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Perseverance has traveled almost 26 miles on Mars—nearly a marathon

After more than five years on Mars, Perseverance has covered almost 26 miles (42 kilometers), just shy of the official marathon distance of 26.2 miles, while collecting 27 rock cores and abrading 62 rocks.

A Police AI Glitch Accidentally Helped define the Grand Theft Auto Series

In 1996, game developer DMA Design (now Rockstar North) was building a cops-and-robbers racing game called Race 'n' Chase. During testing, a bug corrupted the police driving code, causing police cruisers to behave erratically creating unpredictable gameplay. Playtesters found escaping these hyper-aggressive police chases far more thrilling than the original gameplay, prompting developers to pivot the entire concept into Grand Theft Auto.

In the 1980s, Computer Games Were Transmitted Over Public FM Radio

Before the internet, European radio stations in the 1980s broadcasted computer games over regular FM radio waves. Listeners recorded the screeching data audio onto cassette tapes using home tape decks, then inserted the cassettes into microcomputers like the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 to load and play the software.

The Voynich Manuscript Remains Completely Undeciphered

Carbon-dated to the early 15th century, the Voynich Manuscript is a 240-page illustrated codex written in an unidentified script and language. Filled with drawings of unknown plants, celestial diagrams, and complex tub-like systems, it has resisted all decryption efforts by professional codebreakers and artificial intelligence models.

The Oxford Electric Bell Has Been Ringing Since 1840

Sitting in the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford University, a bell driven by a dry-pile battery system has been ringing continuously for over 180 years. Researchers refrain from opening the battery housing to determine its exact chemical makeup because doing so would stop one of the world's longest-running continuous scientific experiments.

Baikonur Cosmodrome is the world's largest operational space launch facility by area.

Located in the Kazakh Steppe, the Baikonur Cosmodrome spans a vast area, making it the largest active space launch site on Earth. Established in 1955 for the Soviet space program, it remains the primary launch site for all Russian crewed spaceflights and hosts numerous commercial, military, and scientific missions each year.

The term 'Cantonese' has had shifting meanings in English over time.

Originally, 'Cantonese' referred specifically to the language of Canton (Guangzhou), a usage popularized by John Chalmers's 1859 dictionary. The term has also been used more broadly to refer to the entire Yue Chinese branch, including varieties like Taishanese, though these are not fully mutually intelligible.

The Franks helped create the ancestor of the lowercase letters we use today

Charlemagne’s scholars wanted manuscripts to be easier to read and copy accurately. Their reforms produced Carolingian minuscule, a remarkably clear writing system with distinct letters and spaces between words. Renaissance scholars later copied this medieval script believing it was ancient Roman handwriting, and it strongly influenced the lowercase forms eventually used in European printing.

Perseverance has traveled almost 26 miles on Mars—nearly a marathon

After more than five years on Mars, Perseverance has covered almost 26 miles (42 kilometers), just shy of the official marathon distance of 26.2 miles, while collecting 27 rock cores and abrading 62 rocks.

A Police AI Glitch Accidentally Helped define the Grand Theft Auto Series

In 1996, game developer DMA Design (now Rockstar North) was building a cops-and-robbers racing game called Race 'n' Chase. During testing, a bug corrupted the police driving code, causing police cruisers to behave erratically creating unpredictable gameplay. Playtesters found escaping these hyper-aggressive police chases far more thrilling than the original gameplay, prompting developers to pivot the entire concept into Grand Theft Auto.

In the 1980s, Computer Games Were Transmitted Over Public FM Radio

Before the internet, European radio stations in the 1980s broadcasted computer games over regular FM radio waves. Listeners recorded the screeching data audio onto cassette tapes using home tape decks, then inserted the cassettes into microcomputers like the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 to load and play the software.

The Voynich Manuscript Remains Completely Undeciphered

Carbon-dated to the early 15th century, the Voynich Manuscript is a 240-page illustrated codex written in an unidentified script and language. Filled with drawings of unknown plants, celestial diagrams, and complex tub-like systems, it has resisted all decryption efforts by professional codebreakers and artificial intelligence models.

The Oxford Electric Bell Has Been Ringing Since 1840

Sitting in the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford University, a bell driven by a dry-pile battery system has been ringing continuously for over 180 years. Researchers refrain from opening the battery housing to determine its exact chemical makeup because doing so would stop one of the world's longest-running continuous scientific experiments.

Baikonur Cosmodrome is the world's largest operational space launch facility by area.

Located in the Kazakh Steppe, the Baikonur Cosmodrome spans a vast area, making it the largest active space launch site on Earth. Established in 1955 for the Soviet space program, it remains the primary launch site for all Russian crewed spaceflights and hosts numerous commercial, military, and scientific missions each year.

The term 'Cantonese' has had shifting meanings in English over time.

Originally, 'Cantonese' referred specifically to the language of Canton (Guangzhou), a usage popularized by John Chalmers's 1859 dictionary. The term has also been used more broadly to refer to the entire Yue Chinese branch, including varieties like Taishanese, though these are not fully mutually intelligible.

The Franks helped create the ancestor of the lowercase letters we use today

Charlemagne’s scholars wanted manuscripts to be easier to read and copy accurately. Their reforms produced Carolingian minuscule, a remarkably clear writing system with distinct letters and spaces between words. Renaissance scholars later copied this medieval script believing it was ancient Roman handwriting, and it strongly influenced the lowercase forms eventually used in European printing.