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 “rules” of English). But here’s one that repeatedly comes up, even among native

Every March 17, people in Ireland and around the world suddenly turn green. Shirts, hats, beads, and even rivers take on the color as part of the lively celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. This playful tradition—often called the “wearing of the green”—has become one of the most recognizable customs

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 it’s spent, say, reading an article about yawning. (Are you yawning yet?) The visual of someone yawning, or even

According to the American Kennel Club, “wet dog smell” 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 don’t usually smell those compounds

Whale songs serve as a means of communication among individuals and groups. These vocalizations help whales share information about their location, identity, and even emotional states. For instance, baleen whales, such as humpbacks, produce songs that are not only beautiful but also serve to

There’s nothing quite so interesting as the social interactions in the wolf pack. Wolves live in packs of about 6 to 10 members. Pack formation is possible because wolves are highly social creatures that develop strong bonds with one another. One of the ways in which wolves interact is through

Yaks have long hair because it is essential for survival: it provides superior insulation against the extreme cold of their native high-altitude environments, originally stretching from the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau in the south to Lake Baikal in the north. The dense, double-layered coat,

Mobile telephones, tablets, portable video game units, and other electronic devices are ubiquitous 21st-century time killers. We can play games on them, communicate with family and friends on them, and browse the Internet on them. One would think that they would come in very handy to pass the time

Salt is added to pasta water primarily to season the pasta directly as it cooks. Aside from flavor considerations, though, adding salt to pasta water also slightly raises its boiling point in a process known as boiling point elevation. Although this change is minimal, it can help pasta cook more

There are several theories about why zebras have stripes. Scientists believe that one of the main reasons is camouflage coloration, creating disruptive patterns to confuse predators. When zebras stand together in a group, their stripes create a visual illusion that makes it difficult for predators

The box score of a baseball game is filled with all kinds of shorthand, which is necessitated by the desire for a concise encapsulation of the contest and by the constraints of print space, since box scores were found only in newspapers for the first century of their existence. As a result,

The suffix -saurus, which appears at the end of the scientific names of various dinosaurs (and in shortened form at the end of the word dinosaur itself) is a Latinized form of the Greek word sauros. Saurus, which literally means “lizard,” appears as a suffix in the names of many dinosaurs because

A mushroom cloud is the iconic and terrifying result of a thermonuclear explosion, but actually a mushroom cloud can be created by any massive release of heat, such as from a volcano or from something like the 2020 Beirut explosion. Heat rises, and the incredible blast of heat and energy from an

It’s breathtaking. It’s a digital masterpiece. Why do its hands look like that? In July 2022 OpenAI, an artificial intelligence (AI) company, introduced DALL-E 2, one of the first AI image generators widely available to the public. Users could type in a prompt—anything from “Beyoncé eating pizza”

Blood is often described as having a metallic taste because it contains a large amount of iron, mainly within hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying protein in red blood cells. When iron in hemoglobin reacts with air or lipids on the skin or in saliva, it catalyzes a chemical reaction that produces

Whether cilantro tastes fresh and citrusy or horribly soapy largely comes down to genetics. For most people, cilantro (the leaves of the coriander plant) has a pleasing combination of flavors reminiscent of parsley and citrus. But for others—including, famously, the chef Julia Child—the herb is

This article was originally published on July 2, 2020, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when much was unknown or partially known about the disease and its impact. As the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded in the United States and health experts have collected increasing amounts of

While we seem to know a lot about alcoholic beverages and their consumption, scientific research on hangovers is surprisingly limited. The current working theories offer only partial explanations or have been contradicted by research. So we don’t really know what causes hangovers, but we have some

When cartographers create a map, one of the difficulties they face is accurately depicting a curved surface as a flat image. All map projections produce some distortion, and the larger the area, the more pronounced this distortion becomes. This is why rendering a spherical Earth as a flat map has

Hair turns gray as melanocytes—the cells that generate melanin, which gives hair (and skin) its coloration—deteriorate because of age, environment, or disease. Hair doesn’t gray uniformly: it may gray on some parts of the body earlier than on other parts. The age one goes gray is determined in part

The key difference between the growth of head hair and body hair lies in the duration of the active growth phase: Scalp hair follicles remain in active growth for several years, whereas follicles in other body regions enter the transition and resting phases much sooner. Hair growth occurs in a

Exercise is painful. As the cliché goes, “No pain, no gain.” When the body exerts itself, pumping action out of muscles to tear them down and build their mass, it’s left with a soreness. Doctors, coaches, and mothers all recommend heat for tense sore muscles—warm baths, moist towels, hot-water

