Season 2016 2016

These brave souls sat down to dinner, ate something weird, and saved lives in the process.

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There's a reason the FBI hasn't gone in guns blazing. Joe Posner explains. For much more on the Oregon standoff at Vox.com: http://www.vox.com/2016/1/3/10703712/oregon-militia-standoff/in/10475659 For more on the Waco & Ruby Ridge sieges: http://www.vox.com/2016/1/5/10714746/waco-ruby-ridge-oregon/in/10475659

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Chipotle's food safety crisis, explained.

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After hearing a trickle of reports about food poisoning over recent months, millions of lunch-seeking Americans are probably wondering: Is it safe to eat at Chipotle?

The bad news is that public health investigators haven't identified the source of the E. coli that sickened almost 60 Chipotle customers in 11 states. By the time they started testing the restaurants and the employees, they couldn't find a trace of the bacteria.

But that may be a blessing in disguise because without a specific ingredient or supplier to blame, Chipotle has to inspect everything.

Spurred by repeated cases of food poisoning in the past six months — not just from E. coli, but also norovirus (caused by sick workers) and Salmonella (caused by contaminated tomatoes) —Chipotle announced an ambitious food-safety plan that, if implemented, could make Chipotle one of the safer fast food chains out there.

Learn more: http://www.vox.com/business-and-finance/2015/12/9/9882256/chipotle-food-safety-crisis-explained

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Women working was once a threat to marital stability, however, things appear to be changing.
Read more to find out! http://www.vox.com/2016/1/6/10725120/men-equal-housework-chores-research-marriage

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Warning: Some images contained in this video are graphic.

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The school-to-prison pipeline starts in preschool.

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Video by: Dara Lind, Liz Scheltens, Gina Barton

Read more about the school-to-prison pipeline and police in schools:
http://www.vox.com/2015/10/28/9626820/police-school-resource-officers
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/24/8101289/school-discipline-race
http://www.vox.com/2015/7/30/9075065/school-to-prison-pipeline-study

Thousands of law enforcement officers are stationed in American schools — and they're a key part of the "school-to-prison pipeline," which places students into the criminal justice system for matters of school discipline.

It started in the 90s, when schools began responding to rising crime rates with zero-tolerance policies. There were originally put in place to stop weapons and drugs from entering schools and to prevent tragedies like Columbine—these policies extended beyond to include smaller infractions such as uniform violations, talking back, insubordination, etc.

Schools in Oakland, California are exploring new ways to break the school-to-prison pipeline. These schools practice restorative justice where both parties talk out their issues instead of administrators suspending or expelling students.

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Rest in peace, David Bowie

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The incredible legacy that David Bowie left behind after he died late Sunday night is so large, it's hard to document in a single way. His gender-fluid performances, a space-cover of "Space Oddity," his role in the fall of the Berlin wall, we've written a lot about Bowie at Vox:http://www.vox.com/2016/1/11/10749394/david-bowie-dead-songs-legacy

If you're newer to his music, here are 13 songs that defined him: http://www.vox.com/2016/1/11/10749308/david-bowie-songs/in/10513435

But one thing that will always travel forward now that David Bowie is gone, is his music. Countless celebrities poured on about his influence yesterday, but we also can track those who directly documented his influence in quotations or sampled his music.

Of course, the video above is nowhere near a complete documentation. For even more, you can check out the incredible resource Who Sampled, which inspired a few of the choices in the video, and lists hundreds more. http://www.whosampled.com/David-Bowie/?sp=1

Voiceover is by Joe Posner.

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President Obama's final State of the Union address to the nation was about an hour long. We cut it down for you.

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Read the full text of the speech here: http://www.vox.com/2016/1/12/10758328/state-of-the-union-2016-full-text

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Banning an entire racial or ethnic group from entering the US isn't new, and the data shows it.

Vox's Alvin Chang explains. For his full interactive map of the data: http://www.vox.com/2016/1/4/10709366/immigration-america-200-years

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It is immigrants, and their descendants, who largely make up today's US population. European immigrants were the first and largest group to arrive, and there were subsequent policies that made it much easier for people from those countries to come to the US. That said, a decent numbers of Canadian and Chinese immigrants also arrived early in this country's history, and over the years, different policies allowed greater numbers of Hispanics and Asians to immigrate.

Read the full article and view the interactive at: http://www.vox.com/2016/1/4/10709366/immigration-america-200-years

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Find more background here: http://www.vox.com/2015/5/19/8624675/what-is-the-real-illuminati

Vox's Phil Edwards investigates the real Δ.

The Illuminati is fascinating, but is it real? This is the history of the real group, including everything from the Freemasons to Dan Brown. If you've heard about the group, you've probably wondered: what is the real illuminati? Conspiracy theories like "illuminati confirmed" have confused the issue, so here are the illuminati facts about the history of the group.

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The conflict is really only 100 years old.

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One of the biggest myths about the Israel-Palestine conflict is that it's been going on for centuries, that this is all about ancient religious hatreds.

In fact, while religion is involved, the conflict is mostly about two groups of people who claim the same land. And it really only goes back about a century, to the early 1900s. At its heart, it is a conflict between two self-determination movements — the Jewish Zionist project and the Palestinian nationalist project — that lay claim to the same territory.

