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Burj Khalifa: 10 Surprising Facts You Didn't Know

Discover the design, engineering, and records behind the world’s tallest building.

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Entertainment and GamesHow Board Game Mechanics Actually Get Playtested Before ReleaseAlmost every board game that reaches a shelf began as an idea that did not work. A designer's first prototype, however clever the central concept, is usually unbalanced, confusing, or simply not fun o...18 August 202616 min read

EgyptHow Egypt's Toshka Project Actually WorksRoughly ninety-five percent of Egypt's population lives on about five percent of its land, crowded along the narrow ribbon of the Nile Valley and Delta while the vast majority of the country remains o...18 August 202615 min read

ArtHow Art Insurance Actually Values a PaintingA painting has no barcode and no fixed retail price. Two qualified appraisers looking at the same canvas can reasonably arrive at figures that differ by a meaningful margin, and yet an insurer still h...17 August 202613 min read

People and SocietyHow Banknote Security Features Actually WorkHold a genuine banknote up to a decent color photocopy under normal room light, and at a glance the two can look almost indistinguishable. That resemblance is exactly the problem currency designers ha...17 August 202614 min read

Technology ExplainedHow Bluetooth Pairing Actually WorksTwo devices that have never exchanged a single byte somehow need to agree on a shared secret over open radio air, inside a room full of other Bluetooth devices doing the exact same thing, without a th...17 August 202613 min read

Technology ExplainedHow CAPTCHA Tests Actually Tell Humans from BotsCAPTCHA exists because a website cannot simply ask a visitor whether they are a bot and trust the answer. The entire discipline is built around designing a test that ordinary software finds disproport...17 August 202613 min read

FamilyHow Child Support Payments Actually Get CalculatedTwo parents earning nearly identical salaries can walk out of family court owing dramatically different monthly amounts. To anyone outside the process, the gap can look arbitrary, as though one judge ...17 August 202614 min read

Business and EconomyHow Credit Rating Agencies Actually Assess Company RiskA three-letter grade decided by a committee most borrowers never meet can move a company's cost of borrowing by hundreds of millions of dollars overnight. Investors, banks, and pension funds worldwide...17 August 202613 min read

Dubai & UAE PlacesHow Dubai's Cloud Seeding Program Actually WorksWhen rain does fall on Dubai, there is a real chance it did not fall entirely by accident. The United Arab Emirates runs one of the world's most active cloud seeding programs, sending specially equipp...17 August 202613 min read

Around the WorldHow Enclaves and Exclaves Actually WorkA handful of places on Earth belong to one country while being completely surrounded by the territory of another, with no direct land connection back to the country that actually governs them. These p...17 August 202615 min read

Self CareHow Float Tanks Actually Affect the BodyStep into roughly a foot of water saturated with over a thousand pounds of dissolved Epsom salt, close a lid that blocks essentially all light and most sound, and the body becomes almost weightless, f...17 August 202613 min read

NutritionHow Food Labels Actually Get RegulatedA nutrition panel on the side of a box reads like an objective fact sheet, a fixed inventory of calories and nutrients that exists the same way anywhere in the world. It is nothing of the kind. Every ...17 August 202613 min read