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🔗 Religion 🔗 Skepticism 🔗 Bible 🔗 Islam 🔗 Judaism 🔗 Iraq 🔗 Turkey 🔗 Mythology

Searches for Noah's Ark have been reported since antiquity, as ancient scholars sought to affirm the historicity of the Genesis flood narrative by citing accounts of relics recovered from the Ark.^: 43–47 With the emergence of biblical archaeology in the 19th century, the potential of a formal search attracted interest in alleged discoveries and hoaxes. By the 1940s, expeditions were being organized to follow up on these apparent leads.^: 8–9 This modern search movement has been informally called "arkeology".

In 2020, the young Earth creationist group the Institute for Creation Research acknowledged that, despite many expeditions, Noah's Ark had not been found and is unlikely to be found. Many of the supposed findings and methods used in the search are regarded as pseudoscience and pseudoarchaeology by geologists and archaeologists.^{: 581–582 : 72–75}

🔗 Internet 🔗 Politics

The alt-right pipeline (also called the alt-right rabbit hole) is a conceptual model regarding internet radicalization toward the alt-right movement. It describes a phenomenon in which consuming provocative right-wing political content, such as antifeminist or anti-SJW ideas, gradually increases exposure to the alt-right or similar far-right politics. It posits that this interaction takes place due to the interconnected nature of political commentators and online communities, allowing members of one audience or community to discover more extreme groups. This process is most commonly associated with and has been documented on the video platform YouTube, is also largely faceted by the method in which algorithms on various social media platforms function through the process recommending content that is similar to what users engage with, but can quickly lead users down rabbit-holes.

Many political movements have been associated with the pipeline concept. The intellectual dark web, libertarianism, the men's rights movement, and the alt-lite movement have all been identified as possibly introducing audiences to alt-right ideas. BreadTube has similarly been identified as introducing audiences to far-left politics, though it has been less effective. Audiences that seek out and are willing to accept extreme content in this fashion typically consist of young men, commonly those that experience significant loneliness and seek belonging or meaning. In an attempt to find community and belonging, message boards that are often proliferated with hard right social commentary, such as 4chan and 8chan, have been well documented in their importance in the radicalization process.

The alt-right pipeline may be a contributing factor to domestic terrorism. Many social media platforms have acknowledged this path of radicalization and have taken measures to prevent it, including the removal of extremist figures and rules against hate speech and misinformation.

🔗 Medicine 🔗 Athletics 🔗 Food and drink 🔗 Medicine/Toxicology 🔗 Sports 🔗 Horse racing

The poppy seed defence is a commonly cited reason to avoid any sanction for failing a drug test. The defence asserts that a suspect's positive result was a result of the person having consumed poppy seeds prior to taking the test. It has been recognised in medical and legal fields as a valid defence.

🔗 Systems 🔗 Politics 🔗 Socialism 🔗 Sociology 🔗 Globalization

World-systems theory (also known as world-systems analysis or the world-systems perspective) is a multidisciplinary, macro-scale approach to world history and social change which emphasizes the world-system (and not nation states) as the primary (but not exclusive) unit of social analysis.

"World-system" refers to the inter-regional and transnational division of labor, which divides the world into core countries, semi-periphery countries, and the periphery countries. Core countries focus on higher skill, capital-intensive production, and the rest of the world focuses on low-skill, labor-intensive production and extraction of raw materials. This constantly reinforces the dominance of the core countries. Nonetheless, the system has dynamic characteristics, in part as a result of revolutions in transport technology, and individual states can gain or lose their core (semi-periphery, periphery) status over time. This structure is unified by the division of labour. It is a world-economy rooted in a capitalist economy. For a time, certain countries become the world hegemon; during the last few centuries, as the world-system has extended geographically and intensified economically, this status has passed from the Netherlands, to the United Kingdom and (most recently) to the United States.

World-systems theory has been examined by many political theorists and sociologists to explain the reasons for the rise and fall of nations, income inequality, social unrest, and imperialism.

🔗 Agriculture 🔗 England 🔗 Folklore

Telling the bees is a traditional custom of many European countries in which bees would be told of important events in their keeper's lives, such as births, marriages, or departures and returns in the household. If the custom was omitted or forgotten and the bees were not "put into mourning" then it was believed a penalty would be paid, such as the bees leaving their hive, stopping the production of honey, or dying. The custom is best known in England, but has also been recorded in Ireland, Wales, Germany, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Bohemia, and the United States.

🔗 United States 🔗 Aviation 🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/Military aviation 🔗 Military history/North American military history 🔗 Military history/United States military history 🔗 Crime 🔗 Business 🔗 Politics 🔗 Military history/German military history 🔗 Military history/Dutch military history 🔗 Japan 🔗 Japan/Japanese military history 🔗 Military history/Asian military history 🔗 Military history/Japanese military history 🔗 Military history/Italian military history 🔗 Japan/Politics 🔗 Military history/European military history

The Lockheed bribery scandals encompassed a series of bribes and contributions made by officials of U.S. aerospace company Lockheed from the late 1950s to the 1970s in the process of negotiating the sale of aircraft.

