World’s Strangest

• While love may be the international language, the international love is the chickpea, or the Bengal gram (India), Chickpea (English), Garbanzo (Latin America), Hommes, Hamaz (Arab world), Nohud, Lablabi (Turkey), and Shimbra (Ethiopia), as its sometimes known. • Chickpeas are a high-protein legume, as well as providers of slow burning complex carbohydrates. They can also replenish [...]

The AirMule, developed by the Israeli aerospace company Urban Aeronautics, completed its first test flight. It only went two feet, but since it was just a concept two years ago, that’s pretty far. In Aviation Week, Graham Warwick writes: Urban says the tethered hovers, about 2ft off the ground, showed the control system’s ability to stabilize [...]

Most people are familiar with the Chanukah menorah’s nine branches—one for each night, plus the tall, center branch for the shamash (literally “the attendant”). But have you ever wondered why these menorahs don’t look the same as the famous menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome, or like the one on the official emblem [...]

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared last December. Chanukah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, begins at sundown on December 11 with the lighting of one candle on the eight-candle menorah. Every night an additional candle burns, until the eighth night, when eight candles are lighted. To celebrate, we’ve answered eight questions about the mysteries of Chanukah [...]

If you’ve ever been to a restaurant in Greece, chances are you’ve seen lamp on the menu. The spelling mistake is about as ubiquitous as nude sunbathers on the beach in Mykonos. It’s less likely, however, that you’ve seen my favorite mistranslated sign at Delphi, which reads: “No introducing animals and food on the path.” [...]

Chiune Sugihara was born on January 1st, 1900 and lived to make his mark on the twentieth century. Thousands of people owe their lives in part to his willingness to buck authority. For his efforts, he was imprisoned by the Soviets and fired from his job by the Japanese Foreign Ministry. That’s not the way Japanese [...]

We leave for our annual Halloween Disney World trip in a little more than two weeks and I am getting ridiculously excited. I can’t wait to ride the Haunted Mansion 13 times (a lofty goal that we never reach), get creeped out at the Tower of Terror and glimpse a sighting of the elusive Yeti [...]

Alexander the sex symbol?  A rare miniature portrait of Alexander the Great was recently found by a University of Washington student in an old building 30 kilometers south of Haifa, Israel. A compelling evidence of exquisite Hellenistic minor art, the carving shows a head in left profile, with rather sexy features: wavy locks of hair, wide, [...]

Some of these are parodies, and some are for real — see if you can tell the difference! Cleveland Excerpts from this homemade ad were featured in Michael Moore’s new movie Capitalism: A Love Story. I like the “second attempt” more: Have a crappie time in Missouri Apparently, Missouri is the crappie fishing capitol of the world. At one point, [...]

World Largest Tel Aviv Carpet of 500,000 Flowers The city of Tel Aviv continued its year-long centennial celebration on Wednesday (September 16), with the installation of a sweeping carpet of flowers in the city’s Rabin Square, received as a gift from the city of Brussels. The half-million flowers used to compose the colourful carpet arrived from Belgium [...]