It turns out that there’s strong evidence to suggest that at least one kind of dolphin sound, studied extensively over the past decade, does function as a kind of referential symbol. Dolphins use distinct “signature whistles” to identify and call to one another. Each dolphin is thought to invent a unique name for itself as a calf and to keep […]
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A Pennsylvania girl’s Sweet 16 party was ruined after her celebration was showered with poop, apparently dumped from a passing airplane. Jacinda Cambray and 40 guests were partying in her family’s backyard when the brown liquid began raining down. “We’d just gotten done with the cake, thank God,” said Cambray’s sister, Kristie Rogy. “Because within two minutes something fell from […]
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Percentage of the average “knowledge worker’s” time that is spent reading and writing emails: 28
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More than 1 in 10 Americans used marijuana 2012. But pot isn’t gaining users as fast as heroin or LSD. Nor is it the most addictive drug.
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What’s most important—and troubling— is the decades-long, systemic expansion of the economic distance between the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor, and the long, backward slide for the majority of those in-between.
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Twin sisters Erica and Tashina Ackley, 22, who found out they were pregnant on the same day, gave birth just hours apart in the same Maine hospital. “We thought it would be cool if we had our babies on the same day,” said Tashina, “but we didn’t expect that it would happen.”
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A Tennessee woman was banned from her lifelong church after she refused to publicly condemn her lesbian daughter. The Ridgedale Church of Christ said it was exiling Linda Cooper for the sin of condoning homosexuality. “They’re exiling members for unconditionally loving their children,” said Cooper’s gay daughter, Kat.
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Lake Mead, the main reservoir on the Colorado River, is now just 38 percent full — lower than at any time since it was filled in the 1930’s. If the lake sinks lower still during summer months, officials may cut water allotments to Arizona farmers by 50 percent.
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“Women deprived of the company of men pine; men deprived of the company of women become stupid.” – Anton Chekhov
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The suicide rate in South Korea has more than doubled in the past decade, the government said this week. South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world; for citizens in their 20s and 30s, suicide is the leading cause of death. Some analysts say the act has become normalized by a spate of high-profile suicides, including […]
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