Roger Pasquier hunts for coins on NYC sidewalks and keeps track of how much he finds. He discovered an odd consequence of everyone having a smartphone: people don’t pick up change on the sidewalk anymore. From 1987 to 2006, he averaged about fifty-eight dollars a year. Then Apple introduced the iPhone, and millions of potential competitors started to stare at […]
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Rome Penitent Pope Francis with centuries of precedent, publicly went to confession in St. Peter’s Basilica. It was believed to be the first time confessing his own sins. The priest hearing his confession appeared to laugh at one point. Just weeks earlier, the pope also met President Obama privately for nearly an hour, twice longer than expected, an encounter that […]
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A Polish prisoner triggered a crackdown on other inmates after he posted a photo of a large cannabis plant that he’d grown in his cell. To boast about his green thumb, Dozy Zendarski took a selfie with the plant using a smuggled smartphone and posted it to Facebook. When it went viral, prison officials searched the entire jail and seized […]
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A hallucinatory party drug could point the way to the first new treatments for depression in a generation. Scientists have discovered that ketamine (“Special K”), which club-goers take for dream-like highs, also improves mood disorders by repairing damaged connections in the brain. What’s more, ketamine works within hours as opposed to weeks— even for people whose mood disorders have proved […]
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People tormented by a neverending flow of negative thoughts can greatly benefit from an alternative to expensive psychotherapy or medications: a walk in the woods. Psychologists at Stanford University found that walking outdoors in natural settings can ward off the human tendency to harp on that breakup, layoff, or family problem. The study involved 38 city participants, some of which […]
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After a century of marital bliss, the world’s longest romance appears to be over. Bibi and Poldi—a pair of Galapagos giant tortoises—are no longer on speaking terms after a century together. Keepers at the Reptile Zoo in Klagenfurt, Austria, say the pair fell out after a fight in which Bibi took a chunk out of Poldi’s shell. Now, whenever they […]
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A Florida man who came crashing through several Pensacola area businesses claimed he only did so as a result of his failed attempt to time travel. The driver, getting his car up to 88MPH before making contact with the storefront, found out quickly that his attempt would be a failure. Advanced Tax Services and Pensacola Caskets took on the bulk […]
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Colony collapse disorder, the mysterious scourge that has been killing off honeybees since 2005, has suddenly become a lot more deadly. This past winter, as many as half of all hives succumbed to the disorder—up from one third annually in recent years, and between 5 and 10 percent when hives were healthy. “It is a catastrophe in progress,” beekeeper Steve […]
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Birds Invade Home Through Chimney – A California woman has found herself trapped in a real-life version of The Birds, after about 300 black birds began flying into her home every single night. Shirley Brown said the birds fly down her chimney at sundown, scatter throughout the house, and perch on every available surface— kitchen countertops, the TV, and even […]
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Psychiatric medications passing through sewage treatment plants could be dramatically changing the behavior of fish. After researchers discovered low levels of common anti-anxiety drugs called benzodiazepines in perch living downstream from a treatment plant in southern Sweden, they tested the same concentrations of the drug on fish in the lab. They found that the medicine made the fish lose their […]
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