Read more about the Israel-Palestine conflict on Vox: http://bit.ly/2S7gFlT

Your basic questions about Israel and Palestine answered:

– What are Israel and Palestine? Why are they fighting? http://bit.ly/2NKJPcd
– What is Zionism? http://bit.ly/2G549P6
– How did Israel become a country in the first place? http://bit.ly/2xFdAjN
– What are settlements, and why are they such a big deal? http://bit.ly/30pSRfZ
– What were the intifadas? http://bit.ly/2NInMm9
– How does the world feel about Israel/Palestine? http://bit.ly/2JprIEh
– What is the Israeli-Palestinian peace process? http://bit.ly/2XIRzQB

Further reading on the Israel-Palestine conflict: http://bit.ly/2XBrIFf

You can also watch our three-part documentary series on Israeli settlements from 2016. Start with part 1 here: https://youtu.be/E0uLbeQlwjw

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Flint, Michigan, tried to save money on water. Now its children have lead poisoning. Joe Posner explains. For much more on Flint's water crisis: http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2016/1/20/10799294/flint-michigan-water-crisis-lead-contaminated

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Turns out, Nikola Tesla is partly to blame. Liz Scheltens explains, with a little help from NPR's Planet Money. Subscribe to their awesome podcast here: http://n.pr/1RZaOeT

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Each US primary election season kicks off in Iowa. Learn the process behind one of the pivotal events of the general election. More information available at http://www.vox.com/2016/1/25/10817088/iowa-caucus-2016-poll-trump-sanders

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What's the deal with Yankee Doodle Dandy and macaroni? Vox's Phil Edwards explains.

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More background here: http://www.vox.com/2015/9/13/9312147/macaronis-yankee-doodle

We've all heard the Yankee Doodle Dandy lyrics and wondered what they meant. But the Yankee Doodle song turns out to have a surprisingly logical explanation.

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If you compare today's hip hop to 1995, you might notice some similarities.

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Foreign salamanders could infect American salamanders with a flesh eating fungus and destroy them.

Brian Resnick explains the worldwide crisis: http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2015/12/10/9881764/save-the-salamanders-bsal-fungus

Video by Estelle Caswell, Joss Fong, Brian Resnick

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Try quality instead of quantity

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Insufficient sleep is a public health problem. But while we hear plenty about how we should be getting more sleep, it turns out that quality of sleep could sometimes have greater benefits than the quantity. It might be worth trying to sleep better.

Here are three simple tips to get you started:
Step 1: Cool down your room
Step 2: Understand the power of light
Step 3: Get comfortable with herbs

Go ahead and give these tips a try — and see how things change for you during the day.

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Why Zika was just declared a global health emergency.

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Learn more about Zika at Vox.com:
http://www.vox.com/2016/2/1/10871562/zika-health-emergency-who
http://www.vox.com/2016/1/20/10795562/zika-virus-cdc-mosquitoes-birth-defects
http://www.vox.com/2016/1/21/10805922/zika-virus-pregnancy

Three years ago, the Zika virus was nowhere to be found in the Western Hemisphere. To date, the largest outbreak occurred in French Polynesia in 2013 with 383 reported cases. But in 2015, Brazil suddenly found itself with an unprecedented Zika outbreak. More than a million people have been infected by the mosquito-transmitted—and potentially sexually transmitted disease.

The mosquito-borne virus doesn't seem to harm most of its victims. But there's increasing evidence that it can cause serious damage to the brains of fetuses and, in rare instances, devastating neurological problems in adults.

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Theodore Roosevelt had a massive kill list. Vox's Phil Edwards asks you to decide if he had a good reason. Follow Phil Edwards and Vox Almanac on Facebook for more: https://www.facebook.com/philedwardsinc1/

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President Theodore Roosevelt loved the outdoors — and he loved to hunt. One of the most astonishing records of his post-Presidency is his massive kill list from a safari he and his son Kermit led. But there was a good contemporary reason for the carnage, if you take TR's point of view. That leaves it to you to take a side in the historical debate.

See the full list here: http://www.vox.com/2015/7/29/9067587/theodore-roosevelt-safari

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Don't try this at home.

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In 2014, freediver Goran Čolak broke the Guinness World Record for static apnea and went without breathing for 23 minutes. On average, a human body at rest takes about 12 to 20 breaths a minute, but you probably never think about it. So how did Čolak master the art of oxygen deprivation?

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The clever engineering behind the virtual yellow first-down line you seen on TV for NFL games.

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Since the late 1990s, the virtual yellow line has been quietly enhancing football broadcasts by giving viewers a live, intuitive guide to the state of play. The graphic is engineered to appear painted on the field, rather than simply plopped on top of the players, so it doesn't distract from the game at all.

The line debuted during a September 27, 1998, game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Cincinnati Bengals. It was developed by a company called Sportvision Inc. and operated by six people in a 48-foot semi-truck parked outside the stadium.

ESPN was the only network that immediately agreed to pay the steep price of $25,000 per game. Before long, other companies began offering the yellow line to the other networks, and now you won't see a football game without it.

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Primary voters used to be powerless. That all changed in 1968.

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--
Right now, presidential candidates are crisscrossing the country, begging primary voters for their support. But it's easy to forget that not too long ago, these voters had no say in whom their party nominated for president.

In the nation's early days, members of Congress picked their party's nominee. And for most of the 19th and 20th centuries, party bosses told delegates at the convention which candidate to support, and everybody else found out in the papers and on TV.

But everything changed after the Democratic National Convention in 1968. Watch our video to see why.

Check back next week to find out why we have the weird primary schedule that basically disenfranchises millions.

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Canada got rid of them, why can't the US?

Watch Matthew Ygelsias explain who's fighting to save to the penny.

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Video by Gina Barton, Matthew Yglesias, Matt Moore

Pennies may hold sentimental value to Americans, but they are basically useless. It is not uncommon for people to leave them in a loose-change container when receiving money after a transaction. Americans for Common Cents, a pro penny group in Washington DC, is fighting to keep the penny in circulation. They are backed by Jarden Zinc Products, a company that sells the zinc-based coin blanks to the US Mint.

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These elections will actually matter.

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Iran is about to hold a national election that could shape the country's future for a generation — potentially even more so than the presidential elections in 2009, when "green movement" protests signaled public outrage with the regime, and in 2013, when voters elevated the moderate Hassan Rouhani on a promise of economic and diplomatic opening.

On February 26, Iranians will vote for candidates for their parliament and for a body called the Assembly of Experts — which, though few outside Iran have heard of it, could be in a position to radically alter Iran's politics.

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We use it to like Instagram photos and Tweets, but where did it come from?

