Make a story up about something that took place a long time ago and tell it to as many people as possible over and over, and they'll start to believe it. It becomes history. But one that's far from the truth. The story behind Coney Island's Annual Hot Dog Eating Contest was said to be about four immigrants who were deciding who among them was most patriotic, by eating hot dogs.

According to Nathan’s Famous hot dogs, this was the beginning of the annual contest’s rich American history. That must be it then. Whichever Irishman could eat the most frankfurters — an Austrian food, popularized by Poles, that takes its name from a German city — would be the most American.

The first record of the most gluttonous sporting event of the year is from 1972, not 1916. Comparing the story that is told to what actually happened reveals how this famous cookout food took over American cuisine and how the contest became a tradition by convincing people that it already was one.

(Image credit: Ajay Suresh/Flickr; Wikimedia Commons)

One of the holidays celebrated throughout the United States of America is the fourth of July or Independence Day. This was the day in which the Declaration of Independence was signed by representatives from the 13 colonies.

But it was actually two days prior that they voted to become independent from Britain. And more than that, they had initially only wanted greater autonomy. You may find these and other facts about the US's Independence Day on History Extra.

(Image credit: Jean Leon Gerome Ferris/Virginia Historical Society; Wikimedia Commons)

Eta Carinae, the double star system in the constellation Carina, experienced what is known as the Great Eruption more than a century and a half ago. It became the second brightest star when it happened but it has dimmed since then. However, astronomers, with the help of the Hubble telescope, find that such eruptions still occur.

Scientists have long known that the outer material thrown off in the 1840s eruption has been heated by shock waves generated when it crashed into material previously ejected from the star.

The team who captured this new image were expecting to find light from magnesium coming from the complicated array of filaments seen in the light from glowing nitrogen (shown in red). Instead, a whole new luminous magnesium structure was found in the space between the dusty bipolar bubbles and the outer shock-heated nitrogen-rich filaments.

With the new data from Hubble, scientists will try to gain some insight on how the eruption began as well as measure the speed with which the material from the eruption was ejected and when it did.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, N. Smith (University of Arizona, Tucson), and J. Morse (BoldlyGo Institute, New York)

CRISPR has been making a lot of noise recently, from gene-edited babies and now with the elimination of HIV. But wait, this is just the first time that HIV has been cured in mice so more research and trials need to be done to assess its feasibility for use and whether it will be effective on humans.

So far HIV can be treated with antiretroviral therapy (ART), which suppresses the virus from replicating, but is currently uncurable. Thus, the urgent need for finding a cure.

In an exciting turn of events, the team of scientists was able to cure mice of HIV by using a combination of CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology, and LASER ART, a therapeutic treatment that slows down the replication of the virus for longer periods of time.

For more details on how the scientists administered the test, check out the article on Interesting Engineering.

(Image credit: Typography Images/Pixabay)

In a creative process, ideas get thrown about and refined until it takes on a more definite shape and finally, settles into its final form. But throughout that process, there will be instances when things won't work out exactly as planned.

The initial stages of any creator's work are usually fraught with failures or areas in which ideas could still improve and even after that stage, circumstances may dictate a different outcome. A project may not push through or come out as expected.

But artists should be given leeway to have these failures. These don't necessarily mean it's the end of the creative process rather it could be a stepping stone to make the idea into something better. This allows artists to take a step back and look at their work from a different perspective and take another direction that could be more beneficial for the work in the end.

So, what’s the worst that could happen if individuals and institutions started funding the roughest sketches of an artist’s idea? The fear from our market-driven culture is that the piece never comes to fruition and “fails.” However, we have seen great examples of this in very public forums. What looks like a failure is often just the beginning of something else, often something more interesting.

(Image credit: Trevor Paglen/Nevada Museum of Art)

When we try to study organisms under the microscope, we look through the lens to see what the cellular world beholds us but a team from MIT and Harvard wanted to reinvent the microscope in order to give us a whole new perspective in studying cells and other microscopic organisms.

The new technique, dubbed DNA microscopy, uses only a pipette and some liquid reagents. Rather than monitoring photons, here the team relies on “bar codes” that chemically tag onto biomolecules.

Like cell phone towers, the tags amplify, broadcasting their signals outward. An algorithm can then piece together the captured location data and transform those GPS-like digits into rainbow-colored photos.

Of course, this won't replace optical microscopes but what it allows us to do is to place ourselves on the soles of the cells and look at things the way they would, says study author Dr. Joshua Weinstein.

There are several reasons why the team wanted to develop this new technique but one of the main reasons is that scientific objectives continue to expand and we try to delve deeper into the things we study so that we could have a better understanding of them. And that requires equipment which perform specific functions.

Learn more about it on Singularity Hub.

(Image credit: J. Weinstein et al./Cell 2019)

What is it like to stand on the border between the two Koreas? The place where silence overtakes you like a wave and a subtle tension looms around, Panmunjom is perhaps one of the places in the world where history has yet to move forward.

In the Korean War that broke out in 1950, the United Nations Command on the South Korean side, consisting mainly of U.S. troops, fought fiercely with the Chinese-North Korean Command.

Ultimately neither side made major headway, and it was near the 38th parallel north between North and South Korea, at the village of Panmunjom, that the two states signed their armistice agreement on July 27, 1953.

That is why it has been seen as a symbol of division between the two Koreas. It is now a popular place for foreigners to visit from the South Korean side.

(Image credit: Henrik Ishihara/Wikimedia Commons)

In a span of four months, a young female arctic fox walked a distance of 2,737 miles in order to find a place to breed. From the Norway's Svalbard archipelago, it traversed the arctic making its way to Canada through Greenland.

