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Smart News

Here’s What We Thought Earth Would Look Like from Space

Before we actually went to space, we had some ideas about what Earth might look like

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Orangutans Plan And Share Their Routes Before Hitting the Road

The authors suspect that other great apes and species of intelligent animals likely use similar communication strategies

Google Street View Goes to the Galapagos

Follow in Darwin’s footsteps, starting on San Cristobal Island and then venturing to Floreana Island and North Seymour Island

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Two Dozen Corpses, Beheaded Around 1,400 Years Ago, Found in a Cave in Mexico

In a cave in Mexico, the disembodied corpses of dozens of people

233,000 Gallons of Molasses Spilled in Hawaii, Killing Everything

This might sound like the beginning of a cartoon, but it’s not. Molasses is bad for wildlife, and the officials are dealing with an environmental disaster

Elephants Can Distinguish Between the Growl of a Hungry Tiger And a Hungry Leopard

Farmers may be able to use growl-broadcasting, motion-triggered speakers to deter elephants from raiding their crops

A totally irrelevant photo of steam

North Korea May Have Just Restarted its Nuclear Program

Steam coming from a mothballed plutonium plant could mean North Korea is resuming its weapons program

Australia’s New Prime Minister Thinks Climate Science Is “Highly Contentious”

Tony Abbott’s Liberal campaign slogan of “Chose real change” may turn out to be unsettlingly on the mark

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

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