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Astronaut ice cream — did it really fly? Vox's Phil Edwards investigates, with the help of the Smithsonian and an astronaut. Follow Phil Edwards and Vox Almanac on Facebook for more: https://www.facebook.com/philedwardsinc1/

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For links to key documents, check out the article: http://www.vox.com/2016/2/15/10998344/astronaut-ice-cream

Astronaut ice cream, space ice cream, a freeze-dried mistake: whatever you call it, you've probably eaten astronaut ice cream as a kid. But did it really fly? And was it really eaten by astronauts?

The Apollo 7 mission is the only time NASA says the sweet stuff flew. So we asked Apollo 7 Lunar Module Pilot Walt Cunnningham if it was true. The answer might surprise you.

Space food in general has a fascinating and complicated history, even without the ice cream. Take a look at Neil Armstrong's fruitcake.

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Because Iowa and New Hampshire have taken American politics hostage, that's why.

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The presidential primaries effect us all. So why does it seem like it's decided by a few random people in the middle of nowhere?

Well, technically, it's not. Delegates are, for the most part, awarded based on population, and are selected by primary voters or caucus-goers in all 50 states.

But that's not the whole story. Timing matters, and it matters a ton. Voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, who have already voted, basically end up having votes that are five times as powerful than the rest of us.

The power of the media, and how people respond to earlier results, make a huge difference. A win in Iowa or New Hampshire can give candidates momentum in later states, and a loss can force others to drop out before most states even vote. Which means if you live in a state with a later primary, your vote really doesn't matter much.

Iowa and New Hampshire like going first. Voters there reward politicians who promise to let them keep going first. Both states even have laws that require them to schedule their nominating contests before any other states.

So how come there isn't a national primary day, so our votes are really equal?

Watch our new video above and these squirrelly little legos will explain. If you'd like more, a couple other installments of our primaries series are here. And stay tuned next Tuesday, when we'll explain who votes in Presidential primaries.

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Broad City's best jokes reward die-hard fans.

Read more about the callbacks, running gags and easter eggs here: http://www.vox.com/2016/2/17/11028154/broad-city-jokes-gags

Video by Estelle Caswell and Caroline Framke

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Bernie Sanders' accent, explained

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Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump both speak with a New York City accent. And Queens College linguist Michael Newman thinks it might be good for their brand. Writing in the New York Times, he said:

"Americans have come to associate New Yorkers, and so New York accents, with saying what you mean, intense emotional talk and not worrying too much about whom you offend."

But the larger pattern outside this year's presidential race is that the New York City accent is stigmatized, and its most distinctive features are fading.

That's why Bernie Sanders provides such an interesting case study. He was born in 1941 and raised in a lower-middle-class household in a Jewish part of Brooklyn. Even though he's now spent more of his life in Vermont than in New York, his voice tells a story of his past and the past of the nation's greatest city.

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We are so busy laughing at Trump that we’ve lost sight of how dangerous he is. Vox's editor-in-chief Ezra Klein explains. Subscribe to our channel! http://goo.gl/0bsAjO

For more of Ezra Klein on Trump: http://www.vox.com/2016/2/10/10956978/donald-trump-terrifying
Matt Yglesias disagrees here: http://www.vox.com/2016/2/20/11067932/rubio-worse-than-trump

Trump is in serious contention to win the Republican presidential nomination. His triumph in a general election is unlikely, but it is far from impossible. He's not a joke and he's not a clown. He's a man who could soon be making decisions of war and peace, who would decide which regulations are enforced and which are lifted, who would be responsible for nominating Supreme Court justices and representing America in the community of nations. This is not political entertainment. This is politics.

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America doesn't have a gun problem, it has several of them.

These charts and maps break down the scope of the problem: http://bit.ly/2odFYVK

No other developed country in the world has anywhere near the same rate of gun violence as America. The US has nearly six times the gun homicide rate as Canada, more than seven times as Sweden, and nearly 16 times as Germany.

The debate over gun regulation in the US seems intractable, but there is one fact that both sides can agree on: Mass shootings are just the tip of a very complicated problem.

Read more:

• How gun control works in America, compared with 4 other rich countries http://bit.ly/2sFmSwv
• After Sandy Hook we said never again. And then we let more than 1,600 mass shootings happen. http://bit.ly/2GxwfjT
• Why mass shootings don't convince gun owners to support gun control http://bit.ly/2Gvxz6Q
• Watch: How gun control could help prevent suicides https://youtu.be/lgD9AlxZxNE

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It's contentious, rare, and a throwback to a bygone political era.

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Political journalists and pundits are in a tizzy over the possibility of a brokered GOP convention this summer. Instead of the scripted snooze-fests we're used to, we could see the kind of backroom deals and delegate-swapping that once characterized party conventions.

But what, exactly, is a brokered convention?

A brokered convention happens when no single candidate has a majority (51 percent) of delegates on the first round of balloting. Even if Donald Trump wins more delegates than any other candidate, if he doesn't hit that magic number (1,237) on the first round, there'll be a second ballot.

That's where things can get interesting. During the second ballot, delegates from opposing camps try to convince one another to change sides. That's what happened at the 1948 GOP convention. It took three rounds of voting and horse-trading for the delegates to coalesce around Thomas Dewey.

This year, a brokered convention could be the only hope for an establishment candidate like Marco Rubio. Trump and Ted Cruz have been dominating the primary polls, but are unpopular among general election voters.

As a result, Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger writes, GOP insiders are preparing for the "white whale" of politics, a brokered convention. Delegates are "bound" to candidates during the first round of voting based on the results of their state's primary, but if the first ballot is inconclusive, the delegates can support a different candidate.

We hardly ever see thi

This video is about doors. Joe Posner investigates, with some help from 99% invisible, a wonderful podcast. Check them out here: http://www.99pi.org

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There's a door on the 10th floor in the Vox Media office I hate so much. You probably know one of these too. But it's not our fault.

And luckily, Roman Mars of 99% Invisible magically arrived in my cellphone to send me on a cross-country journey to find out the incredible surprises behind this common complaint:

Don Norman started complaining about doors over 25 years ago. Doors shouldn't need instructions – the shape of them can guide you through just fine. So why do so many doors need instruction manuals right on the side of them?

