Almost every popular depiction of a turtle gets this wrong in the same way, treating the shell as a portable house. The reality is stranger, because building a box out…
Usually the oldest ground in the village, and it keeps records. Here are seventeen.
1. The Ground Is Higher Than the Street
Centuries of burial add material rather than remove…
Mostly about air, not water. Here are fifteen.
1. The Bend Is Holding Water on Purpose
Every fixture has a trap, a dip in the pipe that retains water after…
One foot, one shell it cannot leave, and thousands of teeth. Here are fifteen.
1. It Moves by Sending a Wave Along One Foot
Bands of muscle contract in sequence…
The everyday language is wrong in a way that hides something interesting. People say hair turns grey, goes grey, is going grey, as though the strands on a head are…
The appendix is the standard example of a vestigial organ, wheeled out in every discussion of evolutionary leftovers alongside wisdom teeth and the tailbone. It is a worm-shaped tube a…