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Coccidioides immitis spores

Valley Fever: The Fungal Spores that Plague Archaeologists

When you spend your time digging in dirt, you get exposed to all sorts of nasty spores

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Hear Shakespeare As It Was Meant To Be Heard

Accents change with time, rendering some of Shakespeare’s rhymes obsolete

This Is Why Your Converse Sneakers Have Felt on the Bottom

Felt on your sneakers is there not for function, but for economics - shoes with fuzzy soles are taxed less when imported than those with rubber ones

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Your Parents’ Music Will Be Stuck in Your Head Forever—And You’ll Like It

Deep down, new research finds, kids may be secretly enjoying themselves and creating fond attachments to oldies songs that still rock their parents out

Eight of the Ten Highest-Paying College Majors Include the Word “Engineering”

According to researchers, unless students come from a wealthy family, considering whether a college degree will pay off as an investment is a smart move

It Might Be Hard to Collect Syria’s Chemical Weapons, But Neutralizing Them Isn’t That Complicated

Rounding up and securing all of Assad’s chemical weapons will no doubt be challenging, but the actual act of destroying them isn’t quite so difficult

A Man’s Testicle Size May Influence His Enthusiasm for Parenting

Some men may be naturally inclined to go down the long-term investment parenting route, whereas others may lean towards the Johnny Appleseed approach

William Jay Gaynor

An Assassin’s Bullet Took Three Years to Kill NYC Mayor William Jay Gaynor

Gaynor collapsed and died from a bullet that had been lodged in his throat for three years - put there by an eventually successful assassin

Nobody Knows How to Interpret This Doomsday Stonehenge in Georgia

We know where they are and what they say, but everything else is all hotly debated

“The Rape of the Sabine Women,” Pietro da Cortnoa

Ask 10,000 Men About “Forced Sex,” And Rape Statistics Start to Make Sense

When asked, one in four men admitted to committing sexual assault

Mooncakes Are China’s Fruit Cake—Traditional Holiday Gifts No One Actually Wants

Last year, China threw away 2 million of them

Egyptian military helicopters

In Case You Forgot, Egypt Is Still in the Midst of a Major Conflict

What started a month ago with protests-turned-deadly has not gone away

Watch As Taxonomists Painstakingly Clean And Assemble a Bat Skeleton

This is basically an Apple commercial for bat preservation

Yes, Astronauts Are Afraid to Go to Space

Actual astronauts never seem afraid to piece the atmosphere and plunge into the icy depths beyond our planet, but they are

The ocean’s most wanted: The Snake

INTERPOL Is After “the Snake,” a Notorious Illegal Fishing Vessel

Norway requested that INTERPOL bestow the Snake with a Purple Notice, information-gathering the agency uses to compile details on criminal activities

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A 1928 Yiddish-English-Hebrew Dictionary May Be the First Official Record of “Meh”

The term “meh,” defined as “an expression of indifference or boredom,” entered the Collins English Dictionary in 2008

Obama Isn’t the First Peace Prize Laureate to Support a War

This isn’t the first time a Peace Prize winner has pushed for war

Build Your Very Own Incredible, Wind-Powered Creature

Your next rainy day, you now have no excuse to be bored. You’re welcome

Here’s How Researchers Determined a Long-Lost Van Gogh Painting Is an Original

Two years of intense research were required to give the painting the final stamp of approval

For $100,000, You Can Have the Most Valuable Pokemon Card Ever

This is by far the most anyone has asked for a trading card like this

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