When most people complain about something, nothing happens. Don Norman is not most people – he's a psychologist and cognitive scientist. Don Norman thought about, and wrote about his complaints so incredibly thoroughly that he changed the world. 99% Invisible's Roman Mars helps tell the story.

Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com to get up to speed on everything from Kurdistan to the Kim Kardashian app.

99% Invisible is a member of http://Radiotopia.fm

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Because the solar system doesn't care about our calendar.

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This fact has been vexing humans for centuries: Earth's year (one orbit around the sun) isn't neatly divisible by its day (one rotation about its axis). One full orbit takes more than 365 days but less than 366.

That's not surprising — there's no reason for the two to be linked. The trouble comes when we try to overlay a useful calendar onto this random system. And as a result, our annual calendar is always slightly wrong.

Leap year is our jury-rigged solution to this problem. To nudge our calendar closer to accuracy, we simply stick an extra day at the end of February every four years. Without it, our calendar would slowly shift further and further from the true year.

But technically, we should only add 97 percent of a day. Sounds close enough but after a century, we've overcorrected the calendar by nearly a day, so there are additional "rules." Science writer Phil Plait shows all the frustrating math on this, but here's the takeaway:

If the year is divisible by 4, then it’s a leap year, UNLESS

it’s also divisible by 100, then it’s not a leap year, UNLESS FURTHER

the year is divisible by 400, then it is a leap year.

And even after all these adjustments, the calendar will gradually shift over millennia. February 29, then, is an occasion to mark the indifference of space. The chaotic formation of the solar system gave rise to Earth's life-friendly orbit and rotation. Only billions of years later did the resulting creatures try to coordinate their schedules.

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An underground art movement makes a splash on SNL.

Seapunk is an underground art movement that officially began in 2011 via a twitter hashtag. It's inspired by the colors and sounds of the ocean and computer graphics of the late 1980s and 90s. Here's how it became mainstream.

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Who are these people?

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We live in a country with a two-party system. We only get two real choices (usually) when it's time to pick a president. This means the people who pick each party's nominee play a hugely important role.

So who are these people?

For starters, it's a small group. Just 20 percent of American adults vote in presidential primaries. They tend to be older, whiter, and better-educated than your average general election voter.

Primary voters also tend to be highly partisan, which helps explain why ideas at the fringes of each party (free college for all, a giant wall along the Mexican-US border) gain traction during the primaries.

Primaries in the US are also sequential; rather than everyone voting on the same day, some states have their primaries early in the year, some later (for more on why, check out our previous videos). Unless you live in a state with an early primary, there's a good chance your party will already have a nominee by the time your state gets around to voting, meaning your vote is basically meaningless.

You can see this whole dynamic playing out right now. Donald Trump did well in Iowa and New Hampshire, carried that momentum into Nevada and South Carolina, and now looks likely to win a majority of the Super Tuesday contests. When the general election comes around, the people in those states can know they had a voice in whom their party nominated. The rest of us are out of luck.

Check back next week for the final episode in our series Vox Explains the Primaries. We'll explore the proliferation of strict voter ID laws that civil rights advocates say are disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of Americans.

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Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com to get up to speed on everything from Kurdistan

We live in a world made for people who hear.

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Read the full feature on DeafSpace:
http://www.curbed.com/2016/3/2/11140210/gallaudet-deafspace-washington-dc

What would our cities looks like if they were designed for the deaf? DeafSpace is an emerging approach to design and architecture that is informed by the unique sensory experience of those who don't hear. We visited Gallaudet University to see what DeafSpace looks like in action.

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The Oregon Trail was a great game — but there were some things they couldn't teach kids. This is the bloody, sexy, drunken trail. Follow Phil Edwards and Vox Almanac on Facebook for more: https://www.facebook.com/philedwardsinc1/

For more about the sources, read the full article: http://www.vox.com/2016/3/3/11152436/r-rated-oregon-trail

We all loved The Oregon Trail as kids — and the gameplay was pretty accurate. But there were a few things about pioneer life that weren't fit for that precious hour in the computer room.

Some images in this video come from Shutterstock: http://shutterstock.com
You can play the game here: https://archive.org/details/msdos_Oregon_Trail_The_1990

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What does the future look like for black people?

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Video by: Gina Barton, Victoria Massie, and Joe Posner

Black people are rarely featured in sci-fi and fantasy films — that is, unless that black person is Will Smith. How do black people get to exist in the future? Afrofuturism, a scholarly and artistic movement that imagines the future through black people’s experiences is one answer. The term was coined in 1994 by culture critic Mark Dery in his "Black to the Future" essay.

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Stealing from workers is treated a lot differently than regular theft

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If you steal $600 worth of merchandise, the police will probably come after you. But if your employer steals $600 of your wages, you are likely to never see that money again.

And chances are high that you have experienced wage theft yourself, whether you work a 9-to-5 job or are an independent contractor. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that wage theft is costing US workers $50 billion a year. And even though New York has one of the strongest wage theft protection laws on the books, it is actually very difficult to enforce those laws in practice. According to a 2015 report from the Center for Popular Democracy, "2.1 million New Yorkers are victims of wage theft annually and are cheated out of cumulative $3.2 billion in wages and benefits they are owed." A recent survey by the Freelancers Union found that 71 percent of freelancers have had difficulty getting paid and that the average loss per freelancer is approximately $6,000 a year.

One large group that is especially hard hit by seemingly endemic nonpayment issues is day laborers. This workforce is predominantly composed of immigrants who tend to work sporadically without written contracts. And women are especially vulnerable: "Not only do women day laborers earn significantly less than their male counterparts but they also tend to experience bigger challenges in providing legal evidence in cases of wage theft," Maria Figueroa, director of labor and policy research at the Industrial and Labor Relations School of Cornell University, told us in an email exchange.

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This year’s primaries are a testing ground for voter ID laws.

