Articles

Schools are not limited to rows of desks, stacks of textbooks, and linoleum hallways. They can be caves, boats, or train platforms. Yes, there’s a whole world of unusual and amazing schools out there!

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A feral child is a human child who has lived away from human contact from a very young age, and has little or no experience of human care, loving or social behavior, and, crucially, of human language. Feral children are confined by humans (often parents), brought up by animals, or live in the wild in isolation. This is the story of Isabelle.

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Probably the best known story of feral children is that of two girls, Amala and Kamala, who were raised by a she-wolf. In 1920, as the story goes, Reverend J. A. L. Singh saw a mother wolf and cubs, two of whom had long, matted hair and looked human. After considerable preparations and difficulties, the two human creatures were captured.

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Imagine being confined to a small, dark room, with no social interaction whatsoever for 30 days. Not many people would jump at this opportunity. But sometime in mid-September of 2018, a professional US poker did just that.

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Often referred to as a walking sports, Leslie Welch became famous for his ability to answer almost any question on football, horse racing and cricket. He played to packed music halls in the late 1940s and 1950s, bewildering audiences wherever he went. Millions tuned in to his radio shows and he was soon earning £11,000 a year. Then it all went wrong...

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In the late eighteenth century, a child of eleven or twelve was captured, who some years before had been seen completely naked in the Caune Woods in France, seeking acorns and roots to eat. The boy was given the name Victor, and is often referred to as the Wild Boy of Aveyron.

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Feral children are children who have grown up with minimal human contact, or even none at all. They may have been raised by animals (often wolves) or somehow survived on their own.

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In a scientific first, Columbia neuroengineers have created a system that translates thought into intelligible, recognizable speech. By monitoring someone's brain activity, the technology can reconstruct the words a person hears with unprecedented clarity.

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Most people are familiar with some of the more legendary high school dropouts who became wildly successful before they died. McDonald's founder Ray Kroc and Walt Disney both left high school to pursue other interests that became globally-recognized brands...

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If you suffer from hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, which refers to a fear of long words, this page is not for you. The longest English word spans about fifty-seven pages. It’s the chemical name for the titin protein found in humans. Its full name has 189,819 letters. Would you like to hear it pronounced? Pop some popcorn before you get started!

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A.C. Aitken (1895-1967) was a professor of mathematics at the University of Edinburgh. He was one of those people who could make lightning-fast, complex mathematical calculations in his head. Although he was first and foremost a mathematician, his unusual memory skills deserve attention.

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One of the most analyzed memories this century belonged to a Russian Solomon Shereshevsky, otherwise known as S. He aspired to be a violinist, became a journalist, then a professional mnemonist, and ended his career as a taxi driver in Moscow. According to the famous neuropsychologist Professor Luria, who studied S over a period of thirty years, there were no distinct limits to his memory.

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