Ice floats on water because it is less dense than its liquid form. In the liquid state, most water molecules are associated in a polymeric structure—that is, chains of molecules linked by weak hydrogen bonds. As water freezes, these molecules become more rigidly organized, forming an open,

Of the 50 states that make up the United States, Louisiana is the only one that designates each of its largest local administrative districts as a “parish.” Of the other states, 48 use the term county and Alaska uses the term borough. Why does Louisiana use parish? The answer lies in the state’s

If you consult a map of Minnesota, you will see a tiny northern notch of land that borders the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario and is separated from the rest of the state by a lake. The only land route connecting it to Minnesota goes through Canada. This is the Northwest Angle, which is

More than 20 million tons of salt are used every year to melt snow and ice in cold northern regions. But how does salt do it? First, it’s important to understand a bit about H2O in the winter. Thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius) is its freezing point—that is, when water reaches 32 °F,

The Earth rotates because of the conservation of angular momentum acquired from the rotation of the solar nebula, a gaseous cloud that is believed to have formed the solar system. Angular momentum is the measure of a rotating object’s tendency to continue spinning. It stays constant until external

In many countries the New Year begins on January 1. However, this wasn’t always the case. In fact, for centuries, other dates marked the start of the calendar, including March 25 and December 25. So how did January 1 become New Year’s Day? We can partly thank the Roman king Numa Pompilius.

The Tropic of Cancer is a line of latitude approximately 23°27′ north of Earth’s Equator. This latitude corresponds to the northernmost declination of the Sun’s ecliptic to the celestial equator. At the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, about June 21, the direct (that is, 90°) rays of the

The United States experiences the most tornadoes of any country in the world: more than 1,000 per year have been reported every year since 1990 in the U.S. This high count of twisters results primarily from the country’s topography, which features a large central core with relatively flat terrain.

Caffeine is one of the most popular stimulants in the world and is most commonly consumed in coffee. People turn to caffeine to wake up in the morning and to stay energized throughout the day, but there’s a downside: Too much caffeine can keep you awake even when you’re ready to sleep. The key to

We drink water, we swim in it, we wash with it, and we cool things down with it. Because water is so common, many of us fail to notice just how strange it is compared to other substances. When we plop an ice cube or two into our drink during the warmer months, we watch it float above the liquid in

Your voice changes as you become an adult and may change even further as you age. The pitch of a person’s voice depends largely on how tightly the vocal cord muscles contract as the air from the lungs hits them. A child’s voice is high because the larynx (voice box) is small and the vocal cords are

Daylight Saving Time (DST) was introduced in countries around the world during the 20th century with the intention of lowering energy consumption and aligning sunlight hours to be more amenable to active work hours in the summertime. When DST was imposed in the United States through the passage of

U.S. Pres. Donald Trump has signed an executive order rebranding the Department of Defense as the Department of War. The president can’t unilaterally make this decision, but it wouldn’t be the first time that the country had a Department of War. On August 7, 1789, Pres. George Washington signed

The United States Constitution states, in Section 8 of Article I, that Congress shall have the power to “fix the standard of weights and measures.” Deciding on a system to regulate how the U.S. measured objects, compared lengths, and weighed itself was without a doubt a high priority for the

According to most paleontologists, birds branched off of one of the main dinosaur lineages more than 100 million years ago. Numerous dinosaur fossils show that dinosaurs did indeed have teeth, but why are modern birds toothless? What happened to birds between then and now to make them this way?

Emerging market (EM) shares could give your portfolio a long-term tailwind, providing exposure to companies in fast-growing countries with developing economies. But for every emerging market success story like South Korea, there’s a Venezuela or a Russia that struggles to move forward. Like

John F. Kennedy: Early life: …thesis into a best-selling book, Why England Slept (1940).

Peru has earned a reputation for a so-called “presidential curse”: Eight presidents have taken office since 2016, an extraordinary turnover in a decade, and a ninth is set to be elected following a June 7, 2026, runoff. Many of the country’s recent leaders were removed through impeachment or forced

The election of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost as the first American pope in the history of the Roman Catholic Church surprised many Vatican watchers, who had wondered if a U.S. passport would forever be disqualifying for the papacy. The answer as to why there hadn’t been an American pontiff

A crown. A ring. Your cousin. What else do you need for a royal wedding? At this point, the fact that so many royals through history wed relatives in what are now termed consanguineous marriages is something of a history joke. But why did they do it in the first place? Before we begin, an

The Colossus of Rhodes graced the main harbour of the ancient city of Rhodes, both as a monument to the sun god Helios, the patron of the island of Rhodes, and as a testament to the city’s independence after the long siege of Demetrius I Poliorcetes. But the mighty statue, standing 105 feet (32

Japan is one of the world’s most advanced countries. You can see it in the country’s modern architecture (which is built to resist earthquake damage and tsunamis) and the Shinkansen, its high-speed passenger rail system (which connects residents of the islands of Honshu, Kyushu, and Hokkaido).