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How opioid painkillers became an epidemic

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It's a terrifying fact: More than 47,000 people in America died of drug overdoses in what's been widely called an epidemic.
But the biggest killer of this epidemic isn't cocaine, meth, or even heroin — it's totally legal opioid painkillers

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Early portraits looked pretty grim.

A lot of old photos from the 19th and early 20th century are fraught with doom and gloom—and on the occasion the literal dead face. That led to the popular belief that people just did not smile in old photographs. The common explanation is due to the limited technology at the time to capture a smile. Exposure times were long and the thinking was it's easier to hold a serious expression over a long period. Another theory included early photography being heavily influenced by painting (which meant no smiling).

Read more on why photographs were sans smiles at: http://www.vox.com/2015/4/8/8365997/smile-old-photographs

Video by Phil Edwards and Gina Barton.
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Wingdings is the font made entirely out of symbols. But why?
Follow Phil Edwards and Vox Almanac on Facebook for more: https://www.facebook.com/philedwardsinc1/

As a means of writing sentences, Wingdings fails — but that was never its purpose. It was created to be used as a unique tool for the pre-internet era. It was akin to emojis, but with even more utility.

Read more on the Wingdings font: http://www.vox.com/2015/8/25/9200801/wingdings-font-history

Video by Phil Edwards and Sarah Turbin.
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A virus and a bacterial infection are not the same thing.

Learn more from Vox's Julia Belluz:
http://www.vox.com/2015/11/16/9743580/antibiotics-colds-bad

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We've seen kiss cams — but how do they work? Here's a peek behind the scenes.

It's easy to be captivated by the occasional kiss cam fail or kiss cam prank. But behind the humor of kiss cam compilations is the hard work of the people who make it happen. Ever wonder if the kiss cam challenge is real, or fake? This is how it happens.

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Violence is scary. But violence as a political ideology is terrifying.

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More from Ezra Klein on Trump's ideas:
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/3/12/11211898/donald-trumps-ideology-of-violence

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You have your mom's smile, your dad's eyes, and the ear muscles of a Triassic mammal.

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Vestigial structures are evolution's leftovers — body parts that, through inheritance, have outlived the context in which they arose. Some of the most delightful reminders of the common ancestry we share with other animals, they show that the building blocks of the human body predate our species by hundreds of millions of years.

Forty-two percent of Americans say that humans were created in their present form within the past 10,000 years — a percentage that hasn't changed much since 1982, when Gallup started polling views on evolution.

Several lines of evidence, from the fossil record, comparative anatomy, and genetics, tell another story. But you don't have to read all the research to find signs of our evolutionary history — you can see it in the vestigial structures in each of our bodies, like the third molars that no longer fit in our mouths. For a few other examples, check out the video above.

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A visual guide to TV's favorite films, side by side.

Daredevil, The Simpsons, and Breaking Bad are just a few shows that love the movies: http://www.vox.com/2016/3/18/11262244...

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Birth control is as safe as ibuprofen. It shouldn't need a prescription.

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The Brussels attack is Europe's new reality

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Vox's Max Fisher explains how the attacks in Brussels represent a shifting strategy for ISIS and a terrifying reality for Europe.

Read the full article here:
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11284558/brussels-attack-europe-isis-terrorism

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"The robot", for a mechanical dance, is surprisingly flexible.

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Many thanks to the YouTubers for sharing their dancing footage. Check out their channels here:
Adrian Brambila // https://www.youtube.com/brambilabong
Marquese Scott // https://www.youtube.com/user/WHZGUD2
Chadd Smith // https://www.youtube.com/user/maddchadd
Robot RyRy // https://www.youtube.com/user/BgirlRyRy

Video by Gina Barton and Phil Edwards

“The robot” is one of the world’s most recognizable novelty dances. Its distinctive popping and locking motions are simple enough concepts in themselves but the origins of the robot are little less straightforward. The word robot was first used in the 1921 play Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum’s Universal Robots). There was a time the dance wasn’t set to music and it was part of a mime. Robert Shields included this robot mime his routine in the late 60s. This novelty act caught the eye of Charles Washington, many other performers, including the Jackson 5. From there, the robot solidified its mechanical but flexible movements in dancing history.

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28% of Americans would consider moving to Canada if Trump is elected. For the premiere of our new series 2016ish, Liz Plank brought some of your pleas for Canadian assistance to the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.

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For more of Trudeau on being a feminist head of state, fatherhood, and Ryan Gosling memes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9o6cruoP7Y

More on the Vox.com / Morning Consult poll on moving to Canada: http://www.vox.com/2016/3/15/11233676/move-canada-poll

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We've reached peak lens flare. Vox's Phil Edwards explains how it happened.

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Lens flare: it's familiar from the very shiny work of J.J. Abrams, but it goes far beyond his flare-strewn canon. Lens flare has a long history and a lot of different meanings.

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Today, less than 1% of Americans serve.

This video was made in partnership with Veterans Coming Home, who are digging deeper into the story of the military-civilian divide here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFXAOeiW2QwIBvGrNXbIVFA Subscribe to our channel! http://goo.gl/0bsAjO

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Comedy Bang Bang star and host of the podcast "With Special Guest Lauren Lapkus" explains all of her delightful characters.

Here's are some of her characters in action:

Sunny: http://www.earwolf.com/episode/good-night-in-the-morning/

Big Sue: http://www.earwolf.com/episode/the-beatles-of-cults/

Regina Crimp: http://www.earwolf.com/episode/ruths-ross-dress-for-loss/

Allison Gondry:http://www.earwolf.com/episode/me-2-im-talkin-u2-to-u-too/

Pamela from Big Bear: http://www.earwolf.com/episode/the-tom-leykis-radio-program/

Ho Ho the Naughty Elf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmT-spTd_co

Traci Reardon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaGVO_hsEE8

Special thanks to Julien Lasseur for shooting the interview.

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How all those dorky April Fools' Day news jokes started: Spaghetti on trees.

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The modern April Fools' Day ritual has already begun — you have to figure out which stories are legitimate and which ones are pranks.

