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
How a video game put loot boxes before lawmakers
When a sci-fi shooter offends international lawmakers, you know you've messed up. EA locked iconic heroes behind massive paywalls or hundreds of hours of…
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Depreciation makes perfectly good assets look worthless
There is nothing quite like telling your shareholders a massive server farm is virtually useless after three years just to balance the books. Depreciation…
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Tsuchinoko snakes resembling chubby cylinders
Most reptiles are sleek and intimidating, but this one is built like a thick sausage. Hopping aggressively instead of slithering, this elusive fat snake…
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Children's authors hate their own film adaptations
You would think getting a massive paycheck from a studio would make a writer happy, but literary creators absolutely despise what producers do to their work.…
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Jet streams are massive high-speed atmospheric rivers
High above your daily commute, narrow bands of wind are absolutely tearing across the sky at hundreds of miles per hour. Driven by intense temperature…
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Who really writes famous memoirs
When a famous athlete or politician suddenly releases a profound, articulate 300-page book, they almost certainly did not type a single word of it. Elite…
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Salamander amphibians thriving inside infernos
Throwing a lizard into a blazing inferno usually ends poorly, unless it is an elemental. These legendary reptiles supposedly loved bathing in open flames,…
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Beta metrics quantify pure financial anxiety
In the sterile world of finance, they have actually found a strictly mathematical way to measure sheer panic. The Beta of a stock is an economic metric that…
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London Eye is a massive cantilevered observation wheel
Stop calling it a Ferris wheel; the British get very sensitive about the terminology. Unlike standard carnival rides suspended between two supports, this…
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Hideo Kojima put his name on nearly every mission screen
Humility is completely optional when you are considered an industry auteur. Following a bitter dispute with his publisher, this famed director ensured his…
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No Man's Sky was investigated over its promises
Hype is a double-edged sword that attracts government lawyers. The developers promised so many absent features prior to release that the UK's Advertising…
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How Final Fantasy XIV destroyed its own world
Admitting defeat is hard, so Square Enix just dropped a literal apocalypse instead. Final Fantasy XIV was so terrible at launch that the creators wrote an…
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Why 23 people are enough to share a birthday
The birthday paradox destroys our intuitive grasp of odds. Plop just twenty-three entirely random individuals into a crowded room, and there is miraculously a…
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Heel bones endure massive impact with every single step
The calcaneus is a massive chunk of bone that willingly absorbs brutal shockwaves every time you dare to walk. As the largest bone in the foot, it forms the…
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How the Titanic helped inspire sonar
The tragic sinking of an 'unsinkable' luxury liner sent inventors scrambling to ensure a giant block of ice would never ambush a ship again. By blasting…
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Why slasher movies kill someone so quickly
Nobody buys a ticket to a brutal teen-massacre film to watch an hour of deep, nuanced character development. Writers are strictly instructed to violently…
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The budgeting method that makes everyone start from zero
Trust is completely nonexistent when corporate budget season officially rolls around. Instead of just tweaking last year's numbers, zero-based budgeting…
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Agartha hiding a glowing inner sun underground
Forget the molten core; there is supposedly a cozy glowing orb down there. Believers claim a subterranean paradise thrives right beneath our feet, offering…
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The cable car that carried Chongqing across the Yangtze
Before bridges were abundant, Chongqing residents relied on a giant metal box strung over the murky Yangtze River. The urban cableway functions exactly like a…
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The Disney gamble that started with a mortgaged house
Industry insiders gleefully dubbed it a catastrophic folly, utterly convinced that nobody would sit through eighty minutes of a brightly colored cartoon. The…
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The first feature film came from Australia
Despite what California studio executives desperately want you to believe, the multi-million dollar cinematic empire did not start in America. The very first…
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Space tourism requires months of brutal training
Buying a ticket to low Earth orbit does not mean you just casually board a rocket in your weekend clothes. Wealthy civilians must undergo grueling centrifuge…
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Recreational vehicles replaced trailers
Marketing executives realized nobody wanted to brag about sleeping in a trailer, so they rebranded the entire concept. The industry shifted to the term RV to…
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Why your calf suddenly locks up in agony
Sometimes your calf simply decides it has had enough and violently rebels. A cramp is an involuntary, sustained tetanic contraction where the muscle fibers…
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