Lists and Stories
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Is Body Language Universal? A wave. A thumbs-up. A middle finger. You may think you know what these common gestures signify…but what happens when you wave to your European friend across the street and she turns to walk the other way? There’s a reason for that reaction, and it isn’t because your friend is tired of your... -
Is Castilian Spanish Spoken with a Lisp? The story goes like this: a medieval king of Spain spoke with a lisp. Wanting to imitate royalty, courtiers picked it up. The resulting th sound wormed its way into the Spanish language. It would be a great tale of linguistics, history, and idolization of the ruling class—if it were true. The myth... -
Is Cinco de Mayo Mexico’s Independence Day? Perhaps it would be best to state this at the beginning: Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico’s Independence Day. That holiday occurs on September 16 each year, the anniversary of the Grito de Dolores, a speech and battle cry uttered by Roman Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla in 1810 that inspired... -
Is Climate Change Real? By definition, climate change is the periodic modification of Earth’s climate due to changes in the atmosphere and interactions between the atmosphere and other geologic, chemical, biological, and geographic factors within the Earth system. All living things respond to climate and changes in the... -
Is Earth Going to Change the Direction in Which It Rotates? It’s not likely, but there are things that could stop Earth’s rotation and get it moving in the other direction. The force from a collision with a body the size of the Moon or a small planet might be enough to overcome Earth’s rotational inertia, depending on the angle and speed of the collision.... -
Is "Holland" the Same Place as "the Netherlands"? People often use the terms "Holland" and "the Netherlands" interchangeably, but they don’t match up exactly. The official name of the northwestern European land of tulips and windmills is "Koninkrijk der Nederlanden," or Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was founded in 1579 as a union of various... -
Is Honey Sweeter Than Sugar? For the most part, yes, honey tastes sweeter than table sugar. Both honey and sugar are made up of fructose and glucose, but fructose and glucose are bound together in sugar, a combination called sucrose. The fructose and glucose in honey, on the other hand, are largely independent. Fructose is... -
Is Hong Kong a Country? No, Hong Kong is not a country. Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. Hong Kong’s status as a special administrative region stems from its history as a former British colony. By way of treaty or lease with China, the islands and mainland area now known as Hong Kong came under the... -
Is It ISIS or ISIL? English-speaking countries and news agencies have an aversion to long names. So when the jihadist militant group that called itself الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام, or “The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham,” entered the world political sphere, it was referred to with a simple acronym. Well, it... -
Is It Really Dangerous to Swim After Eating? Common wisdom holds that it is unsafe to swim after eating unless one waits for some prescribed period of time—usually between 30 minutes and two hours. The belief is that the pylorus, the gate between the stomach and intestines, will cramp up and render the swimmer unable to stay above water.... -
Is It Safe to Reopen Schools During the COVID-19 Pandemic? This article was originally published on August 19, 2020, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, when an understanding of the disease and its impact was changing daily. When it comes to reopening schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, protecting student and teacher health is of utmost... -
Is It Still Important to Learn Roman Numerals? There’s one reason that the symbols from the ancient Roman system of numerical notation eventually gave way to the Arabic numeral system that is familiar to people around the world: Roman numerals can be rather impractical and cumbersome to use. For example, it might be taken for granted, but... -
Is It True That Squirrels Forget Where They Bury About Half of Their Food? The verdict is out on whether squirrels forget about half of the nuts they bury: surely some squirrels do. Forgotten nuts and acorns grow into trees, so squirrel absentmindedness produces some ecological benefits. While it’s almost certain that squirrels indeed forget some subset of the nuts that... -
Is It Wrong to Own a Flat-Faced Dog? Are flat-faced dogs ugly or cute? It all depends on whom you ask. Although many of us have a hard time understanding the appeal of those bulging eyes and wrinkly, caved-in faces, demand for flat-faced dog breeds such as pugs, bulldogs, French bulldogs, and shih tzus has soared around the world in... -
Is Light Pollution Really Pollution? When we think of pollution, we usually think of chemicals introduced into places where they shouldn’t be: fertilizer and pesticide runoff, diesel fumes, plastic debris along roadsides, and carbon dioxide from industry and transportation. Pollution is often described as the addition of any substance... -
Is Mount Everest Really the Tallest Mountain in the World? Mount Everest is best described as the highest mountain in the world. In other words: it has the greatest elevation, at more than 29,000 feet (about 8,850 meters) above sea level. Other mountains, though, have made claims on being the tallest when measured from points other than sea level.... -
Is Occam’s Razor Valid? If you wake up in the morning to find your lawn wet, you are probably more likely to attribute the wetness to rain or dew than to a giant sentient ice cube with legs that stomped through your neighborhood, leaving a trail of water in its wake. Although seemingly intuitive, our appreciation for... -
Is Sinclair Lewis’s Most Famous Work Any Good? One critique of Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here is its lack of subtlety. Lewis’s novel, published in 1935, dramatizes the possibility of a fascist takeover of the United States. It likely builds on the research and experiences of Lewis’s second wife, Dorothy Thompson; Thompson was the first... -
Is Spontaneous Human Combustion Real? Late at night on Christmas Eve 1885, in the small farming town of Seneca, Illinois, a woman named Matilda Rooney burst into flames. She was alone in her kitchen when it happened. The fire quickly incinerated her entire body except her feet. The incident also claimed the life of her husband,... -
Is the Number of Hurricanes Increasing? Tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons) form over warm areas of the ocean where the water temperature is high enough to fuel evaporation and storm development. If the ocean’s surface temperature is below 26 °C (79 °F), there will not be enough heat available and evaporation rates will be too...