The Beauty of Loulan is the preserved dead body of a woman who lived about 4000 years ago, during the Bronze Age. Unlike Egyptian mummies, which were preserved on purpose, the Loulan Beauty was preserved almost by accident. She was buried near a salt lake in the desert, where the arid and dry conditions preserved even the finer details of her face, such as her eyelashes.
The Poitou is known as the Baudet du Poitou in the Poitou-Charentes region of its native country of France. Mules, the result of crossing a male donkey with a female horse, are a greatly valued resource for draft and farm work. For more than a thousand years, mule production has been documented in France, and, around 1717, the Poitou become the standardized breed we know today, for the purpose of breeding mules. The most desirable mule was produced by breeding a Poitou jack to a Trait Poitevin Mulassier mare. This cross created the finest working mule in all of Europe, and fetched great prices for those who could afford them.
Pale Male was a red-tailed hawk that resided in and near New York City's Central Park from the 1990s until 2023. Birdwatcher and author Marie Winn gave him his name because of the unusually light coloring of his head. He was one of the first red-tailed hawks known to have nested on a building rather than in a tree and is known for establishing a dynasty of urban-dwelling red-tailed hawks. Each spring, bird watchers would set up telescopes alongside Central Park's Model Boat Pond to observe his nest and chicks at 927 Fifth Avenue.
Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Albert Loeb were two wealthy students at the University of Chicago who kidnapped and murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks (a relative of Loeb) in Chicago, Illinois, United States, on May 21, 1924. They committed the murder – characterized at the time as "the crime of the century" – hoping to demonstrate superior intellect, which they believed enabled and entitled them to carry out a "perfect crime" without consequences. After the two men were arrested, Loeb's family retained Clarence Darrow as lead counsel for their defense. Darrow's twelve-hour summation at their sentencing hearing is noted for its influential criticism of capital punishment as retributive rather than transformative justice. Both young men were sentenced to life imprisonment plus 99 years. Loeb was murdered by a fellow prisoner in 1936. Leopold was released on parole in 1958.
The Kola Superdeep Borehole, located in Russia, is the world's deepest man-made hole, reaching a depth of 40,230 feet (12,262 meters) or 7.6 miles (12.2 kilometers), surpassing the depth of the Mariana Trench and the height of Mount Everest. The drilling project, initiated by the Soviets in 1970, revealed unexpected findings such as the absence of the "Conrad discontinuity" transition from granite to basalt, the presence of liquid water at unexpected depths, and microscopic fossils from single-celled marine organisms dating back 2 billion years. Despite the significant depth achieved, the drilling faced challenges like increasing temperatures and rock densities, leading to the project's discontinuation in 1992, with the hole being sealed in 2005.
The Blue Hole is a diving location on the southeast Sinai, a few kilometres north of Dahab, Egypt on the coast of the Red Sea. The dive site is reputed to have the most diver fatalities in the world with estimates of between 130 and 200 fatalities in recent years.
Natalia Molchanova was a Russian champion free diver and multiple world record holder. Widely considered to be the greatest freediver of all time, Molchanova holds 41 world records in freediving and can hold her breath for nine minutes. In May, she dived to a depth of 71 metres in waters off Egypt. In 2013, Molchanova swam 182 metres underwater with no fins at the world championships in Belgrade, breaking the record by 19 metres.
Cercis canadensis is a tree that appears as if it's out of focus.
Vallam kali is a traditional boat race in Kerala, India. It is a form of canoe racing, and uses paddled war canoes. It is mainly conducted during the season of the harvest festival Onam in spring.
The Bone Wars was a period of intense and ruthlessly competitive fossil hunting and discovery during the Gilded Age of American history, marked by a heated rivalry between Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh. Each of the two paleontologists used underhanded methods to try to outdo the other in the field, resorting to bribery, theft, and the destruction of bones. Each scientist also sought to ruin his rival's reputation and cut off his funding, using attacks in scientific publications.