Brain

A pound coin floating in mercury
Featured

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Mercury is a chemical element. It is a metal, but has peculiar physical properties. It’s one of few metals that is liquid in standard temperature and pressure (imagine normal room temperature conditions). Mercury is commonly known as quicksilver. Other than its cool sounding name (almost like a superhero, Captain Quicksilver), and interesting physical properties, mercury and most of its compounds are toxic. Mercury poisoning can be a result of vapors

Xenomorph gargoyle
Entertainment

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American science-fiction screenwriter, director, and visual effects specialist Dan O’Bannon was employed to supervise special effects in 1975 film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune by Alejandro Jodorowsky. The movie signed up Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson and Mick Jagger to star, Pink Floyd to make music, and artist H. R. Giger for set and character design. The movie was cancelled in 1976 when $2 million of planned $9.5 million

Referee showing a red card
Featured

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Most goals in a season, youngest player to score a goal, most hat-tricks, or fastest goals are typical talked about football records. But how about the quickest red card? In association football (known as soccer in the United States) red card means that the player is sent off the field for a serious misconduct, or after second yellow card (yellow card signifies minor misconduct).

Holodomor memorial statue
Featured

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Europe enjoyed a long period of prosperity between 11th and 13th centuries. European population grew from 56.4 million in year 1000 to 78.7 million in year 1300. The idyll (if anything in medieval times was an idyll) ended abruptly between years 1314 and 1315. Many regions of Europe reported prolonged periods of rain in 1314. It rained most of the time in summer and autumn of 1314 in Great Britain.

Sand tiger shark
Animals

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Jaws is a cult classic Steven Spielberg’s movie about a man-eating great white shark attacking sea swimming vacationers. The idea of being attacked by blood thirsty apex predator in the sea is quite unnerving. The shark in its environment is fast and agile. Swimming person on the other hand, relatively slow and clunky. How likely is a shark attack in reality? What are the shark attack statistics in Australia and

Castle Eltz
Cool places

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Burg Eltz is a medieval castle located in Mosel river valley in Germany. It has not only been owned by the same family (named Eltz, duh) for over 860 years, but has also remained largely intact since its completion. 33 generations of various branches of Eltz family have lived in the castle, and still live today. The 80-room castle has enough space for multiple families living there comfortably at the

School girls in Japan
Life

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Throughout the world, a five day school week, followed by a two day weekend is a norm. But in Japan, a six day school week was a standard until 2002. Sounds like a nightmare for a person living in Western Civilization. However, Japanese public seems to differ.

American chickens processed in China, USDA allows this
Featured

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This sounds like one of these outrageous stories that your grandma keeps sharing on Facebook, without even fact checking whether it is true. Well, this one is true. Or at least partially true. There was a ban on American chickens in China, as part of trade war incited by Trump administration. As of 2019, things are cooling down. U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has recently reached

Norway national football team
Sports

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Norway national football team remains the only national football team that never lost a match against Brazil. Moreover, Norway has won two matches against Brazil. The complete football match record of Norway vs Brazil: Norway 1-1 Brazil (1988, friendly) Norway 4-2 Brazil (1997, friendly) Brazil 1-2 Norway (1998, World Cup; Brazil reached the final in this tournament) Norway 1-1 Brazil (2006, friendly)