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Quasars These bright beacons shine to us from the edges of the visible universe and are reminders to scientists of our universe’s chaotic infancy. Quasars release more energy than hundreds of galaxies combined. The general consensus is that they are monstrous black holes in the hearts of distant galaxies. This image is of quasar 3C 273, photographed in 1979. Vacuum Energy Quantum physics tells us that contrary to appearances, empty space is a bubbling brew of “virtual” subatomic particles that are constantly being created and destroyed....

The x-class was a series of submarines built by the Royal Navy during the Second World War. These tiny submarines only displaced 30 tonnes of water when submerged, were 15.55 metres (51ft) long, and carried a crew of 4 (commander, navigator, engineer and diver). There were designed to be towed to the target area by a full-sized “mother” submarine. The X-craft would then be detached and infiltrate the target, laying down two side charges, each containing 2 tonnes of amatol....

If you live in a place where humans have built civilizations for at least a few hundred or thousand years, you’ll notice carvings on buildings, see peculiar costumes at festivals, and hear and read stories that feature curious motifs and characters. These artifacts of our cultures are all around us. Here’s a list of some of the coolest folk motifs from around the globe. 10 The Green Man, Britain The Medieval era in Europe was a time of great transition....

SEE ALSO: 10 Good Things Done By Evil Dictators 10 Nicolae Ceausescu Nicolae Ceausescu was the General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965-1989. He made a scepter for himself (Isn’t Communism Anti-Monarchy?), and called himself “The Genius Of The Carpathians”. He obviously wasn’t a fan of modesty. He demanded that his, nearly illiterate, wife be made part of the New York Academy of Sciences and the Royal Institute of Chemistry, and all scientists in Romania had to include her name in their research....

Lingerie maker Triumph Japan has heritage. These are the guys that gave the world the ‘Grow Your Own Rice’ bra. Bash a button and get a Welcome to Japan message in English, Chinese or Korean. Must make foreplay fun. A giant Swiss Army knife for any acolyte of Alan Titchmarsh. There’s a shovel, rake, pickaxe and trowel amongst other things. Gardeners complain about bad backs all the time – they’ll probably be rushed in to the ER with a slipped disc after this thing....

SEE ALSO: 10 Creepy Facts About Body Farms, The Graveyards Of Science Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, Sicily, Italy Mummies have a bit of a bad rap when it comes to attractiveness. If Mumm-Ra is anything to go by they all need a bit more than a quick crop on Photoshop. But little Rosalia Lombardo takes the mummy mold and smashes it to pieces under her tiny infant feet. Rosalia died of pneumonia in 1920 at the tragic age of two....

SEE ALSO: 10 Gruesome And Shocking Facts About Victorian Surgery The Victorian upper class (and later middle class) had no televisions to entertain them, so they entertained themselves. One of the popular forms of entertainment was for friends and family to dress up in outrageous costumes and pose for each other. This sounds innocent – but just think: can you imagine your grandmother dressing up as a greek wood nymph posing on a table in the living room while everyone applauds?...

The events listed here go far beyond some dodgy, deep fried foodstuffs or a rigged carnival game. No, these are some of the most shocking, scandalous and tragic events that have happened at leisure parks, theme parks and water parks over the years. Some are relatively well known (especially if you live in the locality of the site), some are obscure. They are all awful. 10 Abandoned Amusement Parks With Horrific Histories [Disturbing]...

10 Derby Racer, Revere Beach, Massachusetts The Derby Racer has a spotted history, beginning right when it opened in 1910. The owner of the Revere Beach theme park at the time stood up to present a lecture on amusement park safety, and in a bout of sheer irony, he fell from the one of the coaster’s cars and was killed instantly. In 1917, another fatality occurred when a passenger lost his hat on the coaster’s initial incline, and in trying to retrieve it, he fell onto the opposing track, was hit by the other car, and then dragged a total of 35 feet....

Maybe people feel vulnerable because they are actually airing their dirty laundry in public. Then again, what really happens in the steamy depths of the back room can seem mysterious. Of course, most dry cleaners are honest businesspeople just trying to make a living. The industry has changed since my student days, but here are my recollections of being a dry cleaner. The incidents still make me shudder. 10 Secrets Businesses Don’t Want You To Know...

