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43 votes
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What the Prisoner's Dilemma reveals about life, the Universe, and everything
32 votes -
Faced with scrap material inside a particle accelerator, physicists used a ferret to try to solve the problem
32 votes -
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22 votes -
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19 votes -
'A Nazi in all but name': Author argues Asperger's syndrome should be renamed
18 votes -
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17 votes -
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16 votes -
The Brain Scoop relaunch!
14 votes -
Ancient Earth map | Map showing modern locations across millions of years
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13 votes -
The unparalleled genius of John von Neumann
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13 votes -
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13 votes -
When giant scorpions swarmed the seas
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Shockwaves from WWII bombing raids reached the edge of space
13 votes -
The location for Stonehenge may have been chosen due to the presence of a natural geological feature
I watched a documentary about Stonehenge tonight, and it proposed the theory that the location for Stonehenge was chosen because of a natural geological feature in the area. There's a man-made...
I watched a documentary about Stonehenge tonight, and it proposed the theory that the location for Stonehenge was chosen because of a natural geological feature in the area.
There's a man-made path that proceeds south-west towards Stonehenge: "The Avenue". This path was built around the same era as Stonehenge itself. If you walk westward along The Avenue on the winter solstice, you'll be facing the point on the horizon where the sun sets. However, under The Avenue, there's an old natural geological formation from the time of the Ice Age: a series of ridges in the rock which just coincidentally align with the sunset on the winter solstice (an "axis mundi"). Before Stonehenge was built, there was a chalk knoll on that location. That meant that you could walk along a natural geological path towards the sunset on the shortest day of the year, and there was a local geological landmark in front of you.
The theory is that these natural geological formations coincidentally aligning with an astronomical phenomenon made the site a special one for early Britons. That's why there was a burial site there, and later Stonehenge was built there.
Here's the article by the archaeologist who discovered the Ice Age ridges: Researching Stonehenge: Theories Past and Present
13 votes -
The story of when washing hands was considered crazy
12 votes -
A crucial particle physics computer program risks obsolescence
12 votes -
What will the world look like in 250 million years? | Map Men
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The oldest unsolved problem in math. Do odd perfect numbers exist?
11 votes -
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A brief history of tricky mathematical tiling
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10 votes -
An archaeology of marijuana
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Lasers reveal 60,000 ancient Maya structures in Guatemala
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9 votes -
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The nurse who introduced gloves to the operating room
9 votes -
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The great American science heist
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Twitter thread about Doug Geisler, an astronomy grad student who was at Manastash Ridge Observatory forty years ago when Mount St. Helens exploded 140 miles away
@emsque: Exactly #40YearsAgo Doug Geisler was asleep atop Manastash Ridge Observatory. An astronomy grad student, he'd just logged his first excellent night at the telescope for his PhD thesis. He was the only person on the summit, ~90 miles from #MountStHelens... #MSH40
9 votes -
That time the Mediterranean Sea disappeared
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How fungi made all life on land possible
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Silvio Gesell, who wanted to create money that expired, is making a comeback
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Mary Anning inspired 'she sells sea shells' — but she was actually a legendary fossil hunter
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What defines a kilogram? Before standardization, units of measurement were often manipulated by tyrants to cheat peasants and steal land.
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Japan’s “Wasan” mathematical tradition: Surprising discoveries in an age of seclusion
8 votes -
Turning milk into clothing
8 votes -
We made an epic fireworks display to explain the science of fireworks
8 votes -
Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?
8 votes -
10,000 brains in a basement – the dark and mysterious origins of Denmark's psychiatric brain collection
8 votes -
Promethean beasts - Far from being hardwired to flee fire, some animals use it to their own ends, helping us understand our own pyrocognition
8 votes