After Apollo 11, Richard Nixon had NASA make 250 commemorative plaques, each holding about four rice-sized specks of moon dust mounted next to a flag that had flown to the… Read the rest of the article: Nixon gave Cyprus a piece of the moon. Then a coup made it disappear.

In October 2015, a Swedish tech blogger named Johny Krahbichler opened a package mailed from Warsaw: a DVD with a long alphanumeric code written on it, no return address, no… Read the rest of the article: A mystery DVD mailed from Poland hid coded threats in a plague doctor video

In 1681, women walking alone through the alleys around London's Fleet Street began getting attacked by a man who moved so fast, and vanished so completely, that people believed he… Read the rest of the article: In 1681, a mystery attacker who vanished instantly terrorized London

Somatoparaphrenia is a rare delusion in which a person denies that one of their limbs, or an entire side of their body, belongs to them — even when shown direct… Read the rest of the article: This neurological condition makes people deny their own limbs

Catherine the Great, who modernized Russia during her reign, took about 22 lovers over her lifetime — enough to fuel a legend that outlived her by centuries: that she died… Read the rest of the article: The myth that Catherine the Great died having sex with a horse, debunked

On September 13, 2005, Blizzard added a raid to World of Warcraft with a boss, Hakkar the Soulflayer, who cast a debuff called Corrupted Blood that spread between nearby players.… Read the rest of the article: A World of Warcraft bug accidentally created a virtual pandemic

In 2007, an Australian film collective called Alrugo Entertainment shot a trailer for a movie that didn't exist. Italian Spiderman, a parody of 1960s and '70s Italian action films, was… Read the rest of the article: Marvel wouldn't let Italian Spiderman into a real Spider-Man movie

On October 14, 1888, French inventor Louis Le Prince filmed his family walking in circles in a garden in Roundhay, Leeds — and the result, Roundhay Garden Scene, is believed… Read the rest of the article: The oldest surviving film is two seconds of a family walking in a garden

In 1943, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles had lost so many players to World War II that the NFL forced the two teams to merge into one roster for… Read the rest of the article: In 1943, the NFL forced the Eagles and Steelers to merge into one team

One Etsy seller's seed listings include a hosta that looks like a bunch of screaming demon shrimps, a plant shaped like a butterfly, and a red-white-blue patriotic shrub. The images… Read the rest of the article: Scammers are selling seeds for AI-generated fake flowers

Anyone who used a Windows PC in the late 1990s remembers 3D Pinball for Windows — Space Cadet, the spaceship-themed table that shipped with the operating system. Australian maker CNCDan… Read the rest of the article: Masking a physical replica of Space Cadet Pinball

In a mouse model of autism, a single injection of a designer drug re-grew a shrunken part of the neuron and, within an hour, the mice went from antisocial and… Read the rest of the article: A single drug injection reversed autism-like behavior in mice

Apple keeps tinkering with the "Liquid Glass" look it introduced in macOS Tahoe, and designer BasicAppleGuy has lined up dozens of system app icons from the latest beta (codenamed Golden… Read the rest of the article: Side-by-side: how macOS app icons changed from Tahoe to the next beta

Most people who worry about ticks are thinking about Lyme disease, which generally needs the tick attached for a day or two before it can infect you. Powassan virus —… Read the rest of the article: A tick virus that needs only 15 minutes to infect you hit a record 76 US cases

Water is weird. Unlike any simple liquid, it becomes easier to compress as it cools, and it reaches its maximum density at 4°C—not at its freezing point. This anomaly is… Read the rest of the article: Liquid water may be two different structures constantly swapping back and forth

Zack Proser wrote up everything he knows about public speaking after years of giving tech talks. The most useful section is on propranolol, the beta blocker concert musicians have been… Read the rest of the article: Propranolol doesn't kill public speaking dread — it just stops your body from becoming a shaky mess

At 3:17 a.m. on January 30, 1948, radio officer Robert Tuck aboard the Avro Tudor Star Tiger acknowledged receiving a bearing from Bermuda — and was never heard from again.… Read the rest of the article: Star Tiger sent its last radio message at 3:17 a.m. in 1948. No wreckage was ever found.

Since at least 1960, submarine personnel in Antarctic waters had been hearing a mechanical, repetitive quacking — pulses between 60 and 100 Hz arriving every 1.6 to 3.1 seconds. They… Read the rest of the article: Submarine crews heard a mysterious quacking in Antarctic waters for 50 years before anyone figured out what it was

On May 18, 1935, the Maxim Gorky — the largest aircraft in the world, a Soviet eight-engine behemoth with a 63-meter wingspan roughly equal to a modern Boeing 747 —… Read the rest of the article: A stunt pilot doing loops around the Soviet propaganda megaplane crashed into it, killing 45

The "Paul is dead" rumor spread from college gossip in 1966 to an international phenomenon by October 1969. The first published article ran September 17 in the Drake Times-Delphic student… Read the rest of the article: Fred LaBour invented most of the 'Paul is dead' clues as a joke and was stunned when the world believed them