The week leading us into February was a fairly depressing one, as these things go. There was violence, the potential for violence, partisan rancor, and depressing spats that involved the trampling of free speech. It wasn’t all doom and gloom, but both were certainly in high supply. Fingers crossed that next week’s news helps chase away the winter blues. 10 South Korea Suffered Its Deadliest Fire In A Decade Just before Christmas 2017, a fire ripped through a sports center in Jecheon, South Korea, killing nearly 30 people....

10 Germany Voted To Legalize Gay Marriage Despite its increasing prominence in the news, gay marriage is a bit of a rarity on the world stage. As of early July 2017, only 22 countries out of over 190 allow same-sex marriage and even some of them only allow it in certain states or territories. (Several more recognize civil partnerships.) Last week, the path was paved for country number 23. On Friday, German lawmakers voted by 393–226 to legalize gay marriage....

One thing is for sure: For a very long time, societies have been struggling to overcome their more superstitious natures, and thousands, if not millions, of people have lost their lives in this fight. Perhaps someday we can overcome this instinct toward superstition and belief in the supernatural and give in to reason, at least to the extent that we don’t kill innocent people. (Witch hunts still happen today.) We’re all extremely familiar with the Salem witch trials of Massachusetts, but such trials have a long and deeply disturbing history....

Soldiers, athletes, and monarchs have all walked into history wearing socks, and occasionally, the socks themselves helped make history. Read on to learn of 10 instances when socks shaped world history. 10 The First Socks Were Worn With Sandals Today’s classic fashion faux pas was actually the first method of wearing this clothing item. The earliest-known knit socks are from Egypt, dating back to the 3rd–6th centuries AD. Most of sock history occurred in colder climates, so why there were socks in ancient Egypt is a mystery....

Studies have provided evidence suggesting tremendous variation in brain activity during sleep. This has been demonstrated using EEG technology. Scientists have identified five distinct stages of sleep, characterized by differences in brain activity. Stages 1-4 and a final stage labeled rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. When awakened during REM sleep, subjects report dreaming. With the development of new brain imaging technology in the early 1990’s we learned even more about brain activity during REM sleep....

Common Misconception: Humans use only 10% of their brain This is utterly false. No one really knows how this myth started – but what we do know is how it has been perpetuated for so long. When people first began making this false claim, psychics “decided” that this explained why some people had paranormal abilities and others didn’t: paranormal powers were unleashed in people who had developed the use of more than 10% of the brain....

10Benefit Cheat Caught after Appearing on MasterChef Luciana Byrne, a 39-year-old mother of three, hoped for her 15 minutes of fame after taking part in the UK television cookery show MasterChef in 2009. She appeared attractive, talented, and intelligent, ticking all the right boxes for “celebrity cook” potential. Unfortunately for her, this title would later be the subject of wordplay by Havering Council leader Michael White, who instead called her a “celebrity crook” who had “cheated taxpayers....

The year is 1824, and a row of showers has been converted into a majestic hotel, known as the Shelbourne. The Shelbourne has featured prominently in Ireland’s history, in that the country’s constitution was drafted there in 1922, and, throughout the years, it was favorite of many celebrities passing through Dublin. Room 526 was where a medium supposedly made contact with the hotel’s permanent resident, Mary. Mary was a little girl who lived in the houses that were converted into the hotel, until her death in 1791 from cholera....

10Botfly-Eyes There are a lot of different potential causes to a swollen eye: allergies, infection, getting a little too fresh with the wrong person. While a swollen eye is not the most worrying of symptoms, it can be quite annoying and inconvenient. So when a 17-year-old Peruvian boy noticed his eye had been slowly swelling for a few weeks, he went to the doctor to find out why. The cause of the boy’s swelling turned out to be a 3 cm (1....

10Laura Graham Laura Graham was deputy director of White House scheduling during Bill Clinton’s time in office, a job that required her to interview with John Podesta. She’s also become the Clinton’s chief of staff and the chief of operations for the Clinton Foundation, meaning that she is in the center of everything that is going on in the Clinton camp. Doug Band, who has been at the heart of newly-exposed comments regarding Chelsea Clinton, called Graham “the glue that holds it all together”....

