Suicide is a grim subject that touches many lives and leaves much grief in its wake. But most suicides are not a success, especially depending on the method employed. In fact, the number of successes is strikingly low. It is estimated that there are 25 legitimate suicide attempts for every one person who succeeds in ending his life. The survivors can give us great insight when it comes to suicide and perhaps help us to become more equipped to deal with this problem which claims all too many lives....

We don’t need to wonder how far they’re willing to go. Corporations around the world have already taken every chance they can to get around net neutrality laws, and they’ve shown us exactly what they’ll do if we let them. 10 Countless Companies Have Blocked Skype When Skype first came out on the market, we got to see firsthand exactly what Internet providers do when nobody stops them. They’ll block the competition....

10The Know-Nothing Party America has a strange, double-sided opinion of its origins. While it proudly proclaims itself to be a diverse melting pot of different cultures, it also can be extremely suspicious of outsiders. One product of this prejudice was the anti-immigration Know-Nothing Party, so called because members, when asked about its secret operations, would say they knew nothing. It wasn’t just a small, upstart political party that died out quickly, either; the Know-Nothing party had major footholds in northern state governments like Delaware and Massachusetts, counting mayors, governors, and other city officials among its ranks....

10 The Psychology Of Penalties No German soccer player has ever missed in a penalty shootout in a World Cup or a European Championship game since 1982. Why? The English are predictable in their ability to spoon an inflated pig bladder into low orbit, so what makes the Germans so good? Regarding the difference between England and Germany, it is down to the psychological impact of the actions of a man named Uli Stielike....

The foods you consume can directly affect your sleep pattern and control the types of dreams you have at night. If you enjoy a little bedtime snacking, you might want to think twice about which foods you select. 10 Hot Sauce You’ve probably heard that spicy foods and hot sauce cause bad dreams, and you may have even experienced it yourself. According to recent studies, the rumor is true. A study published in Frontiers in Psychology showed that people who consumed hot sauce before bed had trouble falling asleep and experienced stressful dreams....

In many cases, a sheriff or deputy would act as the hangman, and for a great number of these executions, the condemned was forced to suffer a long and agonizing death. Hanging was not quick like Anatole Deibler’s well-oiled guillotine, and men could be left to hang for hours before being cut down simply because their necks did not snap on the drop. 10 The Unnamed New York Choker In 1885, one reporter had the opportunity to get to know a prolific hangman in New York City who often worked with the noose at the Tombs....

10 Joseph KimseyCaught By A Family’s Pet Goat In February 2015, an unusual story came from Colorado, where a soldier with an outstanding animal abuse charge was found, ironically, by an animal. Joseph Kimsey, who also went by Joseph Hargett, had fled a traffic stop in El Paso County, where he had been stationed in a combat brigade. Authorities gave chase, and he eventually abandoned his pickup truck. The car chase then became a manhunt....

10Moby-DickHerman Melville Moby-Dick is Herman Melville’s most famous work, studied at length by literary scholars and constantly referenced in popular culture. While Melville was alive, however, it was hardly a best seller. The brilliantly executed work sold only 3,715 copies, a far cry from other works by Melville such as Typee (16,300) and Omoo (13,300). The reviews of the novel were far from kind. The Charleston Southern Quarterly Review wrote the following on the subject of Moby-Dick and its author: “Mr....

Aside from sources on the Internet I also used the excellent book History’s Forgotten Milestones (Kindle edition), by Joseph Cummins, in researching the historical figures for this list. It is an excellent and interesting book that I recommend to all who like this list, as well as his fascinating History’s Great Untold Stories. Nicolas Steno (11 January 1638 – 25 November 1686) was a Danish pioneer in both anatomy and geology....

10Hickok-Tutt Shoot-Out Westerns have popularized the concept of the duel—a one-on-one contest to see who’s the quickest draw. This wasn’t actually a common occurrence in the Old West, though. Most gunfights involved multiple gunslingers shooting every which way. However, that’s not to say that these duels never happened. In fact, this particular shoot-out popularized the concept and made a hero out of Wild Bill Hickok. The duel took place on July 21, 1865 in Springfield, Missouri between Wild Bill and rival gambler David Tutt....

