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Submissions: Create a Local's Guide to Your City

We asked you to create a guide to your city to highlight the special places out-of-towners often miss.

By Elizabeth Inglese,
Elizabeth Inglese
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Tom Carbone
Tom Carbone
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Aug 13, 2011
What's your favorite guide?
new yorkprojecttravelcitiesmelbournesyracuseberkeleyguidesausitnashevillelansing

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Visualization of a black hole

Photo via Canva

Scientists created a black hole in a lab to test a theory—then it started glowing

Black holes are among the most mysterious objects NASA has ever studied—so dense, they warp spacetime and trap even light. In an effort to better understand them, scientists have begun simulating black holes in laboratory settings. According to Science Alert, these black hole analogs replicate the theoretical radiation real black holes might emit, allowing researchers to study the phenomenon in greater detail.

These scientists have used a chain of atoms in a single file to simulate the event horizon of a black hole and experienced what is known as the "Hawking radiation." The phenomenon can be described as particles born from disturbances in the quantum fluctuations caused by the black hole's break in spacetime.

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When he forgot some lyrics on stage, Thom Yorke sought a fan's help—and then sang the wrong words.

Photo credit: Wonker via Wikimedia Commons, with Reddit comment

When Radiohead's Thom Yorke forgot his lyrics, a fan tried to help—but gave him the wrong words

It’s truly embarrassing to forget your lyrics on stage, but Radiohead’s Thom Yorke made an even more complicated—and hilarious—musical mistake back in 2010. Playing the Fox Theater in Oakland, California with his band Atoms for Peace, he dusted off the 1997 Radiohead classic "Airbag" for a solo-acoustic encore performance. There were a couple innocent hiccups that now live forever on the Internet.

As you can see in the below fan video, everything starts as planned, with Yorke strumming his way through the song’s first verse and chorus. But around the 1:46 mark, he appears to go temporarily blank, stopping the tune to gaze around the theater. It’s unclear from the footage exactly what happens next, but he walks closer to the crowd, hunches down for a few seconds, returns to the microphone, and laughs through a comment.

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Officer Eric Robbins had to get past a great fear in order to save a child from falling 20 to 30 feet.

Photo credit: @6abc/Wikimedia Commons/Canva

Philadelphia policeman overcomes his extreme fear of heights to save a child's life

When Philadelphia police officer Eric Robbins responded to a 9-1-1 call, he didn’t know he’d be facing his worst fear. Neighbors called the police to report that a five-year-old boy was on the top of the roof of his family’s house. With the child’s parents unaware that their young son was standing at the edge of their second story rooftop, Robbins knew he had to take action.

However, there was one problem: Officer Robbins was deathly afraid of heights.

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TikTokers are revealing the actual cost of items from top brands.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons/Canva

China releases viral TikTok videos exposes how European 'luxury' items are really made

The trade war between President Donald Trump’s 145% tariff increase on Chinese goods and China's reciprocal 125% tariff increase on goods from the United States has created a stir throughout the world. While governments go over what this means for their respective economies, the TikTok community and other social media groups made up of regular consumers and small businesses from both countries are sharing the open-secrets regarding various luxury items.

Many of these videos are from Chinese manufacturers revealing something many already know: that many of their favorite luxury European brands are actually made in China, are packaged in Europe for distribution, then sold at a heavily marked-up price. However, these videos are showing the math and how much disparity there is between the actual cost of manufacturing versus the price tag at a branded store.

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Gary is the Internet's most famous adventure cat.

Photo credit: James Eastham (with comments from Instagram)

Meet Gary, the Internet's most famous and adorable adventure cat

Any time my wife and I take our furry little feline, Tony, on a stroller ride through our downtown square, we’re mobbed with smiling children and laughing old ladies and confused college dudes rolling their eyes. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be James Eastham: proud guardian of Gary, the 10-year-old domestic longhair who’s become Internet-famous for his adorable outdoor adventures. Together, they’ve amassed over 600,000 loyal Instagram followers, who flock to their catalog-worthy photos of hiking, skiing, and paddling excursions around the Canadian Rockies.

In a time of extreme political divisiveness and social-media toxicity, cute-cat profiles are one of our few remaining sanctuaries. And it’s impossible not to fall in love with the handsome and gung-ho Gary, whether he’s looking all zen on the water or resting on his dad’s shoulders while zooming down a snowy hill, decked out in badass goggles. But the account, greatgramsofgary, is more than just feel-good fluff—he’s also inspired people to be more active and mindful with cats, rethinking preconceived notions of how to enrich their lives and ours.

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100-year-old Gaston Pettigrew got more than what he asked for.

Photo credit: Jordan Proust on Facebook

WWII veteran wanted 100 cards for his 100th birthday. The response was overwhelming.

The night before his 100th birthday, World War II veteran Gaston Pettigrew put on his Royal Canadian Navy uniform and enjoyed a birthday celebration in the dining hall with the friends, family, and staff of the Maison Paul-Triquet home in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. All he wanted for his birthday was 100 cards for him. He was greeted with a box full of 1,700 cards and more are still on the way from around the world.

Weeks prior, Pettigrew’s request was posted on a Facebook community group dedicated to military history by Jordan Proust. Since then, among the hundreds of likes and reacts the post got, the birthday cards kept coming in. Pettigrew’s residence expects him to receive over 2,000 cards by the end of his birthday week.

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Eric Idle says The Beatles were "just as funny" as Monty Python.

Photo credit: Conan O'Brien YouTube screenshot (Eric Idle), The Beatles YouTube screenshot (The Beatles)

Eric Idle says this classic Beatles moment shows they were 'just as funny' as Monty Python

The Beatles’ cultural impact extends beyond music into film, TV, fashion, literature, and even comedy. And if you ask Eric Idle, member of the influential British comedy troupe Monty Python, the band’s sharp wit was crucial to ushering in the Beatlemania craze in America. He even argues that The Beatles (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr) were equally funny to his own crew.

"When The Beatles first arrived in America, what made everybody love them is they were funny," he said on the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast. "There was this guy called Ringo with a big nose, a funny name, the funny haircuts. Everybody knew Ringo first. That’s the first name they knew. But it was their humor at the airport conference that broke them in America—I’m convinced of it. In a way, they were just as funny as we were.

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An ancient petroglyph is opening up the possibility that early humans knew more about dinosaurs than we thought.

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Stunning 9,000-year-old rock carvings suggest ancient people may have studied dinosaur tracks

Researchers in Brazil have uncovered a remarkable discovery that spans across millennia—dinosaur footprints found alongside ancient rock art dating back over 9,000 years. This significant find occurred in Serrote do Letreiro, located in the Sousa Basin, and the research has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The study, led by Leonardo P. Troiano, Heloísa B. dos Santos, Tito Aureliano, and Aline M. Ghilardi, suggests that prehistoric hunter-gatherers in Brazil created mysterious rock art designs—known as petroglyphs—next to dinosaur footprints. These findings offer valuable insights into the intersection of paleontology and archaeology, particularly at the Serrote site.

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