The Gist

Is Your Favorite World Oddity Wondrous Enough for Atlas Obscura?

Atlas Obscura’s first printed book is your guide to Cincinnati’s lost subway, Sweden’s nose museum, and the salt-cured mummies of Iran.

Turkmenistan Fire Pit
A fire pit in Turkmenistan.

Igor Sasin/Getty Images

Listen to Episode 584 of Slate’s The Gist:

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The world is not flat, Google hasn’t yet mapped everything, and there are yet places in the world that don’t take your AmEx card. Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders is the immense catalog of the world’s curiosities, from the rainbow river of South America to the medical device museum in Minnesota. On The Gist, editors Dylan Thuras and Ella Morton of Atlas Obscura explain their taxonomy of awe-inspiring sights.

In the Spiel, the return of the Trump Anxiety Hotline.

Today’s sponsors:

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Twitter: @slategist