10 The Wager Cup Originally known as the jungfrauenbecher (“maiden’s cup”), this silver cup originated in 16th-century Germany and was predominantly used at weddings. The cup took the shape of a woman with a wide skirt that formed a cup when inverted. The woman also carried a pail or a bowl above her head which swiveled to remain upright, effectively creating two cups in one. During the wedding feast, the groom had to toast by drinking from the skirt cup without spilling any wine from the pivoting bowl, from which the bride then had to drink....

The ruling ideology of the country, Juche, calls for self-reliance of the Korean nation. In this spirit, these inventions serve as propaganda tools, helping the regime to deceive its citizens into believing that their country is on an equal technological footing with the rest of the world. However, looking a little closer, one will find that most of these homegrown “innovations” are usually nothing more than inferior-quality copies of foreign products....

Over the years, a number people and animals have been frozen to the point where death would seem assured, only to be thawed and ultimately survive. Most were left without any permanent injuries, although some did have to undergo amputations. These are their stories. 10 Jean Hilliard In December 1980, Jean Hilliard was driving down a road in Minnesota when her car went into a ditch. It was a very cold night with temperatures well below zero....

Books used to be exclusively for the elite. They were too costly for the common man—and rare to boot. The tradition of social libraries began with Benjamin Franklin’s creation of “The Library Company” in 1731. This group of men shared books to enhance their discussion on various topics, and it started a trend. Today in our society, public libraries are one of the last remaining social spaces that are free to the public to meet, share, learn, and be involved in a community....

Most people at least somewhat familiar with the basic ideas of quantum mechanics identify the field with a general “weirdness” that even the most seasoned quantum physicists find baffling. The mind boggles with visions of people walking through walls, time travel, and general uncertainty that threatens to uproot our most ingrained perceptions of truth and reality. Standard measurements become meaningless. And since we can say with a great deal of certainty that quantum computing will soon be here to stay, it is worth understanding what exactly this means for the future, and what incredible new (and sometimes frightening) possibilities quantum technology will bring....

10Isaac Burgan Isaac Burgan was just a kid when he decided to fight back. Burgan grew up on a North Carolina plantation where his mother, Sylva, worked as a house slave. She took him along daily to the “Big House” where he learned how to read and write from the white kids. Soon, his increasing education made his owners nervous, but he calmed their fears by using his brain for the good of the farm....

Lines between biology and technology blur in ways never done before, sometimes for the worse. But DNA also brings simple answers to complex diseases, stores the odd file, and can even draw the face of a criminal. 10 Living Circuits When scientists dreamed of a novel way to gaze at cells’ molecules and processes, one thing stood in their way. The idea was to build a DNA device acting like a circuit that could be switched on and off....

10 Chemical Warfare Leaves and other delectable plant parts are food for insects like caterpillars or beetles. But there’s no such thing as a free lunch, even in the bug world. Throughout time, plants have defied their static condition by developing numerous tactics to protect themselves from herbivorous insects. These vary from exterior armors (such as thorns, prickles, or toxic hairs called trichomes) to straight-up chemical defense systems. These chemical responses are wide-ranging, and they can be activated one at a time or in a coordinated manner....

Babylon (or Babylonia) was one of the first civilizations in existence, a region of settlements that is believed to have been initially established around 4000 BC.[1] Famous for the Code of Hammurabi, Babylon was a society rich with culture, including a detailed writing system, accounting with mathematics, a diverse cuisine, and, of course, sex, with even the wild and lusty Greeks viewing the Babylonians as a sex-obsessed culture. Here is a glance into the world of Babylon, told through the lens of ten facts about sex in the ancient civilization....

The average human hears every sound between the frequencies of 20 hertz (Hz) and 20 kilohertz (kHz). Any sound below this frequency is infrasonic, and any above is ultrasonic. Unfortunately, we cannot hear both because our ears cannot pick them up. Besides the sounds outside our hearing frequency, there is also a category of sounds between 20 Hz and 20 kHz we cannot hear. We should hear these sounds under normal circumstances, but we cannot hear them because of one reason or the other....