America’s first female mortician smuggled escaped slaves.

Chalk this up to things not widely known: America's first female mortician, Henrietta Duterte, turned her house into a stop on the Underground Railroad and used coffins to smuggle fugitives across Pennsylvania.

From an essay about Duterte by novelist Kaitlyn Greenidge:

At 14, my deepest desire was to become an undertaker. This career choice was met with puzzled looks from my mother and exasperated sighs from my guidance counselor, but during a school-sponsored internship week, they agreed to let me try.

Nov 13, 2017

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An animated short about a trip to space, with an exquisite, handcrafted feel by Jason Allen Lee.

Using a specialized camera, two journalists revealed massive amounts of invisible methane escaping at Texas petroleum sites.

↩︎ The New York Times 1d

"What if the church started over entirely and used the savings to help repay the debts of its members?" How a church was reborn.

↩︎ BuzzFeed News 1d

To my surprise, the string of jumping blue dots that indicate typing popped up on my screen. They disappeared, reappeared, disappeared, and appeared again. Fry finally responded, saying he didn’t know what I was talking about.

A disconcerting dive into online murder markets.

↩︎ Harper's

North Carolina's linguistics are the most diverse in the US, but that diversity is quickly disappearing.

↩︎ Atlas Obscura 1d

The density of Ring cameras in US metro areas has handed Amazon a vast—and disturbingly, private—surveillance state.

↩︎ Gizmodo 1d

"If he keeps this up, he’ll look about as craven as he thinks himself strong." The Southern Gothic guide to impeachment.

↩︎ McSweeney's 1d

A project aims to convert 3.2 million acres in Montana to the days before white settlers arrived—bears, bison, wolves, and all.

↩︎ NPR 1d

Delicate, figurative art inspired by paper cuts, by Kreh Mellick.

↩︎ Booooooom 1d

That’s the reviewer that doesn’t bother to read the manuscript a journal has sent out for evaluation for possible publication, offers condescending or outright offensive comments, and—of course—urges the irrelevant citation of their own work.

There is an epidemic of offensive comments by reviewers of scientific papers.

↩︎ Science

For the first time since the early 20th century, more Americans are dying at home—instead of the hospital—of natural causes.

↩︎ STAT 1d

In a terrific photo essay, Jason Diamond travels more than 1,000 miles around Lake Michigan.

↩︎ InsideHook 1d

As the climate crisis deepens, expect fascism to follow—Trump already got that ball rolling with his Puerto Rico rhetoric.

↩︎ Harper's Bazaar 1d

To continue working, some elderly in Japan are using exoskeletons that augment muscle strength.

↩︎ Futurism 1d

NulledCast is a podcast where hackers compromise Ring and Nest cameras and talk to—and sometimes verbally abuse—their owners.

↩︎ VICE 1d

You look at the bottom of the menu and notice a warning: “Consuming raw or undercooked meats, poultry, seafood, shellfish or eggs may increase your risk of food-borne illness.” That warning is there for a reason.

Steps you can take to reduce your chances of dying on any given day.

↩︎ The New York Times

Millennials' religious interest is bottoming out, and the civic and political implications of that shouldn't be underestimated.

↩︎ FiveThirtyEight 1d

Using DNA, scientists have calculated the lifespans of extinct animals, including a 268-year-old bowhead whale.

↩︎ BBC 1d

Satellite images over North Dakota show a higher-than-typical amount of unharvested corn among the fields of snow.

↩︎ Atlas Obscura 1d

"You wouldn't need a backhoe...you could use a shovel." Water may be an inch below the surface of Mars—good news for astronauts.

↩︎ CNN 1d

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