Ramy Youssef: Early life and career: …brief appearance in the comedy Why Him? (2016), which starred Bryan Cranston and James Franco. Other small roles followed, including in three 2017 episodes of the series Mr. Robot (2015–19), starring Rami Malek, and opposite Joaquin Phoenix in Gus Van Sant’s biographical comedy-drama Don’t

Why I Live at the P.O., short story by Eudora Welty, first published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1941 and collected in A Curtain of Green (1941). This comic monologue by Sister, a young woman in a small Mississippi town who has set up housekeeping in the post office to escape from her eccentric

Animal Farm: A colonial upbringing and the Spanish Civil War: …he later explained in his 1946 essay “Why I Write,” while his earlier experiences had left him with a “natural hatred of authority,” the rise of German dictator Adolf Hitler and the war in Spain seemed to shift something in him such that “thereafter I knew where I stood.” He…

The belief that the number 13 brings bad luck can be traced back to various historical and cultural beliefs. In Norse mythology, the story of Loki crashing a banquet in Valhalla is a significant contributor. Loki, the god of mischief, was the 13th guest at a dinner party, and his presence led to

Request a dozen eggs from a farmer, a dozen steaks from a butcher, or a dozen pencils from a traveling office supplies salesman, and you will almost certainly receive 12 of your chosen item (counting errors do happen). But a baker’s dozen is commonly understood to mean 13. Are bakers just bad at

The deviled egg gets its name from the culinary use of the term deviled in the 18th and 19th centuries to describe dishes that were heavily seasoned with hot spices and condiments, perhaps as an allusion to the Devil and the blistering heat of hell. The preparation of deviled eggs, which generally

The word buck as a term for the U.S. dollar dates back to the 1700s, when deer hides, or buckskins, were often used in trade on the American frontier. Settlers and traders in sparsely populated regions relied on bartering, and buckskins were durable, valuable, and widely accepted. Some of the

It’s one of the first things you learn in chemistry: Atoms and molecules are so small that even a few grams of a substance contains so many atoms or molecules that counting them by the billions or trillions is just as pointless as counting them one by one. Chemists therefore use a unit called the

The marathon’s origin traces back to ancient Greece, where a legendary Greek soldier ran from Marathon to Athens, covering about 25 miles (40 km), to announce a military victory. This heroic run inspired the marathon race, which was first introduced in the modern Olympic Games in 1896. Initially,

If you get a bottle of vodka from your local liquor store, you’ll probably see two different numbers telling you how much alcohol it contains. The first is an alcohol by volume (ABV) percentage, which is relatively intuitive to understand: it’s the percentage of alcohol in the overall liquid and is

Antarctica can be classified as a desert because it receives very little precipitation. The average amount—which falls almost exclusively as snow—is only about 2 inches (50 mm) per year (liquid water equivalent) over the inland polar plateau, though the coastal belt receives considerably more,

Benjamin Franklin appears on the $100 bill not because he was a president—he wasn’t—but because of the role he played in shaping America’s identity, economy, and institutions. His presence on one of the most widely recognized denominations of U.S. currency is a tribute to his many contributions as

Actually, bird poop, per se, is not white. Birds, unlike mammals, do not have separate exits for urine and feces. Both waste products are eliminated simultaneously through the cloaca. While mammals excrete nitrogenous wastes mostly in the form of urea, birds convert it to uric acid or guanine,

“February is Black History Month.” Since the 1970s that familiar declaration has introduced countless celebrations of African American history and achievement, from Black History Minutes on local television stations to the pronouncements of U.S. presidents. But why is February designated as the

Stilton. Roquefort. Gorgonzola. These are just some of the varieties of blue cheese known for their sharp, piquant flavor—a flavor that is produced by mold that has grown in the cheese. But isn’t mold dangerous? If so, why is blue cheese safe to eat? Some molds are indeed toxic and dangerous to

The story is a familiar one to many music lovers. A bluesman meets a sinister, shadowy figure at a crossroads late at night. The mysterious figure takes the musician’s guitar, tunes it, and hands it back to its owner. Suddenly, the bluesman can play the guitar better than ever. He and the mystery

Spy thriller Dhurandhar (“Expert”), one of the best-performing Bollywood films of 2025, polarized opinion in India and abroad when it released on December 5. Dhurandhar, the first of a two-part series by director Aditya Dhar, depicts an anti-terror covert operation conducted by India on Pakistani