While we are intimately familiar with our own methods of communication, the rest of the animal kingdom has a few surprises up its sleeve. Nature has conjured an amazingly diverse range of communication strategies. For example, some insects use chemical signaling to create trails. New-world monkeys wash themselves in their own urine to attract mates. And meerkats use auditory calls to warn each other about dangerous predators. These messages are part of a fascinating evolutionary arms race....

The following well-known and lesser-known movies all spend significant amounts of their run-time within real asylums, either during or after their closure, using the asylum setting as a key element to the stories they tell. 10 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) Milos Forman’s adaptation of Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel sets the benchmark for more realistic depictions of asylum life. Filmed at Oregon’s Salem State Hospital (opened in 1883), it turns its setting into a power struggle between the autonomy and rights of the individual and the order and restrictions of the state....

10Time Dilation Physicists consider time a fundamental dimension of the universe, but the assumption that time’s just one steady, linear flow has been convincingly overthrown by Einstein’s theory of relativity. Time, once thought to be simple and absolute, is actually influenced by speed and gravity. Ever wonder how your phone knows you just passed a turn you were supposed to make and is now urging you to make a U-turn? The global positioning system (GPS) in your phone is linked to a network of 24 satellites that each carry precision atomic clocks....

10 Japanese Is Unique And Impossible To Learn Many Japanese have long believed that the Japanese language is both unique and impossible for foreigners to truly understand. This forms a part of “Nihonjinron” (Japanese Theory), which emphasizes the special nature of the Japanese culture and people that supposedly makes them unlike any other on the planet. Nihonjinron claims that the Japanese language is homogenous and intimately tied with the Japanese race and culture and therefore has a pure and spiritual link to the people....

SEE ALSO: 10 ‘Facts’ About The Human Body That Are Completely False But your body might beg to differ. For as much as we think we’ve got a handle on the skin suit we spend all day strolling around in, the truth is it’s capable of lobbing some strange surprises. Think you know yourself? Think again. 10Your Body Probably Isn’t The Shape You Think It Is Humans come in a fascinating range of shapes and sizes....

10Give Gifts Depending on the size of your family and social circle, buying gifts may be an ongoing and exasperating task. How do you figure out the best gift to give someone? When looking at the science of gift giving, researchers at Yale University found that there is a communication gap between givers and receivers. Givers want to give something that has the best value. However, people receiving the gift would rather have something that is simple and convenient....

We aren’t here to pass a judgment on the case because we aren’t lawyers. But we are interested specifically in Darren Wilson’s testimony to the grand jury and what he claims happened. We’ve been reading through his testimony all morning and have collected that information here. Note: All photos come from the complete case files via the New York Times. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes come from Volume V of the grand jury proceedings on September 16, 2014....

However, we feel that some of these stories should not be missed. They might not revolutionize industries or topple governments, but they are bizarre and quirky enough to deserve your attention. 10 Runaway Cow Never Going Back A cow destined for the slaughterhouse executed a daring escape and then isolated herself on a small island on Nyskie Lake, a reservoir in the southwest of Poland. This all started last week when the bovine was being led to a truck headed for the abattoir....

10 The Battle of Didgori Internal conflict and advancing Muslim forces left the state of Georgia in the 11th century with only a minor foothold in the Caucasus, seemingly powerless to stop the Seljuk Turks from destroying them completely. By the time a 16-year-old David (or Davit) IV took the Georgian throne in 1089, the country was paying tribute to the Turks, who had taken their capital. With the Seljuks turning their attention south to join the Muslim war efforts in the early Crusades, David took the opportunity to stop tribute payments, stepped up his rebuilding efforts, and took back territory from the distracted Turks....

10 Will Somers England’s King Henry VIII installed Will Somers as his court jester, or fool, in 1525. Like other court jesters, Somers enjoyed great leeway in what he could say, and he always cloaked his sharp observations in humor and wit. According to Robert Armin, Somers saw the juggler, Thomas, carrying milk and bread and asked the king for a spoon. The king had none, and Thomas advised the fool to use his hand....