April 8

Cowries.

Better Than News

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  The Undersea World of Spock Cousteau is a 2021 drama film about a scientist (Leonard Nimoy) who suffers a time-travel brain injury which causes others to believe that he is Jacques Cousteau. Co-starring marine biologist Steven Zissou as "Cuddle Squid".

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  Town Without Jetty is a 1961 American/Swiss/West German film about military engineer (Kirk Douglas) who, against his will, must bring about the destruction of a town's Port Authority.

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  Who's Afraid of Jar Jar Binks? is a 1966 American science fiction comedy film about a late-night gathering at the home of George, a college history professor on Naboo, and his wife Martha, the daughter of the university's president.

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  Dude, Where's Mitochondria? is a biochemistry comedy stoner film about a molecular biologist (Ashton Kutcher), who finds himself unable to remember how ATP synthesis works after a night of reckless glycolysis.

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  John Wick: The Mario Job is a video game action film in the John Wick franchise in which John Wick must take down Mario and the entire Mushroom kingdom royal family.

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  John Wick: The Mario Job (Mighty Cawl review).

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  Chain Reaction 2: Light the Wick is an American science fiction action crime thriller film starring Keanu Reeves as a retired assassin who invents a new non-contaminating power source.

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  Kindergarten Terminator is an American action comedy science fiction thriller film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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  The Postum Man is a post-coffee dystopia science fiction novel about a man wandering the desolate Oregon countryside who finds a coffee maker, which he puts to using brewing coffee substitutes. His brewing service and claims about the return of coffeehouses give hope to the people, who are threatened by a murderous, decaffeinated latte militia.

Are You Sure

• ... that physician and archaeologist Michele Mercati (8 April 1541 – 25 June 1593) was among the first scholars to recognize prehistoric stone tools as human-made rather than natural or mythologically created thunderstones?

• ... that physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (21 September 1853 – 21 February 1926) discovered superconductivity in 1911, writing in his notebook on April 8: Kwik nagenoeg nul ("Mercury[’s resistance] practically zero [at 3 K].").

• ... that inventor, astronomer, mathematician, clockmaker, and surveyor David Rittenhouse (8 April 1732 – 26 June 1796) was the first Director of the United States Mint, and that Rittenhouse personally struck the new nation's first coins by hand?

On This Day in Fiction and Nonfiction

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  1541: Physician and archaeologist Michele Mercati born. Mercati will be one of the first scholars to recognize prehistoric stone tools as human-made rather than natural or mythologically created thunderstones.

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  1732: Inventor, astronomer, mathematician, clockmaker, and surveyor David Rittenhouse born. Rittenhouse will become the first Director of the United States Mint, hand-striking the new nation's first coins.

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  1803: Mathematician Louis François Antoine Arbogast dies. Arbogast was the first writer to separate the symbols of operation from those of quantity. He wrote on series and the derivatives known by his name.

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  1903: Mathematician Marshall Harvey Stone born. Stone will contribute to real analysis, functional analysis, topology, and the study of Boolean algebra structures.

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  1911: Physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, discoverer of superconductivity, makes a terse entry in his notebook: Kwik nagenoeg nul ("Mercury[’s resistance] practically zero [at 3 K].").

Topic of the Day

Substance Abuse

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  The Treachery of Substances is a short documentary film by René Magritte and Jerry Stiller.

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  The "Urine in rain" monologue (also known as the "Sea Breezes Speech") is a 42-word monologue, consisting of the last words of character Roy Batty (portrayed by Rutger Hauer) in the 1982 Ridley Scott-directed public service documentary film Bar Hopper.

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  All your free base are belong to us is a popular Internet meme based on a badly translated phrase from the opening cutscene of the video game Cocaine Psychosis.

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  "One toke over the Thin Blue Line, sweet Jesus / One toke over the Thin Blue Line ..."

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  Scrimshaw abuse, sometimes known as ivory towering, is a patterned use of scrimshaw in which the scrimshander produces scrimshaw with images or side-effects which are harmful to themselves or others.