
Its first Seattle store opened in 1971 selling whole beans, tea, and spices for customers to take home. The espresso-bar identity came later. The brand now…
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Vatican citizenship can come with the job
Citizenship is tied to designated roles and residence rather than simply to being born inside the walls. It can also extend to eligible family members and end…
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Early computer RPGs inherited a tabletop rulebook
Dungeons & Dragons supplied an appealing recipe: characters with numerical abilities, equipment, monsters and chance-based combat. Computers could keep track…
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QR codes were created for car factories
Japanese engineer Masahiro Hara invented QR codes in 1994 to track car parts during manufacturing, because standard barcodes couldn’t hold enough information.
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Escobar's son described a fire fueled by cash
Juan Pablo Escobar said in a 2009 interview that his father burned about $2 million in banknotes to warm his daughter while the family was hiding. It is the…
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Laughter can make you collapse while conscious
Cataplexy, commonly associated with type 1 narcolepsy, causes a sudden loss of muscle tone while awareness remains. Strong emotion such as laughter can…
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Stonehenge aligns perfectly with the winter solstice
That orientation may have helped mark the seasons and track the approach of winter.
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A bullet train moves its exhaust away from the tracks
Electric trains do not burn fuel onboard to propel themselves, so they avoid an engine's exhaust along the route. Electricity generation can still produce…
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What chemical sunscreen does with UV rays
When UV rays hit chemical sunscreen, its ingredients absorb the energy and convert it into heat near the skin's surface. That gives the rays a different…
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Carl Jung believed synchronicity was real magic
Jung used “synchronicity” for meaningful coincidences he thought went beyond chance. He theorized that consciousness was linked to the physical universe and…
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The typo that knocked thousands of websites offline
An Amazon Web Services engineer entered a value that was too large while trying to run a routine debugging command, taking thousands of websites, apps, and…
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Concept of karma is massively misunderstood
In traditional Eastern philosophies, karma is less instant cosmic payback than a relationship between actions, habits, and the conditions of a future rebirth.
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Vitamin D deficiency affects hundreds of genes
Vitamin D can act like a hormone: it enters cells and helps regulate which genes are switched on or off. Severe deficiency can disrupt that regulation across…
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A diamond mine carved a spiral into Siberia
The Mir open pit is roughly 525 meters deep and 1.2 kilometers across. Its roads wrap around the walls so trucks can work their way between the surface and…
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Fishing boats stranded in the Aral Sea desert
Rivers feeding the Aral Sea were diverted for irrigation, and the sea shrank until fishing boats sat on dry land. Their old harbor became desert, leaving a…
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