The scandal caused considerable political controversy in West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan. In the U.S., the scandal nearly led to Lockheed's downfall, as it was already struggling due to the commercial failure of the L-1011 TriStar airliner.

🔗 Internet 🔗 China

50 Cent Party, 50 Cent Army and wumao ( WOO-mow) are terms for Internet commentators who are hired by the authorities of the People's Republic of China to manipulate public opinion and disseminate disinformation to the benefit of the governing Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It was created during the early phases of the Internet's rollout to the wider public in China.

The name is derived from the allegation that such commentators are paid RMB¥0.50 for every post. These commentators create comments or articles on popular Chinese social media networks that are intended to derail discussions which are critical of the CCP, promoting narratives that serve the government's interests and insulting or spreading misinformation about political opponents of the Chinese government, both domestic and abroad. Some of these commentators have labeled themselves ziganwu (Chinese: 自干五, short for 自带干粮的五毛, lit. 'wumao who bring their own dry rations'), claiming they are not paid by authorities and express their support for the Chinese government out of their own volition.

Authors of a paper published in 2017 in the American Political Science Review estimate that the Chinese government fabricates 488 million social media posts per year. In contrast to common assumptions, the 50 Cent Party consists mostly of paid bureaucrats who respond to government directives and rarely defend their government from criticism or engage in direct arguments because "... the goal of this massive secretive operation is instead to distract the public and change the subject." Around 80% of the analysed posts involve pro-China cheerleading with inspirational slogans, and 13% involve general praise and suggestions on governmental policies. Despite the common allegation of the commentators getting paid for their posts, the paper suggested there was "no evidence" that they are paid anything for their posts, instead being required to do so as a part of their official party duties.

Research by professors at Harvard, Stanford, and UC San Diego indicated a "massive secretive operation" to fill China's Internet with propaganda, and has resulted in some 488 million posts written by fake social media accounts, representing about 0.6% of the 80 billion posts generated on Chinese social media. To maximize their influence, such pro-government comments are made largely during times of intense online debate, and when online protests have a possibility of transforming into real life actions. The colloquial term wumao has also been used by some English speakers outside of China as an insult against people with perceived pro-CCP bias.

🔗 United States 🔗 Medicine 🔗 Oregon 🔗 Crime 🔗 Religion 🔗 Biology 🔗 Terrorism

The 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack was the food poisoning of 751 individuals in The Dalles, Oregon, through the deliberate contamination of salad bars at ten local restaurants with Salmonella. A group of prominent followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (later known as Osho) led by Ma Anand Sheela had hoped to incapacitate the voting population of the city so that their own candidates would win the 1984 Wasco County elections. The incident was the first and is the single largest bioterrorist attack in United States history.

Having previously gained political control of Antelope, Oregon, Rajneesh's followers, who were based in nearby Rajneeshpuram, sought election to two of the three seats on the Wasco County Circuit Court that were up for election in November 1984. Fearing they would not gain enough votes, some Rajneeshpuram officials decided to incapacitate voters in The Dalles, the largest population center in Wasco County. The chosen biological agent was Salmonella enterica Typhimurium, which was first delivered through glasses of water to two County Commissioners and then, on a larger scale, at salad bars and in salad dressing.

As a result of the attack, 751 people contracted salmonellosis, 45 of whom were hospitalized, but none died. Although an initial investigation by the Oregon Public Health Division and the Centers for Disease Control did not rule out deliberate contamination, the agents and contamination were only confirmed a year later. On February 28, 1985, Congressman James H. Weaver gave a speech in the United States House of Representatives in which he "accused the Rajneeshees of sprinkling Salmonella culture on salad bar ingredients in eight restaurants".

At a press conference in September 1985, Rajneesh accused several of his followers of participation in this and other crimes, including an aborted plan in 1985 to assassinate a United States Attorney, and he asked state and federal authorities to investigate. Oregon Attorney General David B. Frohnmayer set up an interagency task force, composed of Oregon State Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and executed search warrants in Rajneeshpuram. A sample of bacteria matching the contaminant that had sickened the town residents was found in a Rajneeshpuram medical laboratory. Two leading Rajneeshpuram officials were convicted on charges of attempted murder and served 29 months of 20-year sentences in a minimum-security federal prison.

🔗 Internet culture 🔗 Climate change 🔗 Environment 🔗 United Kingdom 🔗 Antarctica 🔗 Arctic 🔗 Oceans 🔗 Antarctica/British Antarctic Territory

Boaty McBoatface (also known as Boaty) is the British lead boat in a fleet of three robotic lithium battery–powered autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) of the Autosub Long Range (ALR) class. Launched in 2017 and carried on board the polar scientific research vessel RRS Sir David Attenborough, she is a focal point of the Polar Explorer Programme of the UK Government.

Boaty and her two fleet-mates are part of the UK National Marine Equipment Pool and owned by the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton. She is classified as an "autosub long range (ALR) autonomous underwater vehicle", and will use her onboard sensors to map the movement of deep waters that play a vital role in regulating the Earth's climate.

🔗 Disambiguation

A rat king is a rare phenomenon where a group of rats' tails become entangled.

Rat King or Ratking may also refer to: