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Cool Finds

Citizens of East Dennis, Massachusetts, filed this petition against the repeal of the Personal Liberty Laws in 1860.

African-Americans Sent Thousands of Anti-Slavery Petitions in the 18th and 19th Century

The petitions lend insight into the lives of African Americans during this tumultuous period in U.S. history, and now they’re being digitized

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The Cicadas are Coming, And So Are the Terrifying Spores That Eat Them Alive

The cicadas have been waiting for 17 years. This deadly fungus has been waiting for them

Do Blind People See Ghosts?

Can you “see” a ghost without seeing?

It’s Fine to Eat Standing Up

Should we add eating standing up to the list of food no-no’s? It’s unclear, science says

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Game Wardens Helped Poachers Kill the Last of Mozambique’s Rhinos

Mozambique’s rhinos have been living on the edge of extinction for more than a century, but now they’re finally gone for good

It Costs At Least $30,000 to Climb Mt. Everest

On top of dealing with the physical challenges, climbers have to be loaded.

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The Only Clouded Leopard Left in Taiwan Is Stuffed on a Museum Shelf

Zoologists call the results of a 13-year-long hunt to find any remaining clouded leopards “disappointing”

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Physicists Have Been Waiting For This Painfully Slow Experiment for Nearly 86 Years

Thomas Parnell, the school’s first physics professor, set up an experiment. It’s still going

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IBM Engineers Pushed Individual Atoms Around to Make This Amazing Stop-Motion Movie

IBM was the first to draw with atoms, and now they’re making them dance

It’s Crazy to Move a Hundred-Year-Old Tree, But This One Is Thriving

There’s controversy surrounding the oak’s new home, but park or no park, the Ghirardi Oak is staying, and the transport seems to have been a success

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Physicists to Shoot Extremely Fast-Moving Electrons at Dinosaur Skin Fossil

The actual color of dinosaur skin is still very much up for debate

This isn’t the ad in question, but it is kind of funny.

Can This Marketing Campaign Make Hipsters Turn to Jesus?

Marketers can convince us to do crazy things, like tattoo brand names on our foreheads or jump out of airplanes. But can they make hipsters turn to God?

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We’re Just 35 Devil’s Hole Pupfish Away From the World’s Best-Documented Extinction

If the species does go extinct, it will join Florida’s Dusky seaside sparrow as an endangered species that has died out while under federal protection

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Oslo Runs on Garbage, And Now It’s Running Out

When you burn garbage for as fuel, you can find yourself in a tricky spot

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Saturn’s Mysterious Hexagon Is a Raging Hurricane

At the heart of Saturn’s hexagon, a giant hurricane

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This New Robot Has a Sense of Touch

A robot with a sense of touch can better navigate our cluttered world

The Wolfsschanze, or Wolf’s Lair, was Hitler’s bunker outside of Rastenburg, Germany.

Meet the Woman Who Taste-Tested Hitler’s Dinner

Now 95, Margot Woelk is ready to share her story of life in the Wolf’s Lair

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What Are You Thinking About?

One researcher recorded the fascinating inner monologues of random people walking, sitting or standing in New York City

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The First LPs Weren’t for Music—They Were Audiobooks for the Blind

Record companies hadn’t yet figured out how to make music sound good on LPs

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One Confused Loon Spent 48 Days Trying to Hatch Rocks

In July 2011, something strange was going on with one of the loons at a Massachusetts sanctuary

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