The researchers still have no idea why the arctic fox needed to leave its birth place to find another site for breeding but they were able to track its movements by fitting it with a satellite tracking collar.

Institute scientists monitored the fox's movements with a satellite tracking device they fitted her with in July 2017 near her native habitat by a glacier on Norway's Spitsbergen island. She stayed close to home then gradually ventured out until she left the island on March 26, 2018.

During the walk to Canada, the roughly 2-year-old fox moved at an average rate of 46.3 kilometers per day (28.7 miles per day), the Norwegian scientists said. -via Mainichi

(Image credit: Elise Stroemseng/Norwegian Polar Institute via AP)

Nowadays, we have Google to answer all of our inquiries and odd curiosities which sometimes randomly pop up in our minds. But before the age of search engines and the internet, people had to find other ways to get the information they need. And the ones they turn to were librarians.

Being surrounded with lots of books, surely they must have knowledge about anything or they could just look it up. But, sometimes, people have the quirkiest ideas. Here are some of the weirdest questions people asked librarians from the 1940s until the 1980s, released by the New York Public Library.

(Images credit: New York Public Library via Vintage Everyday)

It's pretty rare to witness total eclipses anywhere in the world since that would require the sun, moon, and earth's centers to be precisely aligned with one another. However, Chile and Argentina were treated to such a rare sight of the phenomena just several hours ago.

Tourists from around the world gathered to witness the cosmic spectacle, which began at 10:24 a.m. local time (1824 GMT), crossing over a tiny atoll in the South Pacific. Chile and Argentina were the only inhabited places where the total eclipse could be seen.

The eclipse made its first landfall in Chile at 3:22 p.m. (1922 GMT) in La Serena, a city of some 200,000 people where the arrival of more than 300,000 visitors forced the local water company to increase output and service gas stations to store extra fuel. Police and health services were also reinforced.

(Image credit: Luc Viatour/Lucnix.be; Wikimedia Commons)

We know the menstrual cycle is part of a woman's daily life so women are expected to just deal with it as they go their usual routine at work or school. Sure, some women have a higher pain tolerance than others but this study says it's more disruptive than we think.

"Menstruation-related symptoms cause a great deal of lost productivity, and presenteeism is a bigger contributor to this than absenteeism," the research paper said.

"There is an urgent need for more focus on the impact of these symptoms, especially in women aged under 21 years, for discussions of treatment options with women of all ages and, ideally, more flexibility for women who work or go to school."

The biggest issue here is that though it's natural for women, it doesn't mean that they should just buckle up and endure the pain especially when it's too unbearable. Employers should consider the situations women experience if they want them to be more productive and fulfilled at work.

(Image credit: Erol Ahmed/Unsplash)

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was launched in order to collect sample data from the asteroid Bennu. It was launched on September 8, 2016 and on December 3, 2018, it had reached Bennu. In the course of the mission, the spacecraft was able to break the record for the closest orbit of a planetary body by a spacecraft.

The maneuver began the mission’s new phase, known as Orbital B, and placed the spacecraft in an orbit 680 meters (2,231 feet) above the surface of asteroid Bennu. The previous record—also set by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft—was approximately 1.3 kilometers (0.8 miles) above the surface.

Upon arrival at Bennu, the team observed particles ejecting into space from the asteroid’s surface. To better understand why this is occurring, the first two weeks of Orbital B will be devoted to observing these events by taking frequent images of the asteroid’s horizon.

The mission timeline will last until September 24, 2023 with the return of the spacecraft carrying the sample back to Earth.

(Image credit: NASA)

Many cities around the world are rapidly going through changes especially with urban developments. Keeping track of all that could be taxing and very challenging to do. Fortunately, the website Atlas of Urban Expansion has compiled data and statistics on 200 cities which they present in an interactive map.

This analysis examined the size of cities, their population densities and the proportion of built-up and open spaces in each city. The individual results page for each of the analyzed 200 global cities provides a fascinating insight into the urban composition of cities around the globe.

If you select to view an individual city's results page you can view a number of maps and graphs visualizing the city's population and its composition.

-via Google Maps Mania

(Image credit: Atlas of Urban Expansion)

Take this with a large grain of salt but Zulkey presents to us some witty analyses and generalizations of what personalities people might develop depending on the order in which they were born.

Of course, people's personalities are built from a variety of factors though it may be influenced by one's environment. Still, if you've been around for quite some time, you start to observe and realize certain similarities in such situations.

I'm an only child and I've heard a lot of stereotypes about it as well. I haven't heard the one given on the list so it's an interesting perspective.

(Image credit: Erdenebayar/Pixabay)

It’s happening. No one can stop them. Plan your summer accordingly. Introducing the NEW @SourPatchKids BLIZZARD Treat. #HappyTastesGood pic.twitter.com/Ll0Qya0CNB

— Dairy Queen (@DairyQueen) July 1, 2019

It's an odd combination for sure. Who would want to have a sour-flavored ice cream, right? But Dairy Queen has announced its July Blizzard of the month which features a mash-up between their signature soft serve topped with bits of Sour Patch Kids. The staff from Delish were able to try out the new Blizzard and here's what they have to say:

While we were originally ready to leave this report up to the interpretations happening on social media, we actually got a chance to try this sucker for ourselves today. After trying the Blizzard in the office, we've officially decided we're not mad at it!

The Sour Patch bits surprisingly aren't that hard to chew (they're small and aren't coated with that classic sour sugar powder), and the ice cream just sweet enough! In fact, we'd call it a straight-up treat. Wahoo!

(Image credit: Dairy Queen/Twitter)