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Smart News / Smart News Arts & Culture

What Percent of the Population is Gay? More Than You Think

There may never be a time when people will accurately answer surveys, but at least survey givers are getting better at tricking us into being honest

Before Hollywood Had Ratings, Films Were Way Racier

In the 1934 movie Murder at the Vanities there’s a whole musical number about the pleasures of marijuana sung by half naked women

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This Six-Year-Old Ran a Half Marathon in Under Three Hours

Keelan Glass finished her recent half marathon in 2:47:30

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Bacon Boosts Recipe Ratings

Sandwiches, kale, lettuce, asparagus and spinach all benefit from a bit of bacon, according to aggregate recipe ratings

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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

A women’s only train in Tokyo

Here’s Why Nearly Half of Japanese Women Under 24 Aren’t Interested in Sex

If things don’t change, one official fears that Japan “might eventually perish into extinction”

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Pumpkin-Spiced Products Have Increased by 234 Percent Since 2008

There are pumpkin spice air fresheners, M&Ms, tortialla chips, whiskey, candles and beer

Yetis Were Probably Just Polar Bears

A recently discovered “Yeti corpse” was likely nothing more than a poor polar bear who many years ago found itself at the wrong end of a spear or a sword

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 Youngest Winner of the Booker Prize Also Wrote the Longest Book

Eleanor Catton is 28, and her book The Luminaries is over 800 pages long

Vote for the Next Inductees Into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

So far, Nirvana is winning the fan vote with 15 percent, followed closely by Kiss at 14.33 percent

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Ridley Scott Reused Footage From The Shining at the End of Blade Runner

From sets to props to entire sequences, Hollywood is actually really good at recycling

This Late-Night Reading Group Zipped Through Finnegans Wake in Seven Short Months

A Los Angles-based Finnegans Wake reading group recently buckled down and decided to spare themselves the dozen-year cliff hanger

Newer Movies Are Less Creative

The most creative time in film history was probably the 1960’s

All Those Pink Products Make Women Take Breast Cancer Less Seriously

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, which means that everywhere you go things are painted pink - which might be a bad thing

China’s 3,000 Cemeteries Will Run Out of Space in Just Six Years

China may have the world’s largest population, but the country is not alone in its burial woes

The Nobel Prize medal

Blame Sloppy Journalism for the Nobel Prizes

Sloppy journalism and a early obituary may have prompted Nobel to try to rewrite his legacy

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Watch How Money Is Made With LeVar Burton

How is our money made? It’s an often answered question, but here is LeVar Burton, of Reading Rainbow fame, answering it

Why Cheating Feels So Good

There are a lot of things that are wrong yet feel so right. Cheating, for some people, is one of them. And researchers are trying to figure out why

This Artists Recreates Great Works of Art Using Plastic Trinkets

Jane Perkins creates works of art using small plastic objects, most of which she recovered from junk shops, garage sales or friends

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