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Designed by Eugen Langen and offered first to the cities of Berlin, Munich and Breslau who all turned it down, the installation with elevated stations was built in Barmen, Elberfeld and Vohwinkel between 1897 and 1903; the first track opened in 1901. The railway line is credited with growth of the original cities and their eventual merger into Wuppertal. The Schwebebahn is still in use as a normal means of local public transport, moving 25 million passengers annually, per the 2008 annual report. New rail cars were ordered in 2015, called Generation 15, and the first new car went into service in December 2016.

From Wikipedia

(via Reddit)

Finally, a term for reclaiming your time from work and socialising, but at night and to the detriment of your sleep!

[…] You’re revenge bedtime procrastinating.

That term originated in China, where it’s known as 報復性熬夜, and can alternately be translated as “retaliatory staying up late.” The BBC’s Lu-Hai Liang wrote an excellent article tracing how the term spread in China, partially sparked by a viral tweet by journalist Daphne K. Lee.

To get into the Bettmann Archive, about 90 minutes north of Pittsburgh, you need more than a library card. You need the proper credentials to get past the armed guards at the door. You need to be gloved and swaddled in several layers to deal with the cold. And you need to be OK with claustrophobic conditions, since the trip requires being shuttled hundreds of feet underground.

Seen as the father of image resource archives, Otto Bettmann immigrated to the United States from Nazi Germany in 1935 with “a few personal effects and two steamer trunks bursting with photographs, line drawings, engravings, and art reproductions.”

(via Atlas Obscura)

“We’re living in a time with super computers and underwater sea stations and million-dollar laboratories. And still, everyday when I watch the TV news shows I see all sorts of problems!”

A new study suggests that octopuses’ colour changes are linked to two major alternating sleep states: an “active sleep” stage and a “quiet sleep” stage.

Shout out to Uhura, Kara Thrace, and Katniss Everdeen.

A Flickr collection of 23 Wired UK magazine covers from 95-97.

Made with Excel; data sourced from U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

At over $10,000 per carat, black opal is one of the most expensive gemstones in the world. But why is it so rare and hard to find?

‘The view from either end of the bridge amplifies the actual incline, hence the rollercoaster nickname. It looks terrifyingly high.’