Lists and Stories
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Why Do Scientific Names Have Two Parts? Biologists have identified and described millions of species on Earth, from towering redwoods to microscopic bacteria, and each one has a name that is clear, consistent, and recognized worldwide. To accomplish this, biology uses a standardized system known as binomial nomenclature to uniquely name... -
Why Do Sharks Attack? Despite misleading media reports suggesting that shark attacks are on the rise, such assaults on humans are exceedingly rare and even more rarely are fatal. While the number of recorded shark attacks has risen in recent years, the rate per capita has not. Our species is simply undergoing a massive... -
Why Do Sliced Apples Turn Brown? You open your lunch box to discover that the lovely apple you sliced this morning now appears unsightly and brown. Why does this happen? This unappetizing phenomenon is actually due to a chain of biochemical reactions known as âenzymatic browning.â When an apple is injured (or cut into pieces), the... -
Why Do Some Animals Eat Their Mates After Sex? The practice of sexual cannibalism may sound like a horrific piece of fiction, but in fact this occurs in the behavioral repertoires of several animals. It refers to the eating of all or part of oneâs mate during courtship or copulation. This behavior can seem like an evolutionary puzzle: Why would... -
Why Do Some Animals Hibernate? Certain animals hibernate because food supplies become scarce during the winter months. By going into a long deep sleep, they bypass this period completely, waking up when food becomes more plentiful. Bears are most commonly associated with hibernation (although they are not considered true... -
Why Do Some Cicadas Appear Only Every 17 Years? You already know why cicadas are so unbelievably noisy. But why do some of them appear aboveground only every 17 years? The 17-year cicadas are species of periodical cicadas, a group of hemipterans with the longest known insect life cycle. The largest brood makes its appearance every 17 years, like... -
Why Do Some Foods Explode in the Microwave? You grumble as you grudgingly wipe the splattered spaghetti sauce or baked potato shrapnel from the inside of your microwave. What is it about these wonders of modern engineering that makes some foods more prone to exploding than other forms of cooking? Microwave ovens use microwave radiation (a... -
Why Do Some People Call Football âSoccerâ? One of the best-known differences between British and American English is the fact that the sport known as football in Great Britain is usually called soccer in the United States. Because the sport originated in England, it is often assumed that soccer is an Americanism. In fact, the word is... -
Why Do Television Shows Use Laugh Tracks? Imagine that youâre the creator and show runner of the newest hit comedy show on television. Only it isnât a hit yet, and your live studio audience isnât giving you the hearty laughs the show deserves. Do you film the show all over again, hoping that this time the audience will laugh? Or is there... -
Why Do Tennis Players Wear White at Wimbledon? The Wimbledon Championships are the oldest and most prestigious of the four tennis Grand Slam tournaments. (The other three are the Australian, French, and U.S. opens.) As such, Wimbledon is awash in long-lasting traditions and features, such as the habit of calling the menâs and womenâs... -
Why Do We Carve Pumpkins at Halloween? The jack-oâ-lantern has a long history with Halloween, although our favorite demonic faces havenât always been carved out of pumpkins. Their origin comes from an Irish myth about Stingy Jack, who tricked the Devil for his own monetary gain. When Jack died, God didnât allow him into heaven, and the... -
Why Do We Celebrate Birthdays? Annual celebrations and commemorations came about with the invention of the calendar. Not much is known about the first birthday celebrations in history, in part because they are very ancient. The earliest ones we know about were for nobles, in which the celebration played a performative social... -
Why Do We Celebrate Halloween? Did you know that parts of Halloween may have been around for more than a thousand years? What began as serious religious observances has morphed over centuries, becoming increasingly secular as the religious trappings all but disappeared. Today Halloween is a holiday of spooky fun characterized by... -
Why Do We Drop a Ball on New Yearâs Eve? âThe Times Building will be especially illuminated to-night in honor of the birth of 1908,â announced The New York Times on December 31, 1907. âThe exact moment of the New Yearâs arrival will be signalized by the dropping of an electrically illuminated ball above the tower. The ball will be five... -
Why Do We Eat Turkey on Thanksgiving? As celebrated in the United States, the holiday of Thanksgiving usually revolves around a bountiful meal. Typical dishes include bread stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and, above all, turkey. How did turkey become the centerpiece of this feast? It is often assumed that todayâs... -
Why Do We Give Valentine Cards? Of the many Valentineâs Day traditions, one of the most enduring is the classroom card exchange. Each year, typically, elementary school children choose a box of valentines featuring their latest favorite superhero, princess, snack, or Internet meme, fill out a card for each of their classmates,... -
Why Do We Have Earwax? Sticky, gooey, oftentimes orange, and homemade within the earsâearwax is considered a gross nuisance that people tend to frequently remove and clean from the body. Whether itâs by cotton swab, an ill-advised and dangerous method, or by an otolaryngologist, people go to great lengths for... -
Why Do We Say âA Pair of Pantsâ? Ask anyone who is learning English as a second language what they think the most-maddening oddity of the language is and you are bound to get several different answers (there are, after all, dozens of exceptions to the ârulesâ of English). But hereâs one that repeatedly comes up, even among native... -
Why Do We Yawn? According to some very attentive researchers, human beings tend to yawn about eight times per day. That number is probably larger if the day is spent with other people who yawn, or if itâs spent, say, reading an article about yawning. (Are you yawning yet?) The visual of someone yawning, or even... -
Why Do Wet Dogs Have A Wet Dog Smell? According to the American Kennel Club, âwet dog smellâ is not due to the dog itself but to the yeast and bacteria that live in dog fur. These innocuous microorganisms regularly release volatile compounds as they live out their lives on our canine pets, but we donât usually smell those compounds...