10Coke II So, back when Coca Cola started to slump a little in sales to its fiercest competitor, Pepsi Cola, someone made the executive decision to dink around with Coke’s secret formula thereby making it taste more like, well, PEPSI. It wasn’t bad, per se , but it sure as hell wasn’t Coke. I remember consuming mass quantities of this stuff by can and, the newest form of container: 2 liters....

10 Suppressed Alternative Medical Treatments 10 The Wound Salve One of the very strangest treatments of the early modern era was an ointment which would be smeared not on your wound, but on the implement which had wounded you. This form of ‘sympathetic magic’ was advocated by men such as Walter Ralegh and Kenelm Digby, an important proto-scientist of the 17th century. The influential Belgian chemist Jean Baptiste van Helmont recommended making the salve with ‘the moss of an unburied cranium; the fat of man, each two ounces; mummy, human blood each half an ounce’, and ‘oil of linseed, and turpentine, each one ounce’....

SEE ALSO: 10 Things You Never Knew About McDonald’s 10 Kopi Luwak – Poop Coffee There is no beating around the bush on this one – Kopi Luwak are coffee beans that come from Civet (a cat sized mamal) poo. The animals gorge on only the finest the ripe berries, and excrete the partially-digested beans, which are then harvested for sale. Kopi Luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for between $120 and $600 USD per pound, and is sold mainly in Japan and United States, but it is increasingly becoming available elsewhere....

10 Video Game Controllers Now with vibration intensity settings? O-okay. Sometime between the great toilet paper shortage of 2020 and now, many of us needed some new and old hobbies to keep us sane. Many men, women, and everyone in between, picked up the sticks (a controller) and played at least a few rounds of vids. Mid-game, your phone dings with a notification. You put the ‘roller in your lap and watch a hilarious Snapchat....

Pygmy hippopotamus The pygmy hippo is a solitary animal that lives among dense vegetation along streams and swamps and in the rainforests of West Africa. It sometimes lives in cultivated areas, but the pygmy hippo is shy: it avoids people, as well as other hippos. Each hippo has its own territory. The male’s territory is larger than the female’s; both mark their territorial boundaries with their droppings. The pygmy hippo feeds mainly when it is dark....

10Fear-Encoded Neurons During a bad fright, real or imagined, the jittery victim might experience some spectacular symptoms. Hyperventilating, unable to move, or bolting like a mouse, every reaction originates from a tiny part of the brain. The walnut-sized amygdala remains a mysterious organ, but mice trained to fear a certain sound (signaling an electrical shock) revealed two facts about the brain’s fear center. Whenever the zapping cue was given, they recognized what was about to happen and froze....

Wine was discovered about 6,000 years ago in either Mesopotamia, Palestine/Israel or what is now called Georgia. It originally fermented by accident when native yeasts stuck to grapes stored in containers turned sugars in the grapes into alcohol. The ancient Egyptians refined the sciences of both grape-growing and winemaking, to the point of including wine in burial crypts for consumption in the afterlife. The Greeks spread winemaking throughout the Mediterranean and the Romans turned it into a big business....

However, it sometimes happens in the reverse, with fish coming on land to hunt land animals. Those that do not come on land have developed specialized tactics to catch land animals. Their targets are usually creatures flying above the water or those unfortunate enough to wander too close to the shore. 10 European Wels Catfish European wels catfish in the Tarn River in Albi, France, have evolved to grab pigeons by the riverbank....

Fallacy: You are fat and need to lose weight No magical combination of foods, avoidance of foods, increase in the intake of certain foods, or special diet plans (no matter how bizarre) will make you lose weight. The only way you can lose weight is to eat fewer calories than you burn in your daily activities. If you burn 7,000 kilojoules a day, you need to eat 7,000 kilojoules to maintain your weight....

There have been many incidents and accidents ever since the Wright brothers made the first powered flight in 1903. But some of these events are so scary and unusual that they deserve notable mentions. 10 Brocklesby Midair Collision On September 29, 1940, two Royal Australian Air Force Avro Anson airplanes on a training exercise collided in midair above Brocklesby, New South Wales, Australia. The pilot and reconnaissance officer in the lower airplane immediately bailed out, along with the reconnaissance officer of the upper airplane....