On the 35th anniversary of its launch, the Voyager 1 spacecraft is close to becoming the first man-made object to escape our solar system. The spacecraft—run by a 1977 computer 100,000 times less powerful than an iPod Nano—is currently 11.3 billion miles away. In 2004, Voyager 1 entered the turbulent boundary zone beyond Pluto, where solar winds encounter plasma pushing […]
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For every deceased person who is buried, four are now cremated.
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A new study has calculated that there are 5.25 trillion small and large pieces of plastic, weighing a total of 269,000 tons, floating in the world’s oceans
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A British woman has abstained from smiling for the last 40 years in an extreme attempt to ward off wrinkles. Tess Christian, 50, told the Daily Mail that she adopted a permanent poker face as a child to prevent laughter lines around her mouth, eyes, and forehead. “My dedication has paid off,” she said. “I don’t have a single line […]
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A specimen of the world’s largest flower, the titan arum, is about to bloom at the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C. To attract carrion insects, the flower emits a stench botanists likened to “a very dead elephant.”
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched India’s first air-quality index in April, but pollution will keep growing unless India stems coal production, which Modi has pledged to double by 2020.
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What’s most important—and troubling— is the decades-long, systemic expansion of the economic distance between the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor, and the long, backward slide for the majority of those in-between.
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Baby Boomers who frequently used recreational drugs like marijuana and cocaine in their youth are now turning back to drugs like Oxycontin for relief of age-related pain and illness. As a result, the fatal-overdose rate for people ages 45 to 64 has become higher than that for 25 to 44-year-olds for the first time. More than 12,000 Boomers died of […]
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Portion of Americans who live in areas harmful levels of air pollution: 1/2 Number of the top five most polluted cities in the country that are in California: 5
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Cary Clevenger, 14, was playing with his friend Gavin Starns outside Gavin’s house in Austin when he happened to look up. Perched on the ledge of a second-story window was Gavin’s 2-year-old brother, Cannon. At that moment, Cannon pushed through the screen and tumbled forward. He bounced off an exterior lamp—and into Cary’s arms. The two hit the ground but were […]
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