April 19

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Better Than News

Beyond Plausible

In Other Words

Are You Sure

• ... that mathematician, monk, and academic Michael Stifel published his Ein Rechenbuchlin vom EndChrist. Apocalyps in Apocalypsim ("A Book of Arithmetic about the AntiChrist. A Revelation in the Revelation") anonymously in 1532, predicting that Judgement Day would occur and the world would end at 8am on October 19, 1533, and that the German saying "to talk a Stiefel" or "to calculate a Stiefel" (Stiefel is the German word for "boot"), meaning to say or calculate something based on an unusual track, can be traced back to this incident?

• ... that the Flying bison (Bison pterobonasus) is a large, even-toed ungulate in the genus Bison within the subfamily Bovinae, distinguished from other Bovinae by two pairs of strong, transparent wings, and that the wings are used mainly for short bursts of flight, such as jumping across canyons, or engaging in courtship displays?

• ... that acclaimed chemist Glenn T. Seaborg developed the extraction process used by the Manhattan Project to isolate the plutonium fuel for the second atomic bomb; that Seaborg e advised ten US Presidents — from Harry S. Truman to Bill Clinton — on nuclear policy, and was Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission from 1961 to 1971, where he pushed for commercial nuclear energy and the peaceful applications of nuclear science; and that throughout his career, Seaborg worked for arms control, being a signatory to the Franck Report and contributing to the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty?

Topic of the Day

Books