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A red horse is a red horse, right? There’s actually a variety of different types of coat colors that are applied to horses that might look very similar at first glance. A red roan is a horse that has white hairs mixed throughout the red. A sorrel horse is one that has a completely red base color and the possibility of white markings, while a chestnut horse is a much darker, brownish-red.
Most people probably don’t know what differentiates a hare and a rabbit, and they are so remarkably similar that it’s understandable. Among other differences, hares are born with hair and open eyes, while rabbits are born naked and blind. Hares usually go it alone in life, but rabbits will form colonies with a dominant male.
When the US Navy started using nuclear submarines, it was important that the personnel be absolutely top-notch. In the early years, a man named Hyman Rickover made “strange” interviews the norm for his department. By asking odd questions, switching gears suddenly, and flipping out over the slightest thing, he picked the interviewees who were the most calm and collected, and in the process created a submarine class with no reported accidents.
In a Nutshell We have often given the ancestors of domestic dogs little credit, viewing them as savage killers. More enlightened views may see wolves as predators that cull the herds of sick or weak animals. However, wolves are actually...
Tears might be a welcome relief from eye irritants or an unwelcome proof of an emotion we’d rather keep to ourselves. Different types of tears not only serve different purposes, but they’re made up of different substances.
Nothing says summer like the smell of chlorine from a pool . . . but it’s not chlorine you’re smelling. It’s chloramine, a chemical produced by the reaction between chlorine and urine. And it’s what makes your eyes red. When people think it’s okay to stay in the pool for bathroom breaks, pools become a massive, festering slush of disease, with everything from asthma and lung infections to Legionnaires’ disease associated with swimming in dirty pools.
The captain of the HMS Beagle almost didn’t let Charles Darwin join the expedition, as he believed that the shape of Darwin’s nose signaled that he didn’t have the enthusiasm and strength the journey required. He did let him come in the end, of course. And it was during these voyages that the captain, Robert FitzRoy, would start making detailed observations of weather patterns that would ultimately allow him to predict major weather patterns like storms and winds. He called his predictions “forecasts” and would pioneer the science we still rely on today.
An investigation started by the Associated Press found that between 1962 and 2015, more than $20 million was paid out to Nazi war criminals living in the US and overseas. The Department of Justice used benefits to persuade at least 28 suspected ex-Nazis to leave the country, allowing them to keep receiving money as long as they left voluntarily. It was only with the 2014 No Social Security for Nazis Act that the payments slowed, and they didn’t even stop completely until January 2015.
One of the most famous actors of all time, Humphrey Bogart was a colorful character with a fondness for alcohol. One boozy evening, he decided it would be a good idea to buy a stuffed panda. But when a young model tried to steal his stuffed bear, Bogart got physical and was forced to defend himself in court.
In 1985, three South Carolina men raped and tortured a 23-year-old woman for six hours. When they were finally hauled into court, it seemed like this would be a pretty simple case. But then the judge handed down an incredibly bizarre sentence. The men could serve 30 years behind bars . . . or they could undergo surgical castration.
The Various Origins of Valentine’s Day
Feb 13, 2020
