ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Finishing her class at The Juilliard School of the arts in New York, Greek opera great Maria Callas gave her students a final word of advice. “Keep on going the proper way: Not with fireworks, not with easy applause, but with the expression of the words, the diction, and to really feel what you feel. That’s what I want. I’m not good at words, so that’s that.” The March 1972 speech was a detail little…
The National Gallery of Historical Firemen (in Italian, Galleria Storica Nazionale dei Vigili del Fuoco) was founded in 1991 by Firefighter Commander Nicola Colangelo. Although this appellation is the most common in the English language, a more accurate translation of the name of this museum would be the Historical National Gallery of Firefighters. The gallery consists of four interconnected rooms in a beautiful Renaissance building in the Palazzo Ducale complex. These rooms used to be the royal stables. The……
The Leesburg Lime Company appeared in the latter half of the 19th century as one of many businesses that spawned around the W&OD railroad. Leesburg Lime Company was one of the largest employers of Black Americans in the area following the American Civil War, with between 30 to 50 Black employees on the roster. Quarriers used dynamite to break up limestone inside the pits, then utilized a steam-powered winch to transport stone out of the pits. The stone was……
While any two human genomes are about 99.9 percent identical, genetic variation in the remaining 0.1 percent plays an important role in shaping human diversity, including a person’s risk for developing certain diseases. Measuring the cumulative effect of these small genetic differences can provide an estimate of an individual’s genetic risk for a particular disease or their likelihood of having a particular trait. However, the majority of models used to generate these “polygenic scores” are based on studies done……
On a crisp late April morning in 1692, Benjamin Hutchinson was on his way to a local tavern in the quiet New England farming community of Salem Village, Massachusetts, when he was stopped by 11-year-old Abigail Williams. Frantically, Williams gestured to a “little black” figure in the form of the area’s former local reverend, George Burroughs. Hutchinson could not see the specter, but trusted Williams—a “visionary girl” who’d already identified several witchcraft suspects tormenting local girls. Without hesitation, Hutchinson……
Among the stately granite tombstones in a quaint historical cemetery are three unmarked concrete graves. Local legend says that these graves hold the remains of three witches (or brujas) who inflicted some kind of horrible evil on the community, although it seems that no one living can remember exactly what that was. Whatever they did must have been bad though, because supposedly the graves are covered in concrete in order to seal off the spirits from the physical realm,……
Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps. In this episode of The Atlas Obscura Podcast, we chat with one of the leading experts on art theft—professor and author Noah Charney, who unpacks the cultural fascination with this type of crime. He also tells us the story of one of the most notorious real life art thieves. Charney is also teaching an Atlas Obscura course on art crime that begins November 7, 2023. To……
Instead of needing a coat for each season, imagine having a jacket that would dynamically change shape so it becomes more insulating to keep you warm as the temperature drops. A programmable, actuating fiber developed by an interdisciplinary team of MIT researchers could someday make this vision a reality. Known as FibeRobo, the fiber contracts in response to an increase in temperature, then self-reverses when the temperature decreases, without any embedded sensors or other hard components. Play video The……
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The Victor Wembanyama era is underway in San Antonio. Wembanyama made his NBA debut with the Spurs against the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday night and made an immediate splash. The No. 1 pick in the NBA draft blocked a shot in the opening minute of the game and misfired on a 3-point attempt from the top of the key. But the 19-year-old who stands nearly 7-foot-4 found his spot and s cored his first NBA…
ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Hurricane Otis tore across Mexico’s southern Pacific coast as a powerful and dangerous Category 5 hurricane Wednesday, unleashing massive flooding in the resort city of Acapulco and setting off looting as desperate relatives tired of waiting for help to arrive. While little is known about possible deaths or the full extent of the damage — Acapulco was still mostly inaccessible by road as of late Wednesday — experts are calling Otis the strongest storm in…
On the morning of April 29, 2022, members of a new-age commune outside of Reykjavik woke to a freshly severed horse head on a wooden pole pointed at their property. Any local who saw the grisly scene, blood-caked and mouth agape, would have immediately known what it meant. The Icelandic níðstöng (“nithing pole” or sometimes called a scorn pole) is a curse dating back to the Viking Age. It is believed to have been used as early as the……
Dr. Emilio Medellín Cordero might have Mexico City’s most appropriately shaped office. Designed to resemble a tooth, it could only have been built for a dentist, and the blue neon sign hanging above it, makes it clear that yes, here you can find a dentista. The building is not only peculiar for its shape but also its location. Found at the front of the entrance to a tall apartment building’s ground-level parking area, one could even picture it as……
Pumpkin spice lattes may be few and far between in Italy, but for those gourd-lovers seeking to make the most of the season, there are few places more festive in fall than the northern Italian town of Ferrara. Located halfway between Venice and Florence, Ferrara was a center of art and innovation during the Renaissance as the home of the Este Court, a noble family whose wealth and power helped form the foundation of Italian culture centuries before the……
Stones aren’t known to move around much on their own. The most notable exceptions are the sailing stones of Racetrack Playa, which seemingly scoot around a dried-up lakebed all on their own. After years of hypothesizing about the reasons for the stones’ movement, scientists caught the sailing stones in action in 2013. Water accumulates on the playa in the winter, and when the weather conditions are just right, a thin layer of ice forms. As the ice breaks up into……
Red? Green? Christmas? It’s safe to say that Las Cruces, New Mexico is America’s epicenter of chile pepper tourism. And if you’re driving through the markets of nearby Hatch you’re going to need a place to stay. So where better to rest your head than the Big Chile Inn and Suites, in full view of the world’s largest chile pepper parked out front? The inn actually predates the giant mimetic capsicum plopped in its parking lot. In the 1960s,……
