A historical head-scratcher inspired the world’s worst jelly bean flavor. (Atlas Obscura) EVERY OCTOBER, AROUND 200,000 PEOPLE gather in Kentucky for Court Days, the largest outdoor event in the state. Ever since 1794, locals have bought, traded, or sold various goods at the festival, held in the city of Mount Sterling. But in one of the strangest offerings in Court Days history, Kurt Gohde, professor of art at Transylvania University, handed out meat-flavored jelly beans in

Meet some of the troupes taking an ancient tradition to new heights. (Atlas Obscura) At the biannual Genting World Lion Dance Championship in Malaysia in 2018, a series of 21 poles, ranging from four to eight feet in height, lined the arena. On top of each one was a platform 12 inches in diameter. Suddenly, a pale blue Chinese lion with a white fur trim jumped up onto the stilts to the rhythm of a beating drum and clanging cymbals. Bucking its head and rearing up on its hind

Salmon are much more likely to avoid a black bear-shaped object than a white one. (Hakai Magazine) In the Great Bear Rainforest, in coastal British Columbia, two large bears—one black, one white—wade into a stream. The white bear dips its snout and comes up with a wriggling salmon clutched between its jaws. The black bear does the same. But as time goes on, with the two bears snagging fish after fish, the white bear seems to be having an easier time. It turns out, it is—and t

One of the ocean’s top predators has met its match. (Published in The Atlantic via Hakai Magazine)