Ask why the sky is blue and you will get one of three answers. That it reflects the sea. That the atmosphere is somehow blue in the way tinted glass…
When something arrives from elsewhere, people tend to name it after wherever it came through rather than wherever it came from. Multiply that by a few centuries of trade and…
Source: Wikipedia
The curse of Tutankhamun is one of the most durable stories in popular history. Nearly everyone knows the shape of it: archaeologists disturbed a pharaoh's rest, and one after…
Try it. Run your fingers along your own ribs, or the sole of your own foot, using exactly the motion that would reduce you to helpless laughter if somebody else…
Fingerprints feel like a distinctly primate thing, and mostly they are. Humans have them, as do chimpanzees, orangutans and other primates, which makes sense given how recently we shared an…
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch may be the most misunderstood environmental subject there is, and the misunderstanding is remarkably specific. People do not merely have a vague sense of it;…