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Marasmius rotula, the pinwheel mushroom, is a fungus in the family Marasmiaceae. Widespread in the Northern Hemisphere, it was first described scientifically in 1772 by Giovanni Antonio Scopoli. The mushrooms are characterized by thin whitish caps up to 2.0 cm (0.8 in) wide that are sunken in the center and pleated with scalloped margins. The wiry black hollow stalks measure up to 8.0 cm (3.1 in) long by 1.5 mm (0.06 in) thick. On the underside of the caps are widely spaced white gills, attached to a collar encircling the stalk. The mushrooms grow in groups or clusters on decaying wood such as moss-covered logs and stumps. Spore release is dependent upon sufficient moisture. Dried mushrooms may revive after rehydrating and release spores for up to three weeks, much longer than most gilled mushrooms. Although the mushrooms are not generally considered edible, they produce a unique peroxidase enzyme that is attracting research interest for use in bioengineering applications. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

The Archangel Raphael and Tobias by Titian

... that depictions of Tobias and the Angel (example pictured), unusually for a religious subject, typically show Tobias's dog?
... that Australian gamer Zer0 led his team to an Apex Legends Global Series championship with a substitution teammate to whom he had never spoken before?
... that Louisa May Alcott wrote A Modern Mephistopheles as part of an anonymous series in which readers were meant to guess the author?
... that the first model of cosmic inflation was formulated by a Soviet physicist but initially remained unknown outside the Soviet Union?
... that the Beep the Meep puppet created for "The Star Beast" took six people to operate?
... that football player Levi Drake Rodriguez, considered small for his position, went on an "eat-as-much-as-humanly-possible diet" to be noticed by NFL teams?
... that Macklemore's song "Hind's Hall" refers to Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl who was killed in the Gaza Strip in January 2024?
... that starting at age 16, future Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci was named top sewing machine salesperson three years in a row?
... that the ancient Greek game polis is one of the world's oldest known strategy games?

In the news

Narendra Modi

In the Indian general election, the National Democratic Alliance led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi (pictured) is re-elected with a reduced majority.
The Boeing Starliner spacecraft conducts its first crewed flight, carrying two astronauts to the International Space Station.
The CNSA Chang'e 6 completes sampling and takeoff from the far side of the Moon.
Claudia Sheinbaum is elected as the president of Mexico.

On this day

June 10: Dragon Boat Festival in China and Taiwan (2024)

John Diefenbaker

1624 – Thirty Years' War: France and the Dutch Republic concluded the Treaty of Compiègne, a mutual defence alliance.
1786 – Ten days after being formed by an earthquake, a landslide dam on the Dadu River in China was destroyed by an aftershock, causing a flood that killed an estimated 100,000 people.
1861 – American Civil War: The Confederate Army only suffered eight casualties in its victory at the Battle of Big Bethel in York County, Virginia.
1957 – Led by John Diefenbaker (pictured), the Progressive Conservative Party won a plurality of House of Commons seats in the Canadian federal election.
1987 – Mass protests demanding direct presidential elections broke out across South Korea.

Isabella Andreini (d. 1604)
Gustave Courbet (b. 1819)
Ninian Comper (b. 1864)
Alexandra Stan (b. 1989)

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From today's featured list

SZA

The discography of SZA, an American singer-songwriter, includes two studio albums, three extended plays (EPs), one live album, and forty-four singles, as of 2024. After self-releasing her first two EPs, SZA signed to the record label Top Dawg Entertainment, under which she released her 2017 debut studio album, Ctrl. The album peaked at number three in the United States Billboard 200, charted there for more than five years, and earned SZA some of her first Grammy nominations in 2018. After a five-year wait, during which SZA appeared in three top-10 collaborations, she released SOS, her second studio album. It became SZA's first number-one album in several countries, was the US's third best-selling album of 2023, and spawned "Kill Bill", the third best-selling single of the year worldwide. SZA's next projects are a deluxe edition of SOS and her third studio album, Lana. Ctrl and SOS have been ranked by Rolling Stone as among the 500 greatest albums of all time. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

An oblique shock is a shock wave that, unlike a normal shock, is inclined with respect to the direction of incoming air. It occurs when a supersonic flow encounters a corner that effectively turns the flow into itself and compresses. This photograph shows an oblique shock at the nose of a Northrop T-38 Talon aircraft, made visible through Schlieren photography.

Photograph credit: NASA & US Air Force (J.T. Heineck, Ed Schairer, Maj. Jonathan Orso, Maj. Jeremy Vanderhal)

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