Bread is bad for ducks because it offers little nutrition. Bread fills ducks up without supplying the nutrients—crucial proteins, vitamins, and minerals—that they’d get from their natural diet of aquatic plants, insects, and small fish. This can lead to malnutrition because after feeding on bread

California is called the “Golden State” primarily because of its historical association with the California Gold Rush. The transformative event began in January 1848 when gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill, along the American River in Coloma, California, approximately 50 miles (80 km) east of

Cashmere is derived from the soft undercoat of the Kashmir goat, a breed that produces a limited amount of this precious fiber. Each goat yields only a few grams to about half a kilogram (1.1 pound) of cashmere annually, making it a scarce resource. To create a single sweater, the fleece of 4 to 6

In St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, an innocuous marble floor tile hides more than the building’s foundation. Four oddly matched royals are buried beneath: King Henry VIII, Jane Seymour, King Charles I, and an infant child of Queen Anne. Originally, the vault was intended as only a temporary

Charlotte, North Carolina, is called the Queen City because it was named for Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III of Great Britain. The city’s name was the residents’ second attempt to find favor with the king by honoring Charlotte with a place-name. George became king in 1760, and in 1761

Chicago is called the “Second City” due to a combination of historical and cultural factors, primarily stemming from its rivalry with New York City and the name of a book by A.J. Liebling, who coined the term in the 1950s. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chicago was in fierce competition

While the wind might blow off Lake Michigan, the nickname “Windy City” is rooted in Chicago’s reputation for verbose political speeches. In the late 19th century, the city was known for its blustering politicians—New York City’s The Sun newspaper accused them of being “full of hot air”—and they

Chilean sea bass commands a high price because of a combination of factors: its scarcity, arising from its deep, remote Antarctic habitat, which complicates and inflates the cost of fishing operations, and a robust demand, particularly in fine-dining settings, fueled by its celebrated rich, buttery

Christmas, the holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, is celebrated by a majority of Christians on December 25 in the Gregorian calendar. But early Christians did not celebrate his birth, and no one knows on which date Jesus was actually born (some scholars believe that the actual date

It is difficult to pin down when the word joe came to mean coffee or when the phrase cup of joe came into use. Several conjectures related to the slang term are posited as its etymology, but historical evidence and linguistic analysis help us identify the most plausible theories. The term joe seems

The nickname Constitution State refers to Connecticut’s adoption of the Fundamental Orders in 1638, a pioneering framework for self-governance. Created by settlers in towns along the Connecticut River, the orders outlined a system in which magistrates were elected and laws were made by an elected

Earth rotates eastward, a counterclockwise motion when viewed from a point above the North Pole. The hypothetical line about which Earth spins is its axis. Though invisible, the axis is said to be tilted, because of the way Earth aligns with the Sun in Earth’s orbital path: one of Earth’s poles,

There are three basic macronutrients that the body needs to survive: fats, carbohydrates, and proteins. Proteins are directly involved with the chemical processes that support life, and proteins help compose the enzymes, hormones, and tissues that form our bodies and keep them running smoothly.

“The Hillbilly Cat.” “Elvis the Pelvis.” “The Memphis Flash.” The renowned singer and dominant performer Elvis Presley has had no shortage of nicknames, but his most memorable moniker is also his grandest: “the King of Rock ’n’ Roll,” or simply “the King.” Although its exact debut is unknown, that

Finland is often cited as the happiest country in the world because it has topped the World Happiness Report for several years in a row since 2018. The World Happiness Report is an annual publication that ranks global well-being using data collected from more than 140 countries. The data measures

Flour is bleached to speed up the aging process, which improves its baking qualities. Unbleached flour also is aged to enhance its baking performance, but it is aged naturally after milling instead of through bleaching. Because different forms of bleach are used to whiten or lighten fabrics, hair,

In the world’s pursuit of petroleum and natural gas, the technique of fracking—injecting a liquid at high pressure into underground rock to open fissures and release natural gas or crude oil—surged starting at the end of the 20th century. Although fracking processes had been developed decades

Grass is green because of the presence of chlorophyll throughout the leaves and stems. Chlorophyll is a pigment that allows plants to capture energy from the Sun in order to power the process of photosynthesis. Given that most grasses lack trunks or woody stems like trees or shrubs, their

The island of Ireland comprises the Republic of Ireland, which is a sovereign country, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. The Republic of Ireland endured a hard-fought birth. Ruled from Great Britain since the 13th century, its citizens, many of them suppressed Catholics,

