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At Auction: A 1766 Copy of ‘Aristotle’s Masterpiece,’ a Best-Selling Sex Guide Banned in England Until 1961

Banned in England until 1961, a copy of this 17th-century text is going up for auction

How To Make the Best Snowfort Ever

If you’re going to win a snow battle, you’ve got to have a snow fort. Here’s how to make the best one

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Turn Your Dead Christmas Tree Into Beer

Rather than tossing your tree, turn it into spruce beer

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One Family Lived on Mars Time for a Month

While a Martian day is only 39 minutes and 35 seconds longer than an Earth day, the differences quickly add up

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Sushi Restaurateur Spends $1.76 Million on a Single Bluefin Tuna

A bluefin tuna goes for $3,599 per pound

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There Is a Sculpture on the Moon Commemorating Fallen Astronauts

The crew of Apollo 15 placed a small aluminum sculpture on the moon to memorialize those astronauts had died

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Why Do Flowers Smell Good?

Humans have loved flowers for millennia, for both their looks and their scents

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Physicists Find That “Absolute Zero” May Not Be Quite So Absolute

Using lasers and magnets, a group of physicists pushed potassium atoms to a state colder than absolute zero

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Two Americans Charged in Narwhal-Tusk Smuggling Ring Bust

For the past decade, these two men have allegedly been smuggling narwhal tusks

Here’s How to Get Attention for Your Research About Hookworms

This research may have a silly title, but it does answer an important question of global significance

The lack of independently-moving fingers makes replying an arduous process.

Congratulations, You Accidentally Wrote a Book Last Year

People wrote more than 40,000 words on average last year… in email

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Babies Start Learning Language in the Womb

Rosetta Stone language tapes for babies may soon usurp Beethoven as the womb soundtrack of choice

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Old Christmas Trees Can Be Used to Clean Medical Equipment

Someday those pesky fallen needles may help save lives—or at least sterilize needles for annual flu shots

Mild Obesity May Not Be So Bad

A recent study finds that overweight or slightly obese people live longer than normal-weight people, but critics call foul on some of these conclusions

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This Is What a Watery Mars May Have Looked Like

Mars once had a vast ocean. What would that have looked like?

Graffiti Meets Chemistry, Loses

How do you actually get rid of graffiti? Chemistry, of course

An artist’s conception of what an asteroid-catcher might look like.

NASA Wants to Drag an Asteroid Into Orbit Around the Moon

If going to an asteroid is hard, maybe bringing an asteroid to us is easier?

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One Small Question About Armstrong’s Giant Leap for Mankind: When Did He Come Up With That Line?

Did Neil Armstrong come up with his now-famous quote long before he landed on the Moon?

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We Used To Actually Set Food on Fire to Figure Out How Many Calories It Had

How do they actually figure out how many calories is in a granola bar

Gandalf’s fireworks were far better of course.

How to Properly Celebrate a Hobbit Birthday

Today is J.R.R. Tolkien’s birthday, and in his honor here’s how to throw the best Hobbit Birthday ever

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