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Suborbital space tourism finally arrives | FCC prepares to run public C-band auction | The big four in the U.S. launch industry — United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman — hope to be one of two providers that will receive five-year contracts later this year to launch national security payloads starting in 2022. | China’s launch rate stays high | The International Space Station is the largest ever crewed object in space.

 
Lake Akan Ainu Kotan in Kushiro, Japan
The Ainu people live in the northernmost parts of Japan, mainly on the island of Hokkaidō, with around 25,000 and 200,000 people left belonging to this indigenous group. They were originally hunter-gatherers with their own language and rich culture living in larger areas. However, during the 19th-century, the Japanese government drove them further into the north to colonize the frontier. The Ainu were stripped of their lands, culture, and traditional way of life. It was not until April 2019...

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Glenwood Institute in Matawan, New Jersey
Garret Augustus Hobart was born in Long Branch, New Jersey on June 3, 1844. Hobart, who grew up in nearby Marlboro, held a number of elected positions in his home state leading up to his election as Vice President of the United States under President William McKinley in 1896. As vice president, the good-natured Hobart was well-respected in Washington D.C., and considered a close friend and advisor to the president. Tragically, Hobart’s time in office was cut short, when...

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Silverpilen (Silver Arrow) in Nordingrå, Sweden
Many cities have their own local ghost stories tied to specific locations. Take Stockholm and its Kymlinge Metro Station, which is said to host a silver phantom train that passed through. Like many ghost stories, this one even has a kernel of truth. The Silverpilen is a special model C5 metro train that was manufactured in the mid-1960s. It was made of aluminum as a proof-of-concept for lighter, and therefore more efficient, operation. For unknown reasons, the train was never...

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A University is Turning Historical Mexican Recipes...
In February, Gastro Obscura broke the exciting news that the University of Texas, San Antonio had begun the mammoth task of digitizing the largest collection of historic Mexican cookbooks in the United States. While the spread of COVID-19 has since brought that project to a screeching halt, the university is now turning their handwritten recipes into free e-books. The UTSA Libraries released the first of the mini-cookbooks earlier this month. Postres: Guardando Lo Mejor Para el Principio, or “Desserts:...

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The Surprising Importance of Skunks in the...
In September of 1833, bands of Potawatomi, Ojibwe, Odawa, and other Anishinaabe and Algonquin peoples gathered in a small fur-trapping town called Chicago, where a shimmering prairie met a vast inland sea. After weeks of coercion, they signed the Treaty of Chicago, transferring to the U.S. government 15 million acres of territory they had inhabited since time immemorial. Though the treaty forced them west, their names for that river—and the town it ran through—stuck. According to some histories of...

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For Sale: The Most Haunted Mansion in...
Anyone in the market for 63 acres of pure emerald Ireland is in luck: A 22-bed mansion on the isle’s southeastern edge is up for sale, for a cool $2.87 million. Pulling that price up or down, depending on your perspective, is the site’s rather interesting history. The mansion, known as Loftus Hall, goes back to the 12th century, and has seen several regime changes over the years. The most infamous chapter in its history, no doubt, comes from...

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Fa’side Castle in East Lothian, Scotland
The Fawside family were owners of this property after Scottish leader Robert the Bruce’s rebellion. The Fawsides oversaw the construction of the general plan of the modern-day castle during the 16th-century. During the Rough Wooing between 1544-1548, an English faction burned the Fa’side castle prior to the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh. A fortification stood at the site prior to the castle’s construction that dated back to the late 12th-century and the first Earl of Winchester. The location has also been...

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The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature...
Since 2010, Indianapolis residents and visitors have been able to enjoy contemporary artwork against the backdrop of unruly nature at the Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park. The park brings together the great outdoors with site-specific art installations that invite visitors to examine the unique relationship between art and the natural world. No “stay off the sculpture” signs will be found here, as many of the installations aim to draw visitors to the artwork; first to climb or...

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Raton Iridium Layer in Raton, New Mexico
Atop Goat Hill in Raton, New Mexico lies a layer of rock that tells a story that is guaranteed to intrigue more than just ardent geologists. A thin layer of iridium-rich rock calls this hill home. It’s the type of layer only found in several places across the world. Radiometric dating of these layers found that they actually mark the boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods. An anomalous iridium layer was first discovered in the 1980s in Gubbio,...

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IBM Building 025 in San Jose, California
On March 8, 2008, a fire consumed IBM Building 025. Now, in a parking lot in south San José, between a Lowe’s and an AutoZone, a tiny monument memorializes what was once Silicon Valley’s pioneering tech campus. Built in 1957, the campus was the design of the architect John S. Bolles. Under the mandate of IBM’s president, Thomas J. Watson, Jr., he was instructed to blend “architecture, landscape and art into an employee-friendly environment,” notes an explanatory display sign. If that...

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Passau Dachshund Museum in Passau, Germany
In the heart of old town Passau on the Danube River lies the world’s only museum dedicated to dachshunds. The museum is home to a lovingly assembled collection of all things dachshund—from toys, porcelain figurines, and Christmas ornaments, to photos of famous dachshund owners with their pets. The museum was founded by two florists from Passau, Seppi Küblbeck and Oliver Storz. They put together 25 years’ worth of dachshund memorabilia and opened in 2015 on the corner of Residentzplatz. The...

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Hotel Robots: An Overview of Different Robots...
Hotel robots represent some of the most effective forms of hospitality technology, and their presence will help the ensure superior levels of guest satisfaction. As a growing number of properties are employing these autonomous “smart” services, it only stands to reason that we examine these robots in greater detail. Benefits can your property expect to The post Hotel Robots: An Overview of Different Robots Used in Hotels appeared first on Revfine.com.

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Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia in...
There is a “Jim Crow Museum” at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, and it is not, to quote its official statement, “a shrine to racism.” It is, on the other hand, a testament to the resilience of Black Americans, established to “use objects of intolerance to teach tolerance and promote social justice.” The museum’s collection of racist objects began in the 1970s, when David Pilgrim, former professor of sociology and now Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion...

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Perla 2 in Stomoplo, Bulgaria
After the fall of the Bulgaria‘s communist regime in 1989, nature has begun to take back what would have been a major monument to the rule of dictator Todor Zhivkov. Just minutes from popular beaches on the Black Sea coast, near the city of Primorsko, is an isolated patch of forest where one can wander around the abandoned, never-finished grand residence Zhivkov had planned, known as Perla 2 (perla means “pearl”). (Not to be confused with Perla 1, another abandoned Zhivkov residence...

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The Kingfishers That Shacked Up at the...
As the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread across America, fledgling couples faced a choice: batten down the hatches in their respective homes, or hunker down together? Among those who chose the latter, several months in, some are bristling, while others are still happily canoodling. At the San Antonio Zoo, things are still looking pretty rosy for a pair of Micronesian kingfishers, Todiramphus cinnamomina cinnamomina, that shacked up in March. The birds recently welcomed a hatchling—the zoo’s first of their...

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