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Stories from Colin Schultz

The In-Depth Science of Why a Beer Bottle Erupts When You Whack It

More than you ever thought you needed to know about the physics of erupting beer bottles

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Australia’s Military Accidentally Set the Country on Fire

Australia’s largest wildfire is the result of a weapons test gone awry

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Visit the Edge of Space on the Cheap in a High-Altitude Balloon

Do your best Felix Baumgartner impersonation with this balloon trip to the stratosphere

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See the Original, 17th Century Drawings of the Microscopic World Robert Hooke Discovered

Before photo and video, illustrations were the best way for scientists to share what they saw

This Map From 1812 Is Missing a Whole Continent

Back when America was small, Australia was “New Holland,” and big chunks of the world seemingly didn’t exist

You Can Buy the Violin That Played the Titanic Out

The violin of Wallace Hartley, a member of the on-board orchestra, is up for auction

Great lakes Huron, Ontario, and Erie

In the U.S., Water is Starting to Get Way, Way More Expensive

In the past few years the price of water rose 23%, and water utilities are taking on crushing debt to keep up

Homo Sapiens’ Family Tree May Be Less Complicated Than We Thought

If this new research holds, we’re about to lose a whole pile of evolutionary ancestors

Children stand near a memorial at Cambodia’s killing fields

The Trial of Cambodia’s Genocidal Leaders Is Nearing a Verdict

More than 30 years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, trials of the group’s genocidal leaders are inching closer to a verdict

The GeoEye-1 satellite

This App Tells You When Satellites Are Watching You

For the paranoid among us, an app that says when you may be being watched

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Zombie Corals Can Come Back From the Dead

Killed by bleaching, this weird kind of coral can regrow from cryptic tissue

Part of the city of Mohenjo Daro

The 4,500-Year-Old City of Mohenjo Daro Is Crumbling, And No One Is Stopping It

The ruins had been preserved for thousands of years, but now they’re fading fast

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You Can Visit the World’s Oldest Zero at a Temple in India

Indian mathematicians were the first to treat zero as an equal

Luke Skywalker’s prosthetic hand from The Empire Strikes Back

Advances in Prosthetic Limbs Brings Back a Sense of Touch

This new prosthetic mimicked rhesus macaques’ sense of touch

Agricultural Pollution Is Threatening America’s National Parks

Gases from heavy fertilizer use are threatening the ecological balance of America’s natural parks

A false killer whale and a bottlenose dolphin hanging out at a zoo in Japan.

Dolphins Have Interspecies Hunting Parties

A real life tale of animal BFFs

The Queen Mary Psalter, c 1310-1320

Why Were Medieval Knights Always Fighting Snails?

It’s a common scene in medieval marginalia. But what does it mean?

It Might Rain Diamonds on Jupiter

Take some methane, add lightning and massive pressures, and what do you get? Diamond hail

Hurricane Phailin approaching India last night

Hurricane Phailin Is As Strong as Katrina, Twice as Wide as Sandy And About to Devastate India

India is bracing for what is potentially the strongest hurricane they’ve ever seen

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