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
Why bowling bumpers make every throw count
Throwing the ball with the strength of a toddler is no longer an issue. Those inflatable or plastic gutter bumpers are angled precisely to ensure that no…
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Talc officially sits at the absolute bottom of Mohs scale
In the mineral world, talc is an absolute pushover. Defining the absolute lowest rating of a 1 on the Mohs hardness scale, it is so ridiculously soft that you…
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Surgery once meant staying awake through the pain
Surviving incredibly deep tissue surgery originally required an absolute iron will and completely deafening screams. Since chemical numbing agents were…
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Overwatch turned an aimbot into a character ability
Blizzard took the most toxic, rage-inducing aspect of multiplayer gaming and canonically gave it to a grumpy cowboy. Soldier 76's tactical visor auto-aim is a…
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Bluetooth devices are banned during takeoff phases
Despite living in a wireless utopia, many international carriers strictly mandate you rip those expensive earbuds out during ascent. They desperately want…
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Potassium sparks electrical signals in your nerves
The exact same element people tell you to get from bananas is physically responsible for generating tiny lightning storms in your wiring. Without it, your…
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Why giving to charity can feel rewarding
Economists ruthlessly classify altruism as 'warm-glow giving.' They argue that people do not hand a twenty-dollar bill to a charity purely to save the whales;…
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Bed bugs can triple in size after feeding
The only thing worse than a bloodsucking pest is one that turns your bed into a tragic all-you-can-eat buffet. An unfed bed bug is as flat as a piece of…
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Pong was designed for drunk bar patrons
The genesis of the video game industry relied entirely on the cognitive decline of intoxicated adults. Nolan Bushnell designed Pong with just two knobs and a…
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Six small meals won't boost your metabolism
The obsessive habit of eating six tiny bird meals a day does not magically turn you into a furnace. Total daily intake dictates everything, and breaking your…
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Daylight saving ruins chart accuracy
Forget deep cosmic meaning because half the charts out there are fundamentally incorrect simply due to someone forgetting an arbitrary timezone shift in the…
Discover moreSephiroth's name has a Kabbalistic origin
Because naming a guy with an absurdly long sword 'Steve' just doesn't carry the same dramatic weight. The iconic silver-haired villain derives his name from…
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Why movie characters look at family photos before disaster
Affectionately glancing at a wallet photo of your spouse and child is essentially a self-destruct button. This pure display of familial love immediately…
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Why Japanese covert agents wore navy blue at night
Pop culture has lied to you for decades by dressing every stealth assassin in pitch black. Historically, Japanese covert operatives actually wore dark navy…
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The author who tried to kill Sherlock Holmes
In a stunning display of professional exhaustion, the legendary author absolutely despised his most famous creation. He was so deeply annoyed by the endless…
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Spyro glides across gaps but cannot actually freely fly
Having wings is mostly just for aesthetic purposes. Despite being a literal dragon, this tiny purple hero is completely incapable of taking off from the…
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Hamstrings notably cross over two completely separate joints
The back of your leg features highly complicated structural wiring. Because the hamstring bands directly connect both the hip and the knee simultaneously,…
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The Australian drinking game played on a clothesline
Leave it to Australian ingenuity to turn a backyard clothesline into a rotating beverage dispenser. By pegging bags of cheap wine to a rotary washing line and…
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Super Mario Galaxy was recorded with a live orchestra
Jumping on mushrooms in space apparently demands a cinematic budget. The creators abandoned standard synthesized blips and hired a massive live orchestra to…
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Morin Khuur honors the Mongolian horse spirit
Because honoring your favorite animal involves carving its head onto a stick. The traditional fiddle incorporates strings historically spun from actual…
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The empress who needed servants to scratch her feet
Russian Empress Elisabeth was notoriously paranoid and utterly terrified of sleeping alone. Her bizarre coping mechanism was to hire a rotating shift of…
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Why Buddha tattoos can cause trouble in Sri Lanka
Treating a deeply sacred religious icon like a trendy aesthetic accessory will get you kicked out of the country faster than you can say 'namaste'. Sri Lanka…
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Schrödinger housed his wife and mistress together
Erwin Schrodinger could perfectly comprehend quantum superposition, but his domestic life was an absolute chaotic mess. He moved his mistress into the exact…
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Price is Right losers forfeit giant checks
Nothing crushes a dream faster than television bureaucracy. If you do not win the grand prize, production absolutely refuses to let you walk out of the studio…
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