Pompey the Great’s soldiers were bone tired. For most of 65 BCE, Roman legions marched around the southern edge of the Black Sea as they battled the local ruler, Mithridates VI of Pontus. Then, something magical happened: The exhausted troops discovered a stockpile of honeycombs strewn across their path, and they fell upon the sticky treats like hungry bears. But […]
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In southern Australia, it’s raining spiders. Spiders can ride the wind using an ingenious migration technique known as ballooning. Residents of Goulburn, Australia, received a startling demonstration of the phenomenon last week, when hundreds of thousands of tiny spiders descended from the sky on gossamer parachutes. “The whole place was covered in these little black spiderlings, and when I looked […]
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Russian orphanages are a scandal, said Jennifer Rankin. State institutions house nearly 400,000 children, a population larger than many cities. But less than one third of these children are actually orphans. Many “fall into the system when their parents, often fighting a losing battle with alcohol or drugs,” lose their parental rights. Even more of them—nearly half the total—have disabilities, […]
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The Republicans have a euphemism for undocumented workers— illegals — said Peter Beinart. With a tone of disgust, that single, dehumanizing noun has become the GOP presidential candidates’ preferred way to describe the millions of human beings picking our produce, cooking our food, cutting our lawns, and watching over our kids. It’s “the latest in a long line of euphemisms […]
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Researchers have found some 200 million termite mounds that stretch for thousands of miles across northeastern Brazil. The area measures 88,000 square miles an area larger than the state of Minnesota. They stand about 10 feet tall, about 30 feet wide, and may be up to 4000 years old. The only way to see these mounds is by using a […]
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■ A Missouri couple have used their record lottery winnings to improve their hometown. Mark and Cindy Hill have spent chunks of their $293 million fortune on the town of Camden Point buying it a new firehouse and baseball field, refurbishing the town’s waste-water system, and topping up the high school scholarship fund.The Hills’ gifts amounted to 25 years of […]
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Mike Carmichael simply wanted to do something weird when he and his 3-year-old son slapped a coat of blue paint on a baseball in 1977. The central Indiana resident stuck with painting the ball, which grew large enough to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records in 2004. At that time, it was 9 feet (2.7 meters) across, […]
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AAA says more than 76 percent of U.S. drivers are parking the wrong way. “U.S. drivers most frequently park their vehicle by pulling forward into a parking spot … a riskier practice that driving experts warn leaves pedestrians more vulnerable.” So it seems, we should really be backing into parking spots instead of pulling in head first. As part of a […]
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New research suggests that high levels of BPA, a chemical in many plastics and canned food linings, might raise the risk of miscarriage in women prone to that problem or having trouble getting pregnant. While the study is not nearly enough to prove a link, experts say it does add to “the biological plausibility” that BPA might affect fertility and […]
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Russian teens are killing themselves en masse, and the authorities “seem oblivious,” said Alexander Tretyakov. The country has long had one of the world’s highest teen suicide rates, and in the past decade it’s gotten worse. Thousands of teens have joined “suicide forums” on Vkontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook. There they share stories of abuse and desperation and trade […]
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