The world is more interesting than you think.
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Joey Tribbiani's iconic, incredibly tacky white ceramic dog statue from Friends originally belonged to Jennifer Aniston, who received the hideous piece of decor as a good luck…
Joey Tribbiani's iconic, incredibly tacky white ceramic dog statue from Friends originally belonged to Jennifer Aniston, who received the hideous piece of…
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D&D grew out of rules for fighting miniature battles.
D&D grew out of rules for fighting miniature battles. The 1974 game referred players to Chainmail, a tabletop wargame, but also provided an alternative combat…
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Swallowing aggressively during takeoff and landing is the only way to manually force your Eustachian tubes to open and equalize the intense air pressure building up painfully inside your head.
Swallowing aggressively during takeoff and landing is the only way to manually force your Eustachian tubes to open and equalize the intense air pressure…
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Uncoiled deoxyribonucleic acid from a single adult human body would stretch out to roughly thirty-four billion miles, which is long enough to reach from here to the sun and back…
Uncoiled deoxyribonucleic acid from a single adult human body would stretch out to roughly thirty-four billion miles, which is long enough to reach from here…
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Albert Gunter, a completely ordinary London bus driver, successfully jumped his double-decker bus over a three-foot gap in Tower Bridge in 1952 when the bridge began opening while he was driving across it.
Albert Gunter, a completely ordinary London bus driver, successfully jumped his double-decker bus over a three-foot gap in Tower Bridge in 1952 when the…
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Astronomers averaged galaxy light and got cosmic latte.
Astronomers averaged galaxy light and got cosmic latte. A survey of about 200,000 galaxies produced an overall light spectrum that researchers translated into…
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Classic cat's-eye road studs use passing cars to help clean them.
Classic cat's-eye road studs use passing cars to help clean them. Their reflectors return headlight beams toward drivers, marking the road without their own…
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NASA launched the Voyager golden records into deep space to communicate with potential alien life, but conspicuously left out any mention of astrology or the zodiac wheel.
NASA launched the Voyager golden records into deep space to communicate with potential alien life, but conspicuously left out any mention of astrology or the…
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Engineers in the 1950s programmed early computers using punch cards, which were literal pieces of stiff paper with holes painstakingly punched in them to represent binary data.
Engineers in the 1950s programmed early computers using punch cards, which were literal pieces of stiff paper with holes painstakingly punched in them to…
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Ancient Roman mystics predicted the future using alectryomancy, an absurdly literal process where they drew letters in the dirt, placed grains of wheat on them, and let a chicken peck at the food to spell out prophecies.
Ancient Roman mystics predicted the future using alectryomancy, an absurdly literal process where they drew letters in the dirt, placed grains of wheat on…
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Experiencing a sudden, overwhelming feeling that you have already lived through the exact present moment is a neurological glitch formally known as deja vu.
Experiencing a sudden, overwhelming feeling that you have already lived through the exact present moment is a neurological glitch formally known as deja vu.…
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Enron counted profits from a video service that never fulfilled its promise.
Enron counted profits from a video service that never fulfilled its promise. Its 2000 Blockbuster partnership aimed to deliver movies over broadband and…
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Fallout makes bottle caps behave like scarce money.
Fallout makes bottle caps behave like scarce money. In the original game's setting, Hub merchants supported caps as currency and backed them with water. Their…
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Curiosity played Happy Birthday with a soil-handling instrument.
Curiosity played Happy Birthday with a soil-handling instrument. For the rover's first Mars anniversary in 2013, engineers varied the vibration frequencies of…
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Animal Crossing turned forgetting to save into a lecture from a mole.
Animal Crossing turned forgetting to save into a lecture from a mole. Mr. Resetti appeared after an unsaved reset and scolded the player, with increasingly…
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Gacha games sell a chance before they sell a character.
Gacha games sell a chance before they sell a character. Players spend premium currency on randomized draws, so the next purchase can feel like another step…
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Reading in low light conditions does not cause permanent damage to your eyesight or physically alter the structure of your eyeballs in any meaningful way.
Reading in low light conditions does not cause permanent damage to your eyesight or physically alter the structure of your eyeballs in any meaningful way. The…
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Entering the European Schengen area allows you to seamlessly travel across twenty-nine different countries without ever showing your passport to a border guard, which is…
Entering the European Schengen area allows you to seamlessly travel across twenty-nine different countries without ever showing your passport to a border…
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Twister sound designers heavily edited the angry moans of a camel to create the terrifying, monstrous roar of the devastating tornado that violently rips through the climax of the film.
Twister sound designers heavily edited the angry moans of a camel to create the terrifying, monstrous roar of the devastating tornado that violently rips…
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Electronic tolls moved the transaction off the roadside booth.
Electronic tolls moved the transaction off the roadside booth. Readers identify a vehicle's transponder or cameras record its plate, allowing payment to be…
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Obstetricians exert considerably more gravitational pull on a newborn baby during delivery than any planet in the solar system, including massive giants like Jupiter or Saturn.
Obstetricians exert considerably more gravitational pull on a newborn baby during delivery than any planet in the solar system, including massive giants like…
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Vikings used the bones of dead animals to forge their swords, believing that the spirit of the animal would transfer into the weapon and make it significantly more powerful in battle.
Vikings used the bones of dead animals to forge their swords, believing that the spirit of the animal would transfer into the weapon and make it significantly…
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The muscles that straighten your arm do their work by pulling.
The muscles that straighten your arm do their work by pulling. The triceps creates tension that rotates the forearm at the elbow; the biceps pulls from the…
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Snow White’s voice slipped into The Wizard of Oz.
Snow White’s voice slipped into The Wizard of Oz. Adriana Caselotti, who voiced Disney’s Snow White, also supplied the Juliet voice during the Tin Man’s “If I…
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