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Several 17th century clay pipes have been found on the site of Shakespeare’s home that show signs of marijuana, scientists said. Two of the pipe samples also showed evidence of cocaine.

While there is controversy over whether William Shakespeare actually wrote the plays attributed to him, he was a known figure in his day and the site where he lived with his family has also been identified.

“The cocaine found is really quite remarkable,” said paleontologist Dr. Francis Thackeray. “Cocaine was recorded in Europe about 200 years ago, but to our knowledge never this early.
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An extremely unusual weather formation developing over the Northeastern US could cause a monster storm, according to meterologists. “Meteorlogists say it’s unusual and it’s not like anything they’ve seen in fifty years,” according to National Weather Service Spokesman Curtis Carey.

The storm is expected to strike the northeast on Sunday night and to persist into Tuesday.

A front now moving across Canada is behaving in a way that is not predicted by any currently active meteorlogical models, or by observed experience. This front is traveling from east to west, and it is not clear why this is happening. It is assumed that the front will change direction soon and begin to move in a more normal manner.
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Scientists have discovered that different kinds of jokes stimulate different parts of the brain, which is why some people break up over a particular joke, while others don’t “get” it.

Vinod Goel of York University in Toronto and Raymond Dolan of the Institute of Neurology in London wanted to find out where laughter originates in the brain, so they used an MRI to scan the brains of 14 healthy people while they listened to 2 types of jokes.

Half of the jokes were the “Why did the chicken cross the road?” variety. The other half were puns. For controls, they also told jokes without punchlines.
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Astronomers have figured out the exact hour when Vincent Van Gogh created his painting “White House at Night” because they have been able to identify a star in the painting as the planet Venus.

This painting shows a white house at twilight with a prominent yellow star in the sky. The painting surfaced in 1995, after being hidden from the Nazis since the 1930s.

Van Gogh painted 5 pictures of the night sky and astronomers have been astounded by their accuracy. “I was surprised his paintings have such a strong basis in reality,” says Donald Olson of Southwest Texas State University.
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