Fact-based Odd Places
Turkey Has a Whole Hillside of White Stone Bathtubs
Hot springs at Pamukkale have spent thousands of years laying a thin white skin of stone down a 200-metre cliff, building a staircase of shallow pools the colour of the sky.
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Fact-based Nature Did It First
A Lotus Leaf Taught Paint How to Wash Itself
A lotus leaf is far too bumpy for dirt to hold on to, and once a microscope explained why, the same trick went onto building walls, fabrics and glass.
Fact-based Weird Facts
There Are More Trees on Earth Than Stars in the Milky Way
A global count using satellites and four hundred thousand forest plots put Earth's tree total near three trillion, several times the stars our whole galaxy is thought to hold.
Fact-based Nature Did It First
Velcro Began With a Burr Stuck to a Dog
A walk in the woods in 1941 ended with burrs clinging to a dog's fur, and one close look under a microscope gave the world the hook-and-loop fastener.
Fact-based Weird Facts
Some Bamboo Can Grow Almost a Metre in a Single Day
Certain bamboos have been measured growing about 91 centimetres in 24 hours, roughly a millimetre every ninety seconds, which is fast enough that you could almost watch it happen.
Fiction Animal News — Fiction
Starlings Deny Rehearsing Evening Sky Show, Say It Just Happens
Tens of thousands of starlings swirled over the reed beds at dusk in shapes so perfect that onlookers demanded to know who was in charge, and the starlings insist nobody is.
Fiction Animal News — Fiction
Ibex Insist Dam Wall Is a Perfectly Normal Place for a Snack
A herd of ibex was seen standing on a near-vertical stone dam high in the mountains on Thursday, licking the wall, and a spokesgoat has asked everyone to calm down.
Fiction Tiny Stories
The Oak on Tanner Road Turns Fifty
Nobody on Tanner Road could agree on anything, until someone found the date the oak outside number twelve was planted and pinned a birthday card to its trunk.
Fact-based Odd Places
The Philippines Has More Than a Thousand Hills That Turn Chocolate Brown
On the island of Bohol, well over a thousand round grassy hills rise from the fields like sweets on a tray, green for much of the year and brown as cocoa when the dry season comes.
Fiction Tiny Stories
The Shed With the Visitors Book
It holds a kettle, three mismatched mugs, a folding chair and a notebook on a nail that nobody started on purpose and nobody has ever stopped.