London's Hunterian Museum: Bits of People in Jars That Changed the World
Posted on 08/29/2023, 7:30 AM
If you lived in 18th-century London and something went wrong with your body, after you died a famous scientist named John Hunter might show up to rummage through your corpse, snip out the afflicted organ, and sink it in a jar of preservative so that budding physicians could learn from the specimen. Back in those days, every scientist was like a mad scientist. We had so much yet to learn about an...
Chip and Joanna Gaines' Hotel Opens This Fall, Cementing Their Waco Takeover
Posted on 08/25/2023, 7:00 AM
Waco, Texas, takes another step toward becoming Chip-and-Joanna-Gainesville this fall. The married stars of the home-renovation series Fixer Upper have developed and designed their own hotel in the central Texas city (located almost exactly midway between Dallas to the north and Austin to the south) from which they launched their Magnolia lifestyle empire based on modern farmhouse decor and relent...
Nervous Flyers Can Now Dial a Pilot-Staffed Helpline to Ease Fears
Posted on 08/15/2023, 6:00 AM
If knowledge is an antidote to fear, then anybody who gets anxious about flying in a plane has a new resource to help overcome that particular source of dread. Dial a Pilot, which launched earlier this summer, is a helpline that lets nervous flyers speak by phone with professional airline pilots to discuss any potentially disquieting aspects of commercial aviation. The service's team of vetted, ...
Hurricane Season 2023 Could Be Worse Than First Thought, Forecasters Say
Posted on 08/11/2023, 11:00 AM
UPDATE, August 11: In a new hurricane season forecast released this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. government's offical weather watchers increased the number of storms predicted to develop in the Atlantic Ocean in 2023. After forecasting a "near-normal" Atlantic hurricane season back in May, the agency now expects an "above normal" level of activity, ...
Hot Pilot in a Cat Video Demonstrates Best Place to Sit on Airplanes
Posted on 08/10/2023, 10:00 AM
Fasten your seat belts. Today, we have something rare. Somehow, multiple aspects of our pop culture's all-consuming and relentless social media banality have collided to provide something that's actually useful. What do you get when you combine TikTok, a pilot's uniform, a cat, and a sexy contestant from The Bachelor who's known for posting thirst traps? Besides something that might as well have...
Acropolis Tickets: Athens Landmark Joins List of Attractions You Must Prebook
Posted on 08/09/2023, 7:30 AM
The Acropolis of Athens is dominated by the Parthenon, one of the world's most identifiable buildings—what's left of it, anyway (thanks a lot, Venetian army of 1687). For that reason the number of tourists at the site can be extreme. Greek officials report that in recent months the mountaintop in the middle of Athens can be clogged with as many as 23,000 people a day. This summer, that crush of v...
Flying Through LAX? Now You'll Need to Pack One of These
Posted on 08/07/2023, 10:30 AM
The Transportation Security Administration clamped down on liquids and gels in carry-ons way back in 2006. An entire generation is reaching adulthood without ever having known the carefree bliss of being able to stroll right into an airport with a beverage purchased from the outside world. Now the liquid ban, which was applied out of a concern for bomb threats, is being complicated by a response to...
Africatown Heritage House: New Museum About Last Known Slave Ship to U.S.
Posted on 07/17/2023, 7:00 AM
A new museum dedicated to the lives and legacies of people aboard the last known ship to transport enslaved Africans to the United States has opened in Alabama. Mobile's Africatown Heritage House (2465 Wimbush St.) chronicles the history of the Clotilda, which brought 110 captive Africans from present-day Benin to Mobile Bay in 1860. Though slavery was still legal in the Southern U.S. at the time,...
Marie Antoinette's Private Rooms at Palace of Versailles Now Open for Tours
Posted on 06/30/2023, 7:00 AM
At the Palace of Versailles in France, members of the public may once again step behind the gilded paneling of the Queen's State Apartment and into the two-story suite of rooms used by Marie Antoinette as her private chambers starting in 1774. Overlooking an inner courtyard, the rooms include a boudoir, a library, a billiards room, and other spaces evincing the queen's signature more-is-more aest...
Site of Julius Caesar Assassination in Rome Opens to Tourists
Posted on 06/22/2023, 2:45 PM
This post, originally published April 20, 2021, has been updated with new information. The spot in Rome where Julius Caesar was assassinated has opened to the public for the first time. Located just south of the Pantheon, Largo di Torre Argentina, also known as the Area Sacra, is a large sunken square containing the ruins of four ancient temples and the Curia of Pompey. On March 15, 44 B.C....