Not set in stone, the English language is constantly evolving to describe new developments and experiences and to match the zeitgeist of the times. With words created out of necessity to describe a new technology, like tweet and telephone, their origins are relatively easy to trace back to the people who first invented them. With others that seem to rise […]
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In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue… with a whole lot of maps and information about the very round Earth. Contrary to popular belief, not only did Columbus realize the world was round, so did his contemporaries. In fact, it was so well accepted that daring seafarers had been exploring the Atlantic for hundreds of years before Columbus’ time. Without […]
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Anyone who’s ever played telephone at camp knows how easy it is for your mind to twist, tweak or completely change what you’ve just heard when you repeat it to someone else. Common throughout history, sometimes when this happens, the adapted quote frequently becomes more popular than the original. Here are just a few examples: Money is the root of […]
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Jay asks: Why do we measure firewood in cords? Because that’s the way we’ve always done it; well, at least since the 17th century (more below). And as creatures of habit, once we start doing something in a certain way, we have a very difficult time changing it. This is true with daily routines, work protocols and, yes, uniform standards […]
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Hard to believe but true- the industrial production of the lovable VW Bug was partially the brainchild of none other than Adolf Hitler. While most of us, when we think of Hitler and the Nazis remember the six million Jews and many, many others killed during the Holocaust, we generally forget that the Nazis were a socialist party committed to […]
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Building on a long tradition of catastrophic financial market crashes, the economic meltdown caused by the bursting of the housing bubble in 2008 is only the latest in a long line of epic stock market fails. In fact, nearly 300 years ago unscrupulous players, political cronies and laissez-faire government combined to create a “too big to fail” company, and then […]
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Like a number of other celebrities, Audrey Hepburn helped fight against the Axis Powers during World War II, joining the ranks of Jimmy Stewart, Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl, James Doohan, Moe Berg, Noel Coward, Julia Child and Lucky Luciano, among others. Best known as a movie actress having starred in such classic movies as Sabrina, Funny Face, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, […]
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Byron H. asks: How is the Dalai Lama chosen? Actually, the Dalai Lama is not technically chosen; rather, he is found. But to understand how it works, you first have to learn the basics of Tibetan Buddhism and its belief in reincarnation. Tibetan Buddhism A unique variant of Buddhism, the Tibetan form draws on ancient Tibetan Bon and the Mahayana […]
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It turns out that something that is (usually) flushed down the toilet can actually be recycled into a number of useful products. Comprised of water, calcium, chloride, potassium, sodium, magnesium, urea, creatinine, nitrogen, uric acid, ammonium, sulphates and phosphates, urine’s beneficial ingredients can be separated from its waste, and used to make fertilizer, medicine, brain cells and, yes, gunpowder. Why […]
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As weird and whacky as some human mating practices can sometimes be, other animals’ reproductive habits can be even stranger at times. While one species gives birth through a penis, another’s testicles’ explode after sex. Further, post-coital cannibalism and V-shaped penises are not all that uncommon. We’ll start with the hyena. Depending on if you notice her udders, the female […]
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Today I found out that for something that’s supposed to be clean and pure, soap has a murky past. No one knows for sure when soap was first invented, although it appears to have been around since the dawn of civilization. One of the reasons it’s so hard to pin down soap’s first appearance is that it can be made […]
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