NASA is well-known for its operations in space. It is hard to miss giant rockets streaking across the sky, bulletins about space meteors, and their stylish spacesuits. When not exploring outer space, NASA sponsors research that leads to spinoff technologies. Many inventions developed for space have an impact on Earth’s environmental efforts. NASA’s budget was
Month: January 2022
In the annals of crime, it would be difficult to come up with a more fascinating murderer than the Victorian villain, Charles Frederick Peace (1832–1879). Despite his last name, Charles Peace was a violent man—sort of a “Jekyll and Hyde.” While some saw him as a kind family man, he also had a darker side.
The gaming world has changed entirely. There are thousands of games, consoles, and other tech available to the everyday gamer, a near endless amount of options to pick from. Gaming has even become somewhat glamorous. Gone are the days when gaming seemed geeky. YouTube has made some gamers millions, and now everyone wants a piece
With the recent release of Get Back, Peter Jackson’s thorough examination of the Beatles in a time of trouble, interest in the famed band has increased. More interesting than their work together was the music the quartet recorded individually in the 1970s. This list offers a tidy selection. Related: Top 10 Bizarre Conspiracy Theories About
Many animals participate in a matriarchal society, like the African elephant. African elephants live in herds with women or matriarchs leading their groups. The top matriarch leads the herd with confidence and skills to sense and alert others to danger while working as a unit to raise their young. We also see matriarchies in other
Hollywood is known for fiddling with the truth—in their defense, they are famous for telling stories. Be it the number of six-packs and flat butts on the beaches of America, the time it takes a person to work out their inner demons and develop into a good parent, or even the optional laws of physics—it
Interviews with convicted serial killers and mass murderers always gain huge viewing figures when broadcast on TV. There’s a macabre sense of intrigue that exists inside many of us who want to attempt to understand why these evil people commit the atrocious crimes that we occasionally see on the news. Unfortunately, these TV interviews with
We all know that the Slender Man is nothing more than a pure urban legend created online in 2009 on an Internet forum. However, since then, it has taken on a life of its own, even being connected with several attempted murders as well as a spate of suicides and a possible mass suicide attempt.
The Middle Ages spanned from roughly AD 500 to AD 1500. It was a period filled with famine, plague, and war. Ruled by the king, the people of medieval England lived under a feudal system heavily influenced by the Roman Catholic Church. During the Middle Ages, both laws and the penalties for breaking them were
The men on this list were cruel dictators. At their orders, if not by their own hands, thousands or, in some cases, even millions, of victims were killed, often after being tortured. These dictators’ names are deservedly infamous. So vicious and villainous were they that it is almost impossible to believe that any of them
The dreaded meet-the-parents. We are all desperate to make a good impression on the in-laws. We want to be accepted and welcomed into the family, but things don’t always go as planned. Some mothers-in-law take things to the extreme regarding their children’s new partners. Is it jealousy? Is it insanity? Maybe it’s both. Related: 10
The edges of any language are ragged, torn, messy, and not easily delineated from the next fluttering language. This is the place you’ll find slang—an ever-shifting series of terms, words, phrases, and grammatical quirks that, depending on your perspective, either debase, oversimplify, and cheapen a language or provide it with the color and joy that
Movie props play a crucial role in the art of filmmaking. Some might even say the starring role. Once an actor touches these infamous objects, and the film itself is a smash hit, makeshift items of everyday materials can become prized possessions. Nowadays, many movie props are barcoded and cataloged into a database at the
Today, we think of Olympic events as being held in state-of-the-art venues built specifically by the host city for that year’s illustrious games. When cities are awarded the opportunity to host, the planning committee gets right to work. The result has given us spectacular Olympic venues where the athletes compete, hoping to win gold. However,
When the terms “troubling social trends” and “U.S. colleges” are used in tandem, the first things that come to mind are young-adult vices like binge drinking, fraternity hazing, and a heaping dose of HPV. But alas, other worrisome habits have crept into many American colleges, and the consequences could be far more serious than a
