World’s Strangest

The Smurfs—those lovable little blue imps from 1980s TV—began as a Belgian comic and television franchise. They were created and introduced as a series of comic strips by Belgian cartoonist Peyo, who went by the name Pierre Culliford, on October 23, 1958. Later, they became an American sensation when the Hanna-Barbera cartoon hit the airwaves [...]

Sex scandal and Nobel Prize winner don’t usually go hand-in-hand, so that’s why this story about physicist Marie Curie’s torrid love affair with a married man was huge news back then. Why, it even led to a duel and a [...]

Getty Images Marie Curie is well known as the first genius to have snagged two Nobel Prizes. The first came in 1903, when she and her husband, Pierre, were awarded a Nobel Prize in physics for their radiation research. Then, in 1911, she nabbed a Nobel in chemistry for her discovery of radium and polonium. But [...]

Over the next two weeks, we’ll take a look back at the fine art competitions that originated in ancient Greece and were revived as part of the modern Olympics from 1912-1948. International Olympic Committee, 1896/Getty Images French aristocrat and educationalist Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin (seated, at left) was the man primarily responsible for reviving [...]

A few animals have made the deepest depths of the ocean their natural habitat, which means they evolved to withstand enormous pressure. We only get to see these animals by remote camera, unless you happen to be James Cameron. But now Océanopolis, an aquarium in Brest, France, has developed a special aquarium that maintains high [...]

Link Scroll down for today’s pictures & links. The Astonishing Portal Gun Just when you thought that building an extra-dimension portal gun was a great idea… Reminds us of the 1940s Robert A. Heinlein story “And He Built a Crooked House”. See better quality version on Vimeo.com. Link Today’s pictures & links: Extreme Speakers Made From Supercar Exhaust System iXoost iPod dock [...]

French artist Pierre David took photographs of 40 models and arranged them according to their skin tones. The result is a color chart of skin a la the iconic PANTONE color guide: Link [...]

Ig Nobel Achievements distilled into limerick form by Martin Eiger, Improbable Research Limerick Laureate The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, then make them think. For details of all the Ig Nobel Prize–winning achievements, see each year’s special Ig Nobel issue of the magazine, and also see a list at the website. 2010 [...]

You’d expect famous people to know other famous people. But maybe not these famous people. 1. Nikita Khrushchev & Marilyn Monroe PA Photos /Landov In September 1959, during Khrushchev’s American tour, he visited 20th Century Fox Studios. At a lunch banquet with hundreds of stars (including Frank Sinatra, Edward G. Robinson, and Gary Cooper), he was [...]

The idea of a person turning into a dangerous animal has been part of folklore ever since folklore was invented. It’s quite popular today, at least in fiction, since the transformation makes a great special effect. But there have been real people in various parts of the world who went down in history as practitioners [...]