It turns out that there’s strong evidence to suggest that at least one kind of dolphin sound, studied extensively over the past decade, does function as a kind of referential symbol. Dolphins use distinct “signature whistles” to identify and call to one another. Each dolphin is thought to invent a unique name for itself as a calf and to keep […]
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Annette Fredskov, of Naestved, Denmark, ran 26.2 miles every day for a year, despite having multiple sclerosis. She marked the anniversary of her daily feat with a double marathon two weeks ago, running over 52 miles in just over 10 hours. Since July 2012, she has run almost 10,000 miles and worn through 20 pairs of running shoes. Fredskov says […]
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Amount for which the owner of happybirthday.com is attempting to sell the domain name: $2,000,000 Amount for which he sold sex.com in 2010: $13,000,000
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A Canadian man nearly blew off his own head while trying to kill a mouse with a rifle. Dale Whitmell, 40, tried to crush the scampering rodent with the butt of his rifle, but when he slammed the weapon on the ground, it discharged. The bullet grazed his forehead but did not badly wound him. After being released from a […]
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After decimating the Tanzanian elephant population, poachers have now killed half of the elephants in neighboring Mozambique in just five years. A survey by Mozambique’s government and the U.S.-based Wildlife Conservation Society found that the herd has shrunk from 20,000 in 2010 to just over 10,000 animals today. “This decline is due to rampant elephant poaching in the country’s most important […]
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Sorry, science-fiction fans: Time travel is impossible. That is the sobering conclusion, anyway, of a Hong Kong-based team of physicists. They found that the maximum speed of a single photon, the basic unit of light, “obeys the traffic law of the universe,” Agence France-Presse reports. The photon cannot go faster than the speed of light—186,282 miles per second—and thus provides […]
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A Tennessee woman was banned from her lifelong church after she refused to publicly condemn her lesbian daughter. The Ridgedale Church of Christ said it was exiling Linda Cooper for the sin of condoning homosexuality. “They’re exiling members for unconditionally loving their children,” said Cooper’s gay daughter, Kat.
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Danielle Shea, 22, was charged with trying to cancel Quinnipiac University’s graduation ceremony by calling in a bomb threat. Shea, police said, didn’t want her parents to find out she had dropped out and was pocketing their tuition money.
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Heat and acidity are also bad for coral reefs, which have declined by 40% in some areas since the 1970s. Coral organisms reproduce just once a year, making it hard for reefs to bounce back.
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China has surpassed Mexico as the largest source of new U.S. immigrants. China was the country of origin for 147,000 immigrants in 2013, compared with Mexico at 125,000, according to a new U.S. Census Bureau study.
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