As the above video shows, it wasn't always this way. The media used to be the victim of pranks, not the perpetrator. But thanks to a watershed prank by the BBC (and a few merry pranksters before that), April Fools' Day has begun a universally loved (or loathed) part of our daily reading.

If you want to learn more about the holiday, you can read Michelle Hackman's earnest explainer: http://www.vox.com/2016/4/1/11340608/...

Or nerd out over hoaxes past at www.hoaxes.org.

Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com to get up to speed on everything from Kurdistan to the Kim Kardashian app.

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More from Liz Plank's interview with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

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To win, Trump needs to do the one thing he’s least likely to do.

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A massive document leak reveals the secrets of shell companies. Matt Yglesias explains, adapting an analogy from reddit user DanGliesack: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikei...

For much more on the Panama Papers, check out the full explanation at Vox.com: http://www.vox.com/2016/4/3/11356326/...
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Seasonal allergies are the worst.

Video by Gina Barton and Liz Scheltens

Millions of Americans suffer from seasonal allergies. There isn’t a clear-cut answer as to why some people have them while others don’t but scientists do have one particular theory. The hygiene hypothesis is the idea that excessively sterile environments are contributing to the development of allergies, asthma, and other autoimmune illnesses. Kids in wealthy countries lack exposure to allergens and other germs that aid in developing a healthy and functioning immune system. While the hygiene hypothesis isn’t the definitive answer to seasonal allergies, it is a starting point.

Read more on seasonal allergies and the hygiene hypothesis:
http://www.vox.com/2014/4/16/5616568/how-seasonal-allergies-work-and-why-you-get-them
http://www.vox.com/2014/6/25/5837892/is-being-too-clean-making-us-sick

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Tubes have carried cats, mail, and people for a really long time. Vox's Phil Edwards leads the tour...

Follow Phil Edwards and Vox Almanac on Facebook for more: https://www.facebook.com/philedwardsinc1/

Thanks to Ben FrantzDale, Swisslog, and Renown Health for letting us use their pneumatic tube footage.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/benfrantzdale/
http://www.swisslog.com/en
https://www.renown.org/

More than a century and a half before Elon Musk thought up the Hyperloop, his mash-up of pneumatic and maglev ideas (and a bunch of other moving parts), people were using pneumatic tubes to move people. Though we're familiar with pneumatic tubes from banks, they've been around much longer and used for a lot more.

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150 years of tension may be coming to an end.

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The world is built on deterrence, and deterrence is changing

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Defense Secretary Ash Carter, as he comes into what could be his last year overseeing the most powerful military on earth, has begun talking about something surprising: a return to great power competition. During a recent interview at the Pentagon, we asked Carter how he thought about navigating this new world, and he returned over and over to the same answer: deterrence.

But as the norms and tools of warfare are changing, how well does deterrence still work? Can this Cold War-era idea still keep the peace in a new era? Here's why this challenge has such high stakes for the world — and what Carter had to say about it.

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From script to screen making a TV show is a fast and furious process. Here's how they get made. We took a look inside one of the best shows on television, The Americans to see how they go from script to screen. You can check out the full feature here: http://www.vox.com/2016/4/14/11411564/how-tv-gets-made-americans-fx-production

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The state has a historically abysmal voter turnout rate. Why?

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Sweden became the first country with its own national phone number. We called it to talk about Allemansrätten, the Swedish policy of foraging for all.

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It's heavy and unwieldy, and that's a good thing.

Read more about the study in this piece from Vox's Brad Plumer: http://www.vox.com/2016/4/3/11349856/bike-share-safety

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Stop casting white actors to play Asians maybe?

Scarlett Johansson's casting in 'Ghost in the Shell' is just one of the latest examples of a white actor playing an Asian character, a practice that goes back to the earliest days of Hollywood. These casting decisions have made Asians invisible at best and, at worst, the butt of a cruel joke.

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Some of the best songs Prince wrote are hiding in plain sight.

Prince & The New Power Generation - Nothing Compares 2 U
https://play.spotify.com/track/1Rv67Jl7sF2eYGfdDOb3ft

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Meet the geniuses who put the baboons in an office.

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The biggest myth about abortion you probably believe in.

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The horned Viking helmet is a classic image —but it only dates back to a 19th century opera costume. Follow Phil Edwards and Vox Almanac on Facebook for more: https://www.facebook.com/philedwardsinc1/

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For years, we've been told milk is essential. It's not.

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How a 1990 Playboy interview exposes Trump's biggest weakness. Ezra Klein explains.

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Of late, the media has become convinced that Donald Trump is going to reinvent himself as a sensible moderate as he transitions to becoming a general election candidate. "When I'm president, I'm a different person," he told a crowd back in January. "I can be the most politically correct person you've ever seen."

No, he can't.

In 1990, Donald Trump gave an interview to Playboy magazine. Read today, it stands as an astonishing testament to Trump's consistency. Nearly every sentence of it is something Trump could have said today. But that's not to say it's devoid of insights. Toward the end, Trump offers his philosophy of life, of governance, and of international competitiveness.

"People need ego, whole nations need ego," he told Playboy. "I think our country needs more ego, because it is being ripped off so badly by our so-called allies; i.e., Japan, West Germany, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, etc. They have literally outegotized this country."

The full playboy interview Ezra refers to: https://www.playboy.com/articles/playboy-interview-donald-trump-1990

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I tried to find out how much my son’s birth would cost before it happened. I failed.

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Childbirth is a really common procedure in the US. Around 4 million women will go to a hospital this year. And most births are relatively uncomplicated. But even for the most common medical procedure in the US, the price for labor and delivery is almost impossible to find out before it happens. I decided to try it out--to see if I could get a number of how much my wife's birth would cost before it happened. This video is the story of what happened.

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Ken M. is probably the world's greatest internet troll. Is it trolling to pick the world's greatest troll? You be the judge. But this is how Ken M does it. Find more about Ken below:

Ken M on Twitter: https://twitter.com/horseysurprise
Ken M on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kenmofficial/
Ken M on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/KenM/
Ken M on Tumblr: http://horseysurprise.tumblr.com/

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Thank you, moms.
(Originally published Mother's Day, 2015)
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What is motherhood? We thought it would be best to ask the experts — our moms. The answers were powerful, silly, touching, and profound. They showed us that each experience of motherhood is unique, yet filled with universal lessons.