It would be natural to think that a spelling bee gets its name from the buzz created when students compete in bees at the local, state, and national levels. Natural, but wrong. This kind of bee has absolutely nothing to do with that kind of bee. Let’s start with the term bee, which generally refers

The day following Thanksgiving—commonly referred to as Black Friday—has become one of the busiest shopping days of the year in the United States. National chain stores traditionally offer limited money-saving specials on a wide variety of goods in an effort to lure shoppers into stores while

Historians use the phrase “Cold War” to refer to the long period of rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and their allies following World War II. The Cold War was unique in that it did not involve direct military confrontation between the U.S.-led Western bloc and the Soviet-led

The Mandela effect is named after former South African president Nelson Mandela due to a widespread but false memory about his death. The term was coined by Fiona Broome, a paranormal researcher, after she discovered in 2009 that she and many others shared a vivid, yet incorrect, memory of Mandela

The term Persian Gulf refers to Persia—a historic region associated with modern Iran—whose coastal lands lie along the gulf’s northern shoreline. From early in recorded history the gulf was identified consistently with its northern shore because of the prominence of the Persian Achaemenian Empire

About 1490 Leonardo da Vinci drew a figure of a nude man with the arms and legs in two positions: one in which the hands and feet touch the boundaries of a square and another in which they touch the perimeter of a circle. The drawing is held in the Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia, where it is

Touching a manatee is illegal in the United States. The ban’s aim is to protect these vulnerable marine mammals from harm and stress caused by human interaction. The Florida manatee, a subspecies of the West Indian manatee, is safeguarded under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered

Along the Andaman and Nicobar Islands union territory in the Bay of Bengal in India lies a remote island called North Sentinel. Covered by thick forests, North Sentinel Island has no roads, ports, or any modern infrastructure. For centuries it has been home to the Sentinelese, a hunter-gatherer

This article was originally published on March 19, 2020. Knowing the incubation period of an infectious disease—the time from exposure to the causative agent to when symptoms first appear—can provide important information during an outbreak, including when infected individuals will be symptomatic

Japan’s population has been declining steadily since 2005 primarily because of a decrease in births, which have consistently been lower than the number of deaths per year. The birth rate in Japan dropped from about 19 per 1,000 people in 1970 to just 6 in 2023. Until the mid-1970s, the total

About 20 percent of South Korea’s population of 49.3 million (2015 est.) has the family name Kim. That’s about 10 million people. Lee is the second most common name, and Park (or Pak) is the third. All told, about 45 percent of Koreans have one of these three names! But why are Kims so particularly

The origins of Labor Day can be traced to the labor movement of the late 19th century in the United States. There is some uncertainty as to who deserves credit for the idea; most cite either Peter J. McGuire, a union leader who founded the United Brotherhood of Carpenters in 1881, or Matthew

Los Angeles is called the “City of Angels” because the literal meaning of its name in Spanish is “The Angels.” The city’s full original name was “El Pueblo de la Reina de los Angeles,” which means “The Town of the Queen of the Angels.” This name was given by the Spanish settlers who established the

Making moonshine—a term that can refer to any illicitly distilled liquor—is illegal primarily because of the significant health hazards homemade alcohol poses. Unregulated production environments can introduce dangerous contaminants and faulty distillation techniques may leave methanol, a poisonous

Since the late 20th century, there has been a growing movement in the United States to legalize marijuana. In 1996 California made news as the first U.S. state to approve the decriminalization of pot for medical use, and medical marijuana was later allowed in other states. Then in 2012 Washington

The distinct reddish color of Mars is primarily due to the presence of iron oxide (commonly called “rust”) in the dust and rocks that cover the planet’s surface. Mars has been associated with the color red for centuries. In various historical cultures and mythologies, Mars has been linked to death,

Pasteurization is a heating process used to make foods and beverages, including milk, safe for consumption. First suggested for milk in 1886, it was widely adopted in the early 20th century to combat diseases once commonly carried in raw milk, such as tuberculosis, typhoid, and diphtheria. Today

Missouri has long been known as the Show Me state, but the origins of that nickname aren’t entirely clear. Perhaps the best-known story involves a Missouri representative named Willard Duncan Vandiver. After a tour of the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1899, the congressman was invited to a meeting of

You have a new job—congrats! Even better, it’s payday! But, wait. You were supposed to earn $1,000 this pay period and not all of that money is in your bank account. What happened? Let’s go through your pay stub to learn how to read it. Employers use different software and companies to produce

New Jersey became known as the Garden State in the 18th century because of its fertile land and agricultural productivity. Although modern New Jersey is highly urbanized and has one of the United States’ highest population densities, agriculture remains a vital part of the economy and culture.