Alex P. asks: What’s the difference between green and black tea? Isn’t it all just tea from the same plant? Both black and green tea is harvested from an evergreen, tree-like shrub known as camellia sinensis. Most likely originating in China, the camellia sinensis is thought to have first been used to brew a medicinal elixir during the Shang Dynasty […]
Read more
L. Van asks: What happens if a cemetery owner loses their ownership of the land? What about when their land fills up and no new dead people can be put in to pay? How do they afford to keep it going? Cemeteries are just like any other business; they need to make money in order to stay open. However, unlike […]
Read more
Julia G. asks: Why do gas stations get to set their prices ending at 9/10ths of a cent, but nothing else is priced that way? The practice of pricing fuel with a fraction of a penny is thought to have started around the 1930s. While we can’t be sure who was the first to price fuel this way, it seems […]
Read more
Karl W. asks: Why are calico cats always female? While any breed of cat can be born with calico fur, the vast majority of these cats are female, with only about one in three thousand calico cats born male according to the Humane Society. So why are most calico cats female? As you may or may not be aware, females […]
Read more
Amar F. asks: Why are green cards called that when they aren’t green? A Permanent Resident Card from the United States government allows immigrants to legally work, live, and study inside the country. Despite the name “Permanent Resident Card”, it expires after ten years. But those legal residents may apply for citizenship after five years. It is more commonly known […]
Read more
Denny G. asks: Why do baseball managers wear the team’s uniform instead of a suit or something like that like you see in other sports? It especially seems weird because managers in baseball seem to universally let themselves go after their playing days are over and tubby old men do not look good in sports uniforms! Football coaches wear clothes […]
Read more
Elizabeth F. asks: Is white gold really gold? If it is, how do they make it white when it’s an element? The purest form of gold is, of course, golden and is referred to as 24 karat gold. Pure gold is much too soft for use in jewelry and can even be dented by simply pressing your fingernail hard against […]
Read more
Taking the job as President of the United States means that people across the world know just about everything you do or say, including occasionally making a fool of yourself. Former President George W. Bush understood that when he choked on a pretzel while watching a football game, and President Barack Obama knew that the whole world would find out […]
Read more
Juana R. asks: Why do judges wear robes? Is this still a requirement or just a tradition? Most of us in the western world expect judges to wear a robe when they sit behind their bench in a courtroom, and they usually do not disappoint. But we rarely think about how the long, usually black, robe became the standard outfit […]
Read more
Julie H. asks: Why did lead used to be added to paint? The use of lead in everyday objects dates back to the ancient Romans. They used lead in makeup, as an additive in food and wine, in pewter dinnerware, and many other items, including paint. The inexpensive metal was even used in the pipes that transported water throughout the […]
Read more
The names that come to mind at the mention of the Italian Renaissance are the likes of Medici, Da Vinci, and Galileo. Few, however, know the name Bartolomeo Cristofori, an accomplished craftsman who lived and worked during that era. You may not know his name, but you do know his greatest invention- the “harpsichord with loud and soft,” better known […]
Read more
Scott S. asks: When you look at pictures of individual snowflakes, the snowflakes are clear. I was just wondering why is snow white and not clear then? First, it’s important to understand what’s going on when we see certain colors. Visible light from the Sun or other light source comes in a variety of wavelengths that human eyes interpret as […]
Read more
Brenda V. asks: Why are elections held on Tuesday? Why not Saturday when most people aren’t working? Americans traditionally head to the ballot box on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November to vote in national elections. Tuesday elections only became the official country-wide rule in 1845, something that hasn’t changed much since. So why Tuesday? The Founding Fathers […]
Read more
Xing U. asks: Why do kids get the summer off of school? The commonly touted explanation for students having summers off from school dates back to a time when the United States’ economy relied heavily on agriculture in order to survive. Students needed to leave school in the summer in order to work on the farm alongside their families. The […]
Read more
Tom C. asks: The V in V-Day was for Victory right? So what does the D in D-Day stand for? The Battle of Normandy, also known as D-Day, started on June 6, 1944 and was the beginning of the major invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. But why was it called “D-Day”? You might at first be […]
Read more
On December 22, 1992, former school teacher Martin Almada discovered thousands of documents that detailed the systematic repression of Paraguayans under the government of dictator General Alfredo Stroessner. Almada stumbled upon what has come to be known as Paraguay’s Archives of Terror in the basement of a police station in the capital city of Asuncion while working with a judge, […]
Read more
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio on May 18, 1915, John R. Fox grew up in Ohio before attending Wilberforce University, an African American college located in a town of the same name. He met his future wife, Arlene, there while he studied biology and science. The couple moved to Brockton, Massachusetts after getting married, where they had a daughter, Sandra. At […]
Read more
Jeremy R. asks: Was Scotch tape invented by the Scottish? Despite the name, Scotch tape wasn’t invented by the Scottish. It was invented by a college dropout named Richard Drew from Minnesota who worked for a small sandpaper company founded in 1902 called Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, later known as 3M. The name “Scotch” itself has an origin story almost […]
Read more