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Smart News / Smart News Arts & Culture

People Pirated Many More Files (And Many Fewer Ships) in 2013

While there were zero Somali pirate hijackings this year - the amount of content that was uploaded to The Pirate Bay this year increased by 50 percent

Some Chinese Donkey Meat Actually Contains Fox

Some customers in China now know both what the fox says, and what it tastes like

Deep fried butter on a stick

Long Before Paula Deen’s Fried Butter Balls, Cooks Were Trying to Roast Butter on a Stick

Paula Deen may in fact come from a long culinary tradition of skipping the bread and simply eating the butter

Why So Many Afghanis Celebrate Their Birthdays on January 1

In the war-ravaged nation, many peoples’ birthdays are on January 1st

Your Probability of Dying Doubles Every Eight Years

It’s a brand new year, and the chances that this one will be your last might be higher than you suspect

Playing Q-bert on the Atari 2600 through the Internet Archive’s Console Living Room.

Play Through the History of Video Games (Frogger! Asteroids! Q-bert!) All on One Site

From Frogger to Asteroids to Turtles!, play through the early days of video gaming

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London’s New Years Eve Will Feature Edible Confetti And Scented Fireworks

Only time will tell whether the sites and sounds and tastes and smells are a success, but no one can say London didn’t try

This Texas Teen’s Most Productive Fishing Hole Is the Sewer

Kyle Naegeli, 15, first discovered this unlikely fishing hole after he made a $5 bet with his dad

Tolkien’s Dwarves Would Have Needed 38 Mini-Nuclear Plants to Melt All That Gold So Quickly

Unless those dwarf furnaces were burning some sort of Middle-earth super fuel, in real life Smaug probably would have just eaten the dwarves

Get Geeky About Dialects With the Dictionary of American Regional English

Did the NYTimes’ dialect quiz get you interested in regionalisms? Then check out the Dictionary of American Regional English

Decorations in Thailand.

Christmas Is Huge in Asia

From India to Thailand to China, even non-Christians are getting into the holiday spirit

Meet the Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement

Nearly a billion dollars a year is flowing into the organized climate change counter-movement

What Does Sociology Teach Us About Gift Giving?

Not only do gifts make or break relationships, they also tell scientists about society as a whole. No pressure.

A side-by-side comparison of cities’ sizes.

Everything’s Bigger in America, Especially Urban Sprawl

Eight other cities (total population: 100 million) fit into the footprint of Atlanta (population: 5 million)

The Best of the British Medical Journal’s Goofy Christmas Papers

This year, for example, we learned about just how much James Bond actually drank. Last year we learned just why Rudolph’s nose was red

This Sea Slug Was Just Named After a Game of Thrones Character

There’s a Stephen Colbert beetle, a Lady Gaga genus of plant, and a Beyonce bee. And now, a Game of Thrones slug

In Germany, Santa’s Sidekick Is a Cloven-Hooved, Child-Whipping Demon

The Krampus is even gaining a following on this side of the pond, with Krampus art shows, Krampus beer crawls and Krampus rock shows

The British Library Just Put More Than a Million Images in the Public Domain

From the largest library in the world, more than a million images free to download and use

StarCraft II Player Is Now Officially an Athlete, According to the U.S. Government

Kim Dong-hwan, a competitive StarCraft player, was just issued a P-1A visa—the type that’s usually given to athletes

The inside of a newly assembled Ikea temporary home.

Ikea’s Getting Into the Refugee Shelter Business

Ikea’s latest installments are popping up in Lebanon, where around one million Syrians have sought refuge from the violence plaguing their own country

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