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Cool Finds

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Top Secret WWII Message Found In Surrey Chimney

A message, carried by a long-dead pigeon, was found 70 years later in a chimney

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Passive-Aggressive Snarks Own Wifi Networks

For wifi network owners, things are getting personal. Network names now replace stick it notes as the means of conveying passive-aggressive snarks to annoying neighbors. The BBC did a little digging and found the following gems floating about in local cyber space: “Stop Stealing My Paper!” begins one exchange, to which the reply taunts: “FYI, I Don’t […]

In Canada, People Gladly Trade in Guns for Shiny New Cameras

Give up your pistol, get a new point-n’-shoot camera

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The World’s Happiest Man Is a Tibetan Monk

Matthieu Ricard, a 66-year old Tibetan monk and geneticist, produces brain gamma waves never before reported in neuroscience

How to Tell If Your Kid Will Become a Great Artist

Spotting artistic talent in your own kid is hard - but here are some ways to do it

In the Middle East, Female Scientists Face Different Challenges

Rana Danaji, a professor of molecular biology in Jordan, weighed in in the journal Nature on what it’s like to be a woman in science in an Arab world

Is Dancing Uniquely Human?

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Sandy Unearths Skeleton on New Haven Green

Hurricane Sandy delivered a gruesome mystery, just in time for Halloween

A Tale of Two Screams: Which Stock Horror Scream is Better?

Often, screams in horror movies come from stock files. Chances are, they’re one of two stock screams: the Wilhelm or the Howie

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The Closest Thing in Real Life to Myst’s Wormhole Book

A hand-built computer-in-a-book lets you play Myst in a replica linking book

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Why Running in Mud Is a Really Bad Idea

The New York Marathon might be canceled due to the water that Sandy has dumped all over New York City. Which is probably a good thing, because running in mud and water is actually a really bad idea

Don’t you want to be like this guy?

Let ‘Weird’ Al Yankovic Teach You How to Make a Good Parody

Sit back and relax while the master teaches you how to do what he does best: parody.

Invasive nutria in the Southern U.S.

Guilt-Free Meat-Eating Strategy: Hunt Invasive Species

A new book describes how invasive species may provide vegetarians a welcome meat-eating freebie

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Scaredy Cats Unite—Not Everyone Loves Being Afraid

A big part of Halloween is getting scared, intentionally. Why in the world would anyone want that?

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The Best Video Game Players Are Also the Jerkiest

How do people who are really good at these games make moral choices?

After the sea lice feast

Here’s What Happened to Jack Because Rose Didn’t Save Him

After Jack’s cold body sank down to the bottom of the North Atlantic in Titanic, here’s probably what it looked like

Incredible Halloween Costumes Inspired by Famous Works of Art

Culture-hounds take heart: Halloween doesn’t have to be all Honey Boo Boos and internet memes

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This Guy Learned Linear Algebra in Ten Days, And You Can Too

At MIT you can take a ton of science classes online. And, in true MIT fashion, someone just did them all at an extraordinary speed

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Not Even the Greeks Thought the World Was Flat, But These People Do

There are some people today who claim to still believe that the Earth is flat

This man is ghost riding. Wikipedia says so.

In Honor of Wikipedia’s Near-Completion, Here Are Its Most Awesomely Weird Entries

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