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MYSTERIOUS: 17 | Mind Blowing Facts

Debates about Columbus’ Spanish Jewish ancestry are not new − the claim was once a bid for social acceptance

In connection to Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples Day, media from the BBC and Fox to Reuters and Haaretz reported on new DNA evidence about the holiday’s original namesake. According to research revealed in a recent Spanish documentary, Christopher Columbus was not Italian, as widely assumed, but Sephardic: of Spanish…

The Conversation

Israel’s ‘generals’ plan’ to clear Palestinians from north of Gaza could pave the way for settlers to return

Western political leaders were quick to argue that the killing of Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, on October 17 presented a window of opportunity. Perhaps the decapitation of the militant group’s senior command would be a chance for renewed ceasefire talks and the release of the Israeli hostages.

The Conversation

Exile, resistance and cactus pears: two Australian writers’ depictions of Palestinian life weave a powerful tapestry of stories

While Hasib Hourani’s Rock Flight and Samah Sabawi’s Cactus Pear for My Beloved are both books by Australian writers that speak of the Palestinian experience, they could not be more different.

The Conversation

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'The waters become corrupt, the air infected': How the ancient Greeks and Romans viewed pollution and what they did about it

Here's what the ancient Greeks and Romans can teach us about the environment and ourselves. From Roman soldiers in crowded camps to emperors cleaning up rivers, there are many lessons to be learned.

LiveScience

The Abandonment Of This Early City Might Be Less Mysterious Than Many Think

Why abandon and dense and robust town? For early civilization the answer might lie in city planning — and disease.

Inverse

During the American Revolution, Brits weren’t just facing off against white Protestant Christians − US patriots are diverse and have been since Day 1

In 1770, Barnard Gratz of Philadelphia wrote to a friend complaining about a recent speech by King George III. Gratz, an American patriot, wrote that the speech “was such narishkeit” that it was “not worth the postage.”

The Conversation

32 physics experiments that changed the world

From the discovery of gravity to the first mission to defend Earth from an asteroid, here are the most important physics experiments that changed the world.

LiveScience

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‘The waters become corrupt, the air infected’: here’s how Ancient Greeks and Romans grappled with environmental damage

Today the perilous state of the environment is often in the news. Many stories describe how Earth is being damaged by human beings and discuss ways to prevent this.

The Conversation

What is Chabad-Lubavitch? A Jewish studies scholar explains

If you live anywhere near New York – or anywhere in the world, really – you may have seen a picture of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Yellow posters of the rabbi’s face are stuck to lampposts or streetlights: an elderly man with a long white beard and black hat.

The Conversation

Socially distanced layout of the world’s oldest cities helped early civilization evade diseases

In my research focused on early farmers of Europe, I have often wondered about a curious pattern through time: Farmers lived in large dense villages, then dispersed for centuries, then later formed cities again, only to abandon those as well. Why?

The Conversation

Rain may have helped form the first cells, kick-starting life as we know it

Billions of years of evolution have made modern cells incredibly complex. Inside cells are small compartments called organelles that perform specific functions essential for the cell’s survival and operation. For instance, the nucleus stores genetic material, and mitochondria produce energy.

The Conversation

Nerf darts, porn and vomit: The company Microsoft bought for $69bn

Microsoft acquired Blizzard in 2022 for $68.7bn, making it the largest acquition in the history of the video games industry. A new book dives into the company before that record-breaking deal, writes Graig Graziosi

The Independent UK

What are the limits of free speech? We may have arrived at them

Political operatives on the far right have long spoken about their ambition to shift the “Overton window”. The aim is to “mainstream” ideas long considered unthinkable, through gradual, step-by-step radicalisation and repetition – especially on hot-button issues such as immigration, sexuality, race and identity.

The Conversation

UK hands Chagos Islands to Mauritius, marking the end of a longstanding sovereignty dispute

The UK government has announced that it will transfer sovereignty of a remote cluster of islands in the Indian Ocean to Mauritius. The final treaty outlining the transfer of the Chagos Islands, where there is a significant US military base, is expected to be announced in the coming months.

The Conversation

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The Conversation

In ‘Nobody Wants This,’ rom-com gets century-old tropes with a new twist – the cute rabbi

Twenty years ago, the television show “The O.C.” invented the word “Chrismukkah.” Main character Seth Cohen, played by Adam Brody, described his interfaith family’s December tradition of “eight days of presents followed by one day of lots of presents.”

The Conversation

Accept our king, our god − or else: The senseless ‘requirement’ Spanish colonizers used to justify their bloodshed in the Americas

Across the United States, the second Monday of October is increasingly becoming known as Indigenous Peoples Day. In the push to rename Columbus Day, Christopher Columbus himself has become a metaphor for the evils of early colonial empires, and rightly so.

The Conversation

You can count female physics Nobel laureates on one hand – recent winners have wisdom for young women in the field

Out of 225 people awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, only five have been women. This is a very small number, and certainly smaller than 50% – the percent of women in the human population.

Creative Bloq

This baffling optical illusion makes me question if I'm seeing straight

And we're still not sure why it happens.

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The Conversation

Artists, social climbers and mermaids: 10 Australian women who followed their dreams to the US in the early 20th century

Why would early 20th-century Australian women travel across the Pacific to the United States? And if they left, why wouldn’t they go to England, the “mother country”, where there was a proper cup of tea? The US was no feminist utopia. It did not give federal voting rights to women…

LiveScience

Did Romans battle rhinos in the Colosseum? A historian explains the truth behind the fight scenes in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II.

The Romans are famous for their battles in the Colosseum, but how accurate are the scenes portrayed there in the new movie "Gladiator II"?

The Conversation

The Sorrows of Young Werther at 250: Goethe’s dangerous romantic hero influenced fashion, fiction – and Napoleon

In our Guide to the Classics series, experts explain key works of literature.

The Independent UK

Revealing the long-lost secrets of the real First World War – more than 3,000 years ago

How archaeologists are investigating a major European battle fought over 32 centuries ago

Reason

Is Nostr an Antidote to Social Media Censorship?

What if there was a social media platform owned not by Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, or the Chinese Communist Party, but by everybody and nobody all at once?

Creative Bloq

Typography glossary – an A-Z of type terms

Discover all the type terms you need to know with this ultimate type glossary.

The Conversation

Back in the USSR? Malcolm Knox’s dark comedy leans into the ridiculous

Fans of Soviet history and/or the 2017 comedy film, The Death of Stalin, will remember Levrentiy Pavlovich Beria as the ruthless would-be successor to a certain General Secretary left lying on the floor in a puddle of his own urine following a stroke because, as historian Simon Sebag Montefiore puts…

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