Play These Mobile Games Designed to Help Save Dying Aboriginal Language and Culture
An Australian Aboriginal community with only 8 fluent speakers left has launched a mobile phone game to help reconnect their youth with the tongue of their ancestors. The game allows you to help preserve a wetland nature reserve where the community lives, with almost 100 words and phrases in the Nyiyaparli language. Numbering around 400 […]
2,000 Year-old Razor That Shaved Ancient Romans Is Unearthed and Up for Auction
A 2,000-year-old razor used to keep Romans looking sharp is set to go up for auction in England, where the catalogue included a fascinating history on the Romans’ grooming habits. The 3.5 inch-long (9 cm) iron blade had a hole for the shaver to put their finger in so they could drag it across their […]
Windows Broken Into Become Earrings in One Woman’s Quest to Keep Glass Out of Landfills
Car break-ins in the Bay Area are down, but not out. From each one of these ugly surprises, local artisan Sydney Jones creates a surprising amount of beauty. Using a kitchen-top kiln, she takes advantage of safety glass’ crystalline structure to quickly turn the broken pieces into floral-themed earrings of jade green. It not only […]
Canadian Burger Joint Gets Cash Apology When Alabama Man Mistook it for His Local Restaurant
A couple from Nova Scotia was left with their jaws on the floor after they received $40 and an apology letter all the way from Alabama. The letter was penned by a man who searched for his local Bentley’s Burgers and mistakenly found theirs, ordering a doomed pair of burgers for pick-up from over 1,000 […]
Community Rallies to Protect Local Cobbler Until Supermarket Cancels Plans to Expand
When a corporate shoe repair chain wanted to open a location in a Gloucestershire, town, locals rallied in a signature-gathering campaign to protect their local cobbler. An example of small-town sanctity, the petition to reject the corporate newcomer was promoted on social media and collected a total of 1,000 signatures from people in the area, […]
Would Your Helmet Actually Protect You? VA Tech’s ‘Helmet Lab’ Is Testing Every Sport
In 2011, Steve Rowson and his fellow engineering students at Virginia Tech were asked by the Hokies equipment manager if they could test commercially-available football helmets to see which was the safest. Obliging the man, they ran a series of impact assessments, and found a broad spectrum of differences between them. At that moment, the […]
Timbuktu’s Medieval Manuscripts Return Home After a Decade Away Safe from Insurgents
Thousands of ancient Arabic texts have returned to their rightful place in the legendary Saharan trade city of Timbuktu after years of safe-keeping further south. Having undergone extensive digitization, fear that the content of the manuscripts may not survive the centuries due to security concerns or funding have abated somewhat. Mali was once the center […]
Seal Flops onto Photographer’s Boat to Escape Hunting Orca Pod–She Captured it All on Camera
An experienced wildlife photographer with a penchant for marine mammals like whales recently bore witness to a lone seal miraculously surviving a hunt by 8 killer whales. Far more than just bearing witness, it was more or less the photographer’s presence that allowed for it to happen, as the seal escaped the jaws of the […]
‘Offline’ Trend Sees Thousands Attending Phone-Free Concerts, Dates, and Events Where You Can ‘Find Your People’
One of the realities of social media addiction is the self-awareness of the addicted. A recent survey from the British Standards Institution found that 68% of teen respondents said they feel worse when they spend too much time on social media, and 47% would remove them from existence if they could. So it’s not surprising […]
Stolen 18th-Century Painting of St. Francis Returned to a Mexican Church
7 years ago, a Mexican fine art auctioneer submitted their upcoming auction catalogue to a database of stolen art as part of a due diligence process that’s pretty standard in the industry. Analysts flipped through the pages of paintings and portraits, clearing each one in turn, before coming to a 6-foot-tall work of Saint Francis […]