This Mother's Day, if your mom is still with you, give her a call and ask her what motherhood meant to her, and what advice she has for you. We think you'll be glad you did.

Pew statistic: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2010/05/06/the-new-demography-of-american-motherhood/
NBC/Today.com statistic: http://www.nbcunicareers.com/news-feed?id=21032
Sonogram footage (Creative commons): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYDt8ja1guw

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Yes the wage gap exists – and it's not because women "choose" to be paid less.

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The Interstate Highway System was one of America's most revolutionary infrastructure projects. It also destroyed urban neighborhoods across the nation.

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The 48,000 miles of interstate highway that would be paved across the country during the 1950s, '60s, and '70s were a godsend for many rural communities. But those highways also gutted many cities, with whole neighborhoods torn down or isolated by huge interchanges and wide ribbons of asphalt. Wealthier residents fled to the suburbs, using the highways to commute back in by car. That drained the cities' tax bases and hastened their decline.

So why did cities help build the expressways that would so profoundly decimate them?

The answer involves a mix of self-interested industry groups, design choices made by people far away, a lack of municipal foresight, and outright institutional racism.

Read more on Vox: https://www.vox.com/2015/5/14/8605917/highways-interstate-cities-history

And see before-and-after maps of how highways changed cities like Cincinnati, Detroit, and Minneapolis: https://www.vox.com/2014/12/29/7460557/urban-freeway-slider-maps

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It's pretty much useless. Time for an update.

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Today, it seems like everybody's a runner. But it wasn't always that way. Vox's Phil Edwards looked into running's history. Follow Phil Edwards and Vox Almanac on Facebook for more: https://www.facebook.com/philedwardsinc1/

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If you've ever wondered about the history of running, jogging, and even treadmills, it turns out to be a lot more surprising than you might expect. Thanks to dedicated runners and influential leaders like Bill Bowerman, running is mainstream — but it wasn't always that way.

To see some of the articles cited in this video, check out the Vox.com article here: http://www.vox.com/2015/8/9/9115981/running-jogging-history

Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com to get up to speed on everything from Kurdistan to the Kim Kardashian app.

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Here's how some of the greatest rappers make rhymes.

From the simple nursery rhyme–like bars of Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks" to the smooth East Coast flow of Notorious B.I.G.'s hit song "Hypnotize" to the speedy delivery of Kendrick Lamar's "Rigamortis," rhyming in rap music has not only evolved, it's gotten better.

The video above explores how some of the greatest rappers of all time create memorable, lyrically dense rhymes.

And here's a playlist highlighting songs that are prime examples of how great rhyming in rap can be: https://open.spotify.com/user/estellecaswell/playlist/5KpHR1UysAms2zssDHeSbZ

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The obscure research that predicted Donald Trump.

For more, read Amanda Taub's feature "The rise of American authoritarianism": http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism, and her analysis of the consequences for the Republican Party: http://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11431892/after-trump-how-authoritarian-voters-will-change-american-politics

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The Obama administration's historic accomplishments, explained.

Read more: http://www.vox.com/2015/6/26/8849925/obama-obamacare-history-presidents

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Here's how it rolled from rice paddies into your burrito.

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Video by Gina Barton

One ingredient has been a staple in sushi for over a thousand years—but it began in southeast Asia as a fish preservation method. Farmers would catch fish in rice paddies during the monsoon season. The caught fish were then pickled by salting the entire fish, packing it with cooked rice and weights, and sealing it in a barrel. This method helped prevent the fish from spoiling and gave the fish umami, the savory flavor. It wasn’t until this preservation method made its way to Japan, during the 8th century, did the rice began to be eaten with the fish.

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Akash Vukoti is the only 6-year-old among the 285 contestants in this year's National Spelling Bee. You can watch him live on ESPN3 in the Bee's preliminary rounds today (Wednesday, May 24). His favorite word is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

For more on the spelling bee, we suggest Sarah Kliff's "A blood bath in the crying room" over at Vox.com: http://www.vox.com/2014/5/28/5754380/winning-the-national-spelling-bee

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You know cars are faster than horses. But in the early days of automobiles, carmakers had to wage a fierce PR battle to win.

Vox's Phil Edwards learned about the early battles between the car and horse. Follow Phil Edwards and Vox Almanac on Facebook for more: https://www.facebook.com/voxalmanac

This marketing conflict from the early 1900s may show how a battle between self-driving cars and traditional cars could play out.

As we look ahead to a public conversation about the merits of self-driving cars over traditionally driven ones, the horse and car battle may prove to be prescient. New technologies aren't easily accepted — and sometimes even a superior product has to adopt fierce tactics to win.

And despite the car's shortcomings, the horse really did create a lot of problems that automobiles could fix. Horse manure was a serious public health hazard; thousands of horses were maltreated (and as many died); and, of course, horses had less acceleration and braking power than the car, resulting in slowdowns and accidents.

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If you're not a morning person, science says you probably never will be.

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Vox reporter Brian Resnick explains the genetics behind our bedtimes: http://www.vox.com/2016/3/28/11306124/chronotype-night-owl-discrimination

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We're in a GIF renaissance.

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The GIF was invented in 1989. And since its beginning, the GIF has been used to make money. At first, GIFs were sold as placeholders for the web of the '90s and early 2000s. But after web design became informed by professional standards, gifs lost their role as placeholders. Eventually they became tools of expression, turning snippets of video from popular culture into bite size communication devices. Today, a few big tech companies are trying to capitalize on this new use of GIFs, partnering with brands who want their content to be used as communication.

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The unintended consequence of bathroom bills that lawmakers don’t want you to think about.

Transgender Americans are in the midst of a public health crisis. The homicide rate for trans people hit a historic high last year, and roughly 41 percent of trans people have tried to kill themselves. But what are lawmakers in North Carolina upset about?

