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A bridge must move without letting the movement grow.
A bridge must move without letting the movement grow. Long suspension bridges flex under wind, traffic, and temperature changes. Engineers control that motion…
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Beauty and the Beast borrowed its final dance from Sleeping Beauty.
Beauty and the Beast borrowed its final dance from Sleeping Beauty. Co-director Gary Trousdale said the team was days from delivery with that last sequence…
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Disneyland's after-hours residents include feral cats.
Disneyland's after-hours residents include feral cats. Cats have lived around the park, and reporting describes feeding and population-management efforts.…
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Churchill in Manitoba, Canada, operates a highly specialized holding facility widely known as the polar bear jail, specifically designed to incarcerate aggressive bears that…
Churchill in Manitoba, Canada, operates a highly specialized holding facility widely known as the polar bear jail, specifically designed to incarcerate…
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Daraprim's price jumped from $13.50 to $750 a tablet.
Daraprim's price jumped from $13.50 to $750 a tablet. After acquiring the long-established drug in 2015, Martin Shkreli's company sharply increased its price.…
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Tom Hanks helped pay for Forrest Gump's running scenes.
Tom Hanks helped pay for Forrest Gump's running scenes. Hanks recalled that he and director Robert Zemeckis financed sequences the studio would not fund,…
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Parisian transit authorities officially phased out their iconic cardboard metro tickets in recent years, violently dragging the stubbornly nostalgic French public into the…
Parisian transit authorities officially phased out their iconic cardboard metro tickets in recent years, violently dragging the stubbornly nostalgic French…
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Moon water is a trendy modern mystical practice where believers leave a jar of tap water outside overnight under a full moon, claiming it absorbs powerful lunar energy that can…
Moon water is a trendy modern mystical practice where believers leave a jar of tap water outside overnight under a full moon, claiming it absorbs powerful…
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Professional golfer Bubba Watson once collaborated with an engineering firm to develop a fully functional hovercraft golf cart, designed specifically to glide effortlessly over…
Professional golfer Bubba Watson once collaborated with an engineering firm to develop a fully functional hovercraft golf cart, designed specifically to glide…
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Chairman Mao Zedong initiated the Four Pests Campaign in 1958, ordering the entire population of China to aggressively exterminate sparrows because he mistakenly believed the…
Chairman Mao Zedong initiated the Four Pests Campaign in 1958, ordering the entire population of China to aggressively exterminate sparrows because he…
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Iron Man's iconic post-credits scene featuring Samuel L.
Iron Man's iconic post-credits scene featuring Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury was filmed in absolute secrecy with a skeleton crew to prevent any leaks from…
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Laundry detergent became valuable loot because it was easy to resell.
Laundry detergent became valuable loot because it was easy to resell. Reports in the early 2010s described theft rings targeting Tide and other detergent,…
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Rats freed trapped companions even when chocolate was available.
Rats freed trapped companions even when chocolate was available. In a 2011 experiment, rats learned to open a restrainer holding another rat. When chocolate…
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Alexander Graham Bell tried to locate a president's bullet.
Alexander Graham Bell tried to locate a president's bullet. After James Garfield was shot in 1881, Bell brought an experimental electrical detector to help…
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Coppola nearly lost The Godfather over the choices that made it famous.
Coppola nearly lost The Godfather over the choices that made it famous. Paramount resisted Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, a period setting, and filming in Sicily,…
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Australia's road trains turn one cab into a freight convoy.
Australia's road trains turn one cab into a freight convoy. On approved outback routes, a powerful tractor pulls several trailers together instead of sending…
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Solid objects don't need atoms packed like tiny marbles.
Solid objects don't need atoms packed like tiny marbles. An atom's nucleus occupies only a tiny part of its overall size, but the surrounding electrons are…
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A Good Day to Die Hard left a real wrecking yard behind its action.
A Good Day to Die Hard left a real wrecking yard behind its action. Director John Moore said 132 cars were left unusable during production, with hundreds more…
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Lead engineer Joe Sutter famously sketched the initial, rough design for the Boeing 747 jumbo jet on the back of a napkin during a meeting in the mid-1960s, completely…
Lead engineer Joe Sutter famously sketched the initial, rough design for the Boeing 747 jumbo jet on the back of a napkin during a meeting in the mid-1960s,…
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Scottish banknotes aren't legal tender—even in Scotland.
Scottish banknotes aren't legal tender—even in Scotland. Legal tender has a narrow meaning concerning repayment of debts, rather than a rule forcing every…
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Matt Groening created the entire cast of 'The Simpsons' in a matter of minutes while desperately waiting in the lobby of producer James L.
Matt Groening created the entire cast of 'The Simpsons' in a matter of minutes while desperately waiting in the lobby of producer James L. Brooks' office,…
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A small blood study found plastic inside the bloodstream.
A small blood study found plastic inside the bloodstream. In 2022, researchers detected measurable plastic material in samples from 17 of 22 healthy…
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Standard Uno does not let you pass a draw penalty along by stacking cards.
Standard Uno does not let you pass a draw penalty along by stacking cards. Under the base rules, a Draw Two or Wild Draw Four penalty is not answered with…
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Ethan Zuckerman wrote the original code for the internet's very first pop-up advertisement in the late nineties while working for Tripod, specifically designing a way for an ad…
Ethan Zuckerman wrote the original code for the internet's very first pop-up advertisement in the late nineties while working for Tripod, specifically…
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