Adrenaline junkie and clean fanatic? Combine two passions in one extreme sport. Extreme ironing (EI) is indeed a sport, in which people take ironing boards to remote locations and iron items of clothing. With a couple of origin stories, the sport developed quickly after people discovered new ways to take care of this mundane household chore, ironing clothes in such extreme dangerous places like top of Mount Ruapehu, an active volcano, 5,440 meters above on the Mount Everest Base Camp, on a sheer cliff face, on the wings of a glider and on London's M1 motorway. And in 2011, 173 Dutch divers set a world record when they all ironed simultaneously underwater. Does this sound like something you would ever try?

11A. The plane seat that just may be a lifesaver or coincidence? Two plane crash survivors, nearly three decades apart, shared the same seat: 11A. The first crash happened in Thailand in 1998, the other in India only a few days ago. Both survivors walked away from near-certain death. In 1998, James Ruangsak Loychusak survived a Thai Airways crash in seat 11A. In 2025, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh was the sole survivor of an Air India crash, also seated in 11A. This eerie coincidence has captivated the public and sparked discussion about fate and coincidence. Usually the sagest seat on a plane is said to be towards the back, because planes usually go down nose first. If you fly regularly, do you typically sit...

Last Saturday, New York City hosted, on the High Line in Chelsea the first- (and last-) of-its-kind event, Pigeon Fest. In celebration of Iván Argote's Dinosaur—the striking 17-foot-tall aluminum pigeon sculpture at the Spur on the High Line—and National Pigeon Appreciation Day, many showed up "befeathered and beflocked", adorned with tiny gray-winged novelties and bursting with facts to counter the pigeon's bad reputation. The highlight for many attendees was the pigeon pageant, during which contestants were invited to do their best "imbirdsonations". First place went to Miriam Abrahams, an artist who said she had spent about a month constructing a large, lifelike costume out of papier-mâché and chicken wire. Her performance involved the day's biggest surprise: She laid an egg. Do you think this should be an annual event, and not just a one time only thing?

The first Polish encyclopedia, titled Nowe Ateny, or "New Athens," was published in the 1740s and differed greatly in style from the encyclopedias of today. It included entries for headless humans and an ant that could eat a pound of meat. Some of its fun entries included "horse," whose description was simply "What a horse is like, anyone can see" and "dragon", a "formidable foe, yet one must attempt to defeat it". Beyond its unusual definitions, Nowe Ateny was a reflection of its time, incorporating myths, anecdotes, and scientific observations. Have you heard about this unusual encyclopedia?