Nobody numbered a house until somebody official wanted something. Here are eleven.
1. Numbering Was Imposed, Not Adopted
Systematic house numbering spread through Europe in the eighteenth century, introduced by…
Busier at two in the morning than at two in the afternoon. Here are fifteen.
1. Foxes Are Not Hunting Your Bins by Accident
Urban foxes hold territories they know…
The intuitive picture is that an infection generates heat, the way a fire in a room raises the room's temperature. It does not work like that. The heat is produced…
Source: Wikipedia
The list of five senses is about two and a half thousand years old and it was never complete. The one left out is the one you are using…
A traffic light looks like the simplest control system in existence: three lamps, one at a time, in a fixed order. Almost everything about it is a compromise between constraints…
Source: Wikipedia
Most insects live fast. A mayfly is famous for having a day. Periodical cicadas run the opposite strategy to an extreme that has no real parallel: nearly two decades…