Agloe: The Made-Up Town That Outsmarted Cartographers
Mapmakers planted a fake village as a copyright trap; a shopkeeper put up a sign and the forgery turned into fact, which is deliciously petty and brilliant.Read More 
How They Let Dord Into the Dictionary
A tiny clerical blunder turned 'dord' into a bona fide dictionary entry for years, proving lexicographers are gloriously human.Read More 
There's A Sneaky Bone Hiding Behind Your Knee
Some people grow a tiny spare bone called the fabella in the tendon behind the knee and it has the nerve to cause trouble on occasion.Read More 
Why Garden Snails Prick Each Other For Love
They stab one another with tiny calcareous daggers and call it romance, which is either evolutionary genius or the worst date in Gloucestershire history.Read More 
They Polish Their Dead Like Sofa Cushions
In Sulawesi the Toraja periodically exhume relatives, clean and redress the corpses in a ritual called Ma'nene that treats death like a very slow home visit.Read More 
They Almost Floated an Aircraft Carrier Made of Ice and I Love It
In WWII Britain briefly tried to build unsinkable floating airbases from 'pykrete'-a frozen mix of ice and wood pulp-because history enjoys a laugh.Read More 
Never Toast With Water Unless You Want To Be Morbidly Polite
In Japan, clinking a glass of water at a party is the social equivalent of applauding a eulogy.Read More 
Djenne's Mosque Gets Smothered In Mud
Once a year the whole town dresses down, mixes a ridiculous amount of adobe, and plaster-bakes the world's largest mudbrick building.Read More 
Lake Natron Turns Birds Into Stone And Nature Cheers
There is a lake in Tanzania that bakes and salts unlucky animals into eerie statues while flamingos act like it's a spa day.Read More 
Some People Are Missing A Wrist Tendon And Live To Tell The Tale
Roughly one in eight people lack the palmaris longus tendon - a tiny, vestigial wrist muscle surgeons nick like a spare tyre.Read More
