Learn widely
Geocaching is a recreational treasure hunt, with containers hidden worldwide just waiting to be found. And I do mean worldwide: they can be found at the very bottom of the world, the very top of the world, and even out of this world entirely.
Michelangelo’s statue of Moses has horns, thanks to a mistranslation in the Latin Vulgate Bible.
The rise and fall and rise of the British canal; Dutch canal vaulting; the proposed canal to cut off a country; and the fifteen ships trapped on the Suez Canal for eight years.
The Basilica Cistern in Istanbul is an underground underwater forest of 336 huge marble columns. It was built in the 6th century CE, but parts are much older – because they were scavenged from other buildings, sometimes with original sculptures intact.
If you happen to be living out in the wilderness, don’t rely on a diet of rabbit meat, and definitely don’t eat polar bear livers.
In the 1865 German children’s book Max and Moritz, the titular troublemakers blow up a teacher, are baked in an oven, and finally get ground up in a flour mill and eaten by ducks.
Beyond the boundaries of the natural elements may lie a whole new form of matter without protons or neutrons: quark matter. [2 of 2]
Nuclear physicists predict an “island of stability” beyond the current end of the periodic table. But there’s another possibility even further out: an exotic “continent of stability.” [1 of 2]
The frog that breaks its own bones to use as claws; the frogs that raised tadpoles in their stomachs; the musical frog that works in real estate advertising; and the flattest toad in the world.
Kambala is a race with a difference: the winner may not be decided directly on speed, but rather on how high they can kick up water.
In 1976, twenty-six children riding in a California school bus were kidnapped at gunpoint and hidden inside a truck that was buried in a quarry. Twenty-seven hours later, after sixteen hours underground, they escaped.
The largest number; how to build your own magic square; why a gambler should believe in God; and proof that 0.999… is equal to 1.
When the solar wind hits the Earth, it can set off space storms, space hurricanes, and even space tornadoes.
In 1869, some samurai and their families set up a colony in California. Although it only lasted two years, it was the first permanent Japanese settlement in the United States.