Given the sheer volume of material that television so often demands, it can be very easy for a show to get stale before its time. That’s why, aside from just keeping the quality of the material up to a high standard, writers will often try to keep things interesting by experimenting with the form, creating
“The citizens of Afghanistan, man and woman, have equal rights and duties before the law.” Modest by Western standards, the above guarantee represented a “momentous change” when enshrined in the 2004 Afghanistan constitution. Never had Afghan law acknowledged the equality of men and women. Yet, before this, women’s rights had already begun to improve the
Finally, 2021 is in the rear-view mirror. Most of us enter a new year hoping for bigger and better things. Worldwide, countries are hoping for an end to Covid-19 and a boost in the global economy. Well, don’t get your hopes up. According to several mediums and psychics, even long-dead ones, 2022 won’t be a
Have you ever read a book that described a location so vividly that you wished you could visit it? Well, sometimes you can. Often authors are inspired by real-world places when crafting their book settings, whether based in our world or a fantasy one. This means that readers who have been bitten by the travel
Most people see bats as dreadful, vampire-like creatures from hell, synonymous with darkness and the bloody horror stories we’ve grown up with. This immediate association of fear and dread most probably stems from the tales of the bloodthirsty Count Dracula and even from Batman, when Bruce Wayne tells Alfred, “Bats frighten me. It’s time my
By small and simple things are great things brought to pass. Some might look at paying it forward as a trivial or insignificant act, but gestures of kindness can create changes that last a lifetime. It’s often said that a hero’s strength isn’t measured by the size of their muscles but by the size of
In case you haven’t heard, the universe is old. So old, it just kind of popped up about 13.77 billion years ago, for some reason. Throughout that lengthy period, it’s had a lot of time to stretch its feet and evolve into what we see today. Though it’s stupendous that we can even see that
The average person unknowingly breaks three federal laws every day, and one in three Americans have a police record. You’ve probably already broken the law this morning without even realizing it, and no, I’m not talking about you driving over the speed limit to make it to work, though yes, that is a crime. Without
Ah, good ol’ money. It’ll always be there, right? So long as we have enough of it, we can purchase goods, services, security…well, you get the idea. Unfortunately, too many governments treat money like coffee—assuming they can always just make more. As we’ll see, this process of chasing increasingly bad money with even worse money
What comes to mind when you first think of a cult? An image of brooding black-robed, heavy death-metal teenagers gathered around a pentagram comes to mind, but that’s occult, or the belief in the supernatural, mystical, and magical. A cult has a much more pleasant philosophy—sometimes. Merriam-Webster Dictionary officially defines the term as “a small
Accidents are nothing new, but when humanity entered the industrial age, workplace accidents became a lot more…deadly. Improvements in manufacturing, power production, transportation, mining, and every other industry out there may have brought about the modern world, but they came at a cost. Industrial accidents have been happening since the early days of the industrial
Humanity’s relationship with nature has been complicated. From the distant hunter-gatherer past right up to the present, we have relied heavily on the natural bounties reaped from the environment. While most people have shifted to office work, interacting and coexisting with nature has never been more important. With that in mind, here are ten places
There are more than 4,000 minerals that naturally occur on Earth. Many of these are almost impossible for most people to distinguish. A rock is a rock to most people. But some stones stand out. Humans love sparkly things, and luckily, some minerals and gemstones can be both pretty and rare—two things humans prize. This
Most people are familiar with claims of UFO sightings made from planes. And many of us will have heard or read about UFOs witnessed from the deck of a ship or tracked on the radar of a submarine. However, what perhaps does not come to mind quite so quickly are UFO encounters with locomotive trains,
When we think of kids, it often brings to mind images of laughter, playgrounds, and first days of school…not graphic scenes of murder. However, there are always exceptions, particularly in the realm of fiction. Whether they fight for the side of good or evil, these ten kids prove you don’t have to be an adult