The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader It involved only a half-dozen cars and 17 men, but this was one race that not only made history- it changed it. Get a Horse In 1908 the promise of the automobile was just that- a promise. The industry was in its infancy, and most people still relied on horses […]
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The term crowdfunding, a process by which a person raises money by asking others for small donations, has become popular online during the past few years. Websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo offer individuals a platform from which to make their cases to an international community. Mike Hayes of Illinois used crowdfunding to pay for all four years of his college […]
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The word “claque” is derived from the 16th century French term “claquer”, which roughly meant “to clap”, and is largely used to refer to a group of individuals hired to give a pre-determined response to a performance, be it positive, negative or anything in between. Individual members of a claque are generally referred to as “claquers” or “claqueurs” and for a […]
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Saburō Sakai is perhaps one of the most famous Japanese air aces to emerge from WWII, credited with at least 28 aerial victories and shooting down or severely damaging well over 60 Allied aircraft, despite later in the war flying a plane that was vastly inferior to his opponents’ planes. Saburō Sakai was born one of seven children in a poor farming […]
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Quick Fact #917: Lyman Ward and Cindy Pickett, better known as Mr. and Mrs. Bueller on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, first met on the set of that film and subsequently got married in 1986. Like in the movie, they had two children, a boy and a girl; unfortunately, they did not name them Ferris and Jeanie, but rather Shane and […]
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Alex P. asks: What’s the difference between green and black tea? Isn’t it all just tea from the same plant? Both black and green tea is harvested from an evergreen, tree-like shrub known as camellia sinensis. Most likely originating in China, the camellia sinensis is thought to have first been used to brew a medicinal elixir during the Shang Dynasty […]
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J. Emerson asks: Is it really possible to learn to speed read and if it is what are the best methods? 95% of college educated individuals read at a rate between 200-400 words per minute according to extensive research done by University of Massachusetts Amherst professor Dr. Keith Rayner. However, there exists a small, but rather vocal subset of people […]
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When it comes to nations with a long and rich history of space travel and exploration, Britain isn’t normally a country that comes to most people’s minds. However, they were the third country in the world to operate a satellite in orbit. It’s just a shame America ended up accidentally killing it just a few months later… The satellite in […]
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Julia G. asks: Why do gas stations get to set their prices ending at 9/10ths of a cent, but nothing else is priced that way? The practice of pricing fuel with a fraction of a penny is thought to have started around the 1930s. While we can’t be sure who was the first to price fuel this way, it seems […]
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Nancy P. asks: How were raisins made before seedless grapes? Leaving fruit to dry out in the sun is one of the oldest and easiest ways of preserving this variety of food- our ancestors being the type to never waste anything edible, even if it is sometimes past its prime (see: The History of French Toast). Not only did dried […]
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Mark S. asks: Why does brown sugar form lumps but regular sugar doesn’t? When we say the word “sugar”, it’s highly likely that the first image to pop into your head is that of the ultra-fine, pure white granulated kind you can buy in most supermarkets. But how does this kind of sugar differ from the less popular brown kind, […]
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Paul H. asks: Why doesn’t the moon have a cool name like the moons of other planets in our solar system? Almost every planet in our solar system and their respective orbiting moons have names taken directly from Greek and Roman mythology. For example, Mars is named for the Greek and Roman god of War, also known as Ares, while […]
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Julie N. asks: Why is “C” the default drive letter in computers? For nearly as long as hard disk drives have been placed in personal computers running certain popular operating systems (notably MS-DOS/Windows), the primary hard disk has been designated with the letter “C”. But why? The idea for designating different storage devices with simple letters is generally attributed to […]
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Sometimes the worst nightmares are the ones you don’t have. There are numerous conditions, disorders, and illnesses that either limit or prevents the amount of sleep an individual is able to get. Many of them are quite dangerous, but none of them are as frightening or rare as fatal familial insomnia. Prion diseases are a category of rare fatal brain […]
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Don H. asks: Do car blinkers click naturally or is there some mechanism added to make the clicking noise to let you know your blinker is on? Motor vehicle directional signals have been around almost as long as cars, and as early as 1909, a device was patented that had hand-shaped lights that indicated to other drivers which way a […]
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Through the latter half of the 19th century, Mark Twain was on a mission to attack pretense with satire. One of his most hilarious, if completely scandalous and by many standards inappropriate, works was a lecture he gave to The Stomach Club in 1879 about masturbation titled, “Some Thoughts on the Science of Onanism.” During the 19th century, medical practice […]
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Prized since ancient times for its alluring fragrance, today musk can mean any of a number of substances used to scent perfumes. However, while in our modern era most musk is synthetically produced, when it first came on the scene, musk was only found in a scrotum-like sac on the bellies of male musk deer. Musk deer are found throughout […]
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Lindsey asks: How fast do electrons flow inside electrical cables? You may be surprised to learn that electrons flow through a typical copper wire much slower than a turtle walks. Each wire that conducts a flow of electrons, producing usable electric current, is composed of billions of atoms. To move along it, the electrons have to traverse these atoms, randomly […]
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