It seems like only yesterday that we dredged the back vaults of our list-writing brains to give you ten facts that sounded like they couldn’t possibly be true, but were. And what a list that was, huh? Full of crazy, once-in-a-lifetime facts of the sort you’re unlikely to witness ever again, the sort of tales…
Author: Morris M
Bras. For about half of you reading this, they’re an essential item of wear. For the other half, they’re two great big cups of suggestion containing the most fun body parts yet discovered by science. In other words, they’re something nearly all of us are deeply familiar with, if only via our bedroom-ceiling fantasies. But…
So, it finally happened. The zombies rose up, Putin hit the nuclear button, scientists created a killer virus, Yellowstone super-volcano erupted, and the apes turned on their human masters. The consequence: bang, no more humanity. Just you. The last list-reading human on Earth. As you stand in the detritus of our society, like an extra…
In just a few short weeks, the 44th president will look around the White House for the last time, step outside, and close the door on an entire era. For some of you reading this, Obama will be the only president you’ve ever been politically aware of. For others, he’ll just be the latest in…
The fight for a $15 minimum wage has become a flashpoint in society. We recently told you about what would happen if this liberal dream became a reality (spoilers: it was complicated). But there’s another side to this utopian wish. One that hasn’t been an issue in the USA since 1938. What would happen if…
When you’ve been doing this job as long as we have, you get used to the idea that truth is stranger than fiction. History, science, art… they’re all full of factoids that seem implausible on the surface, but turn out to be true underneath. Still, there is a limit to this implausibility. It’s not like…
Abortion is one of the trickiest ethical issues out there. On the one hand, you have to ensure you respect the rights of the mother. On the other, you also have to respect the rights of her unborn child. Each country strives to strike a fair balance, with some leaning more towards the mother’s rights,…
Many of us spend our days dreaming of getting away from it all. The hustle of the city, the stress of the commute, the noise and pollution… what could be better than escaping all that for one of the remotest spots on Earth? Well, you may be surprised by what qualifies for ‘remote’. Each of…
Everyone but the biggest knuckle-dragging Neanderthal agrees that learning another language is a good thing. Aside from unlocking a whole new way of thinking, it also allows you to appear worldly, sophisticated and (probably) great in the sack. But with only a small percentage of Americans and an even-smaller percentage of British speaking a second…
If we asked you to name the strangest natural phenomena on Earth, chances are that nobody would say “lakes”. Bad move. Turns out these placid-seeming bodies of water are home to some of the craziest, weirdest Easter eggs of the natural world. From the mysterious lake that appeared out of nowhere, to a killer lake…
Hands up if you’ve ever dreamed of learning another language? Most of us love the idea of being able to hold a conversation in Spanish, or pontificate in German, or translate our Marvel Universe slash-fiction for appreciative Japanese audiences. But not all languages are born equal. For the native English-speaker, some are significantly harder to…
It’s a rallying cry for progressives across America. Fight for $15. The dream of combating poverty by raising the minimum wage to $15 everywhere. Already, cities such as Seattle and Syracuse, NY, have begun phasing in or have already implemented a $15 minimum as law. And, so far, the prognosis is good. No wonder people…
Every kid who ever took a history class has sat there, looking at the images in their textbook, and wondered: ‘what would it have been like to be there?’ Imagine growing up with a Civil War hero for a father, or what life must have been like at the paranoid center of the Nazi regime.…
They’re the guys with the thousand yard stare. The one with six-shooters in their holsters, a broad-brim hat on their heads and enough jagged iron in their guts to break down even the toughest steak. They are the cowboys, and everyone knows they’re the coolest, calmest, most-heroic folk in America history. Or are they? What…
When we see cops in the news, it’s usually in the context of something bad. The shooting of an unarmed witness. Alleged corruption. Even an attack on cops themselves. But there’s another, less reported side to our boys in blue. Plenty of cops are living their lives like 1980s action heroes. We don’t just mean…
The internet is a force for both good and evil. On the one hand, it’s given us more awesome top ten sites and videos of cats falling over than you can shake a proverbial stick at. On the other, it’s sparked endless crazes that run the whole gamut of awful from “really stupid” to “probably…
US politics is big news. As a global superpower, American elections are followed by people from as far afield as Australia, China, or Argentina. You and everyone you know probably have an opinion on what’s happening with any election, with the White House, with Congress. But here’s the thing: some of those opinions may be…
Despite what us young’uns may think, human lives are fleetingly short. The average life expectancy in the US is less than 80 years. In the general scheme of things, that’s barely a blink of an eye. You, us, and everyone you know will burn out and turn to ash before we’ve barely even got started.…
The birth of a new country is a crazy, exciting time. With all the world explored and all useable land claimed, new nations can only be forged by the merging or collapse of older states. This gives each one an emotional intensity to it rarely seen in world affairs. Look at the birth of South…
Bad habits are easy to form and difficult to break, as the saying goes. And judging by the latest scientific research, nearly all of us are sleepwalking along in a zombie states of incessant bad habits that are threatening to completely ruin our lives. We don’t mean stuff like sleeping in late and having one…
We recently told you about ten of the most-inspiring stories in history featuring Muslims. Awesome as that article was, no one single religion has a monopoly on virtue. Just as there are inspiring tales of Muslims out there, so are there inspiring tales of Jews, Hindus, Buddhists…and Christians. Since the foundation of their religion, Christians…
The evolution of language can be a beautiful thing to behold. After all, it’s not so long ago that gay meant ‘happy’, a dashboard was something you stood on, and the F-word was a simple synonym for “hit”. English changes all the time, and that’s awesome. What’s significantly less-awesome, on the other hand, is people’s…
Pop quiz: what’s the grossest thing you can imagine? For many of us, the answer would involve biting into fast food and discovering that what we thought was a tasty piece of chicken was actually a not-so-tasty piece of sewer rat. But such stories are just urban legends, right? Well, we hate to break it…
There are many, many reasons to travel: to meet new people, to explore new cultures, to see awesome cities, to hike through spectacular scenery. But what about food? For some, sampling the cuisine of another country is like peeking inside the mind of an entire culture. We’re not talking Michelin-starred, fancy, five course dining, either.…