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Gabe Stein

Heroes

The man who discovered Pluto is about to become the first person to visit it.

We have visited all the planets of solar system and found worlds orbiting distant stars. Now we're about to explore ... Pluto? If you find yourself asking, "So what?" you're not alone. But you might be surprised by the answer.

The Search Begins

In 1929, a young researcher named Clyde Tombaugh was handed a thankless, seemingly impossible task.

His bosses at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, gave him a series of nearly identical pictures of the same part of the night sky taken a few days apart and asked him to search, with his naked eyes, for a speck of light that moved like a planet. These were not pretty photos, and they barely changed from day to day. So we can only imagine how daunting this assignment must have felt for the young Tombaugh. Yet he took it graciously and spent over a year comparing photographs, two by two, using only an antiquated mechanical device called a blink comparator, his bare eyes, and his knowledge of planetary movement.

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Here's One Wedding They Actually Want You To Crash, And For Good Reason

I don't usually crash weddings, but this sounds like a good one to try it on. Why? He explains what's so important about this particular one at 1:30, but don't feel the need to skip any of the hilarity before then.

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One Of The Most Important Lists I've Ever Seen, And The United States Is In 99th Place. Yikes.

These fine folks had the brilliant idea to quantify peace and rank all the countries in the world. Unfortunately, the United States isn't doing so hot right now. We're — you guessed it — 99th out of the 162 countries on the list. How do we fix that? Take a look, and make sure to stick around until 2:01, when they explain why this list isn't just an exercise but could really change the way we think about minimizing conflict and achieving real world peace.

Real quick, take a look outside your window. Do you see lots of roads? How many of them have dedicated, protected bus lanes? What about bike lanes? Unless you live in a few select cities — like Bogota, Colombia; Cleveland, Ohio; or Guangzhou, China — you're probably just looking at a few boring, old, single-purpose roads. That may not seem like a big deal right now, but check out this talk, and then tell me you don't feel even a little uncomfortable about the way cars — and the money it takes to operate them — dominate most American cities. We can totally do better.

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