From today's featured articleImleria badia, the bay bolete, is an edible, pored mushroom found in Europe and North America, growing in coniferous or mixed woods on the ground or on decaying tree stumps. Both the common and scientific names refer to the bay-coloured cap, which is almost spherical in young specimens before broadening and flattening out to 15 cm (6 in) or more in diameter. On the cap's underside are small yellowish pores that bruise dull blue-grey when injured. The smooth, cylindrical stalk, measuring 4–9 cm (1.6–3.5 in) long by 1–2 cm (0.4–0.8 in) thick, is coloured like the cap, but paler. Regarded as a choice edible mushroom by some food writers, such as Antonio Carluccio, it is sold in markets in Europe and central Mexico. The mushroom can bioaccumulate mercury, cobalt, nickel and other metals; radioactive caesium levels spiked in specimens collected in Europe following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. (Full article...)
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On this dayNovember 13: Feast day of Saint John Chrysostom (Eastern Orthodox Church)
Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland (d. 1440) · Dorothea Erxleben (b. 1715) · Margaret Murray (d. 1963)
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The Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida is a Catholic basilica located in the Brazilian city of Aparecida. According to local tradition, a group of fishermen caught a statue of the Virgin Mary in their nets in 1717, a find which considerably improved their subsequent catches. One of the fishermen kept the statue at his home, which became a popular site for pilgrims. A small chapel was built to house it, but was replaced by successively larger churches as the statue's popularity grew. The present building was built from 1955, and can accommodate 45,000 people. Photograph: Valter Campanato, Agência Brasil.
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