Just Plain WEIRD #2
By Rich Haridy – This year’s winning illusion presents a simple shape rotating around a horizontal and vertical axis at the same time. Frank Force / Youtube. – Austin-based game developer Frank Force has won the Best Illusion of the Year prize for …
It’s some spooky, slimy science. By Nina Pullano – What do you call something that’s neither a plant, nor animal, nor fungus? In this case, the answer is “The Blob” — or, seeing as it exists in Paris, France, “Le Blob,” to be …
Unalaska Island in the remote Aleutian archipelago was part of an epic, but now mostly forgotten, military campaign during World War II. By John Zada – A remote outpost Situated where the northern Pacific Ocean meets the Bering Sea, the remote US …
Native Americans, English sailors and pirates all came together on Ocracoke Island in North Carolina to create the only American dialect that is not identified as American. By Brian Carlton – (This year, we published many inspiring and amazing stories that made us …
By Mike Rothschild – It’s time to find the real stories behind Christmas legends and holiday myths. With over 2,000 years of history, the Christmas holiday comes with a host of myths, legends, lies, misconceptions, and commonly believed things that are just …
Merry Christmas, indeed! By Johnathan J. Dalzell – Christmas and mistletoe: Have you ever simply asked yourself … why? I have studied plant parasites like mistletoe for almost 10 years, and I’m here to tell you that the answer is absolutely fascinating. In …
By Sandee LaMotte, CNN – Nepali Buddhist nuns practise kung fu at the Amitabha Drukpa Nunnery on the outskirts of Kathmandu. – (CNN) Blades swirl around their bodies, coming perilously close to piercing flesh. Swords flashing in the morning sun, the young women …
The mythical holiday beast is once again on the prowl, but beware, he’s making his way across the Atlantic A man dressed in a traditional Perchten costume and mask performs during a Perchten festival in the western Austrian village of Kappl, November 13, …
SmartNews Keeping you current The Tennessee Aquarium’s internet-famous eel, Miguel Wattson, is powering Christmas lights in the exhibit. By Jason Daley, Smithsonian.Com – Stringing up holiday lights may add a few dollars to the December power bill, but the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga …
By BBC – Ruja Ignatova called herself the Cryptoqueen. She told people she had invented a cryptocurrency to rival Bitcoin, and persuaded them to invest billions. Then, two years ago, she disappeared. Jamie Bartlett spent months investigating how she did it for the …