Bathrooms.

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Ali didn’t just shake up boxing. He shook up the world.

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Open Mike Eagle on the art-rock band of his childhood, They Might Be Giants

His new album Hella Personal Film Festival is out now via Mello Music Group: http://www.mellomusicgroup.com/

Video By: Estelle Caswell

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The Coexist logo is famous on bumper stickers and around the world — but it's also at the center of quite a few battles. Follow Phil Edwards and Vox Almanac on Facebook for more: https://www.facebook.com/philedwardsinc1/ ...Read the full article here: http://www.vox.com/2016/6/8/11867438/coexist-logo-bumper-sticker

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When Piotr Mlodozeniec designed the first Coexist logo, he had no idea how quickly — and how far — it would spread. His design for Museum on the Seam became iconic, and it was also closely copied by a designer t-shirt company, worn by U2s Bono on stage, and aped by hippie bumper sticker makers — all without his permission. This is how it happened and what the Coexist logo really means.

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Bran's powers are based on both fiction and physics — and they have huge implications for Westeros.

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Pride month began as a means to ensure safe spaces and equality for LGBTQ people. The Orlando mass shooting is now a part of that story.

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Truffles are the most expensive fungi you can eat.

Truffles are the fruiting body of an ectomycorrhizal fungus and the one of most expensive things you can eat. Italian white truffles are renowned for their pungent smell and earthy taste. In general, truffles play by their own rules. Truffle sniffing dogs are needed to find the fungus. And cultivation has been difficult with black truffles and hasn't happened at all with white truffles. It's a journey filled with hunting, counterfeiting, and occasional night time heists to get truffles from the ground to being shaved over your pizza.

Video by Gina Barton

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Sometimes flight recorders are the only way the victims' families will know what happened to the plane.

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Immediately following an airplane crash anywhere in US territory, the National Transportation Safety Board dispatches a team of investigators to survey the wreckage, gather information from the airline and from air traffic control, and retrieve the plane's so-called "black boxes."

These flight recorders — one stores cockpit audio recordings, the other stores airplane instrument data — are sent to NTSB's lab in Washington, DC, for analysis. There, officials listen to what are sometimes the pilots' final, panicked moments of life. They interpret not only what the pilots were saying before the crash but also any snaps, bangs, and alarms captured by the cockpit area microphone.

By combining those audio clues with data from the plane's instruments and sensors, as well as evidence from the scene, investigators can usually determine the cause of the crash, even in cases with no surviving witnesses.

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Oxford commas are the world's most controversial punctuation mark — but where did they come from? Follow Phil Edwards and Vox Almanac on Facebook for more: https://www.facebook.com/philedwardsinc1/

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The Oxford comma is a grammar geek's obsession, and it turns out to have an unusual history behind it. The mark got its start thanks to the advocacy of Herbert Spencer, a scientist/philosopher/generalist who believed it was more efficient and clear. He also came up with the term survival of the fittest. This is how it happened...

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This isn’t your founding father’s gun.

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It's not all about the nude selfies.

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Americans with disabilities want change in 2016. It wouldn't hurt if Donald Trump would stop insulting them too.

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The United Kingdom has voted to withdraw from the European Union. What happens now?

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Rio is hiding poor people.

See Part II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3BRTlHFpBU

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The 2016 Olympics are set to begin in just over a month in Rio de Janeiro. As the city prepares to receive an influx of international visitors, it is building new infrastructure and transportation systems to accommodate the surge. But the city is also undergoing another major project: hiding and removing poor people from view of foreign onlookers. I went to Rio to see how the city is transforming to make way for the Olympics

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The engineering behind Snapchat's augmented-reality selfies.

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Why working out is great for health, but not for weight loss, explained in five minutes.

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Everyone is freaking out about Britain leaving the EU. But what if it helps the remaining countries get more done?

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Read more from Vox's Matt Yglesias here: http://www.vox.com/2016/6/24/12023384/brexit-european-project

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Where did our idea of personal space bubbles come from? Proxemics is the answer — and it studies all the aspects of personal space. Follow Phil Edwards and Vox Almanac on Facebook for more: https://www.facebook.com/philedwardsinc1/

Find a link to Hall's paper and more here: http://www.vox.com/2016/7/5/12082658/proxemics-study-personal-space-bubble

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2016 has been a record-setting year for terrible movie sequels.

Vox's Zachary Crockett breaks down the worst sequels of the past 20 years: http://www.vox.com/2016/7/1/12070048/resurgence-independence-day-bad-movie-sequel

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It's cruelty, plain and simple.

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Read more about bullfighting from Vox.com's Dylan Matthews: http://www.vox.com/2016/7/5/12072534/running-of-the-bulls-2016-bullfighting-pamplona

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Many have tried to keep a white shark in captivity. Here's why that's so difficult.

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There are several aquariums around the world, including one in Georgia, that house whale sharks, the biggest fish in the sea. But not one has a great white shark on display.

Aquariums have made dozens of attempts since the 1970s to display a captive great white shark. Most of those attempts ended with dead sharks.

By the 2000s, the only group still trying was the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which spent a decade planning its white shark program. In 2004, it acquired a shark that became the first great white to survive in captivity for more than 16 days. In fact, it was on display for more than six months before it was released back into the ocean.

In the following years, the Monterey Bay Aquarium hosted five more juvenile white sharks for temporary stays before ending the program in 2011. It was an expensive effort and had come under criticism due to injuries that some of the sharks developed in the tank.

Responding to those critics, Jon Hoech, the aquarium's director of husbandry operations, said: "We believe strongly that putting people face to face with live animals like this is very significant in inspiring ocean conservation and connecting people to the ocean environment. We feel like white sharks face a significant threats out in the wild and our ability to bring awareness to that is significant in terms of encouraging people to become ocean stewards."

Check out the video above to learn why white sharks are so difficult to keep in captivity and how the Monterey Bay Aquarium designed a program that could keep them alive.

Link to the Biodiversity Heritage Library: https://www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/albums

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