Read this and you'll look smart. You don't have to be intelligent to impress people -- you just have to fake it. Here's a daily list of fascinating articles that will wow your friends, surprise your co-workers and make you seem sharp at a cocktail party or over the lunch counter....
- Admissions questions for the very-prestigious Oxford and Cambridge universities are considered "out there" to say the least. Cambridge, for example, asks prospect students: "What would you do if you were a magpie?"
- Field anthropologists have helped members of the U.S. military better understand cultures abroad. But, after the deaths of two social scientists involved in bombings in Afghanistan and Iraq, many are sounding the alarm on the militarization of anthropologists.
- The "champagne effect" could help scientists predict volcanic eruptions. Volcanoes erupt up to four times more often after a significant earthquake and, new research shows, that eruptions are more likely to occur if molten rock is shaken up.
- Take a gander at an award-winning Buddha statue that took 100 hours to create and was whittled out of 11 lbs of lard. Yes, lard.
- Wal-Mart will soon start selling the iPhone at $99 a pop. The retail giant may get Apple's new touch phone into more pockets but what will it do for the brand's image?
- Wikipedia is blocking tens of thousands in Britain from the Scorpions website after the banned cover of a 1970s album featuring a naked prepubescent girl was published on the site.
