Step out of a dark cinema into brilliant afternoon sunlight and, for some people, the reaction is immediate. The eyes narrow, the nose begins to tingle and within seconds comes an involuntary sneeze — sometimes two or three in rapid success...
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For 73 years, the Titanic existed in two places at once: in history, where the details of its final night were argued over in inquiries, newspapers and survivor testimony, and somewhere in t...
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Draw a line from Miami to Bermuda, another from Bermuda to Puerto Rico, and a third back toward Florida, and you have the rough outline of one of the most famous imaginary places on Earth. T...
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Few foods carry a national story as neatly as Pizza Margherita. Red tomato, white mozzarella and green basil seem to reproduce the Italian flag on a circle of dough. According to the story r...
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Nelson Mandela did not die in a South African prison in the 1980s. He was released in 1990, became South Africa’s first Black president in 1994 and died in 2013 at the age of 95. Yet some pe...
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Few animal sounds are as instantly recognizable as a cat’s purr. A hand reaches toward a warm patch of fur, the cat closes its eyes, and a low vibration begins somewhere inside its body. To...
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When George Herbert, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, died in Cairo on April 5, 1923, the timing was almost too perfect for a sensational story. Only months earlier he had stood with archaeologist...
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Imagine exchanging messages with an unseen stranger. The replies are witty, coherent and sensitive to context. The stranger remembers what you said earlier, catches a joke, explains a diffic...
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You may already have yawned simply because you read the word. If not, there is a reasonable chance that a photograph or video of someone opening their mouth in a long yawn would do the job....
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There is a place on Earth where Mount Everest could be lowered beneath the waves and its summit would still remain underwater. It lies in the western Pacific, in the Mariana Trench, where th...
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