Richard K. asks: How do they set the dividing line in hardness between what’s considered a hard wood vs. a soft wood? Generally speaking, wood is often put into one of two categories- hardwood and softwood. But what exactly makes a given piece of wood qualify as either hard or soft and how did those definitions come about? Perhaps the most […]
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Being an intern at a German landscaping company during 1992 meant Ökoland Dederow was handed the tedious task of looking through aerial photographs for irrigation lines in a forest located in East Germany. During the course of this, Dederow came across something that definitely was not an irrigation line in photo 106/88. Approximately 140 larch trees in the middle of […]
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Ubiquitous in many classrooms since the 19th century, chalk and chalkboards are familiar to most of us. White, powdery and prone to sticking to those surfaces where it is put (and just as easy to wipe away), chalk and its accompanying board are excellent instructional aids. Notably, however, most chalk today isn’t technically chalk at all, but gypsum. Chalk and […]
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The town of Celebration was first loosely imagined by Walt Disney himself, though the current town differs wildly from Disney’s original idea. Whereas Disney pictured a “perfect” futuristic city where technology blended seamlessly with real life and all possible needs were taken care of, an idea that served as the basis for the Epcot theme park in Disney Land, Michael Eisner (the CEO of Disney at […]
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Kelly C asks: What happens to a person when they are tarred and feathered? Do they die? In times gone by, tarring and feathering was a go-to method used by mobs to punish or otherwise humiliate criminals or people believed to have wronged the community in some way. While it’s mostly recognised as being a punishment handed down in colonial […]
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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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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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L. Van asks: What happens if a cemetery owner loses their ownership of the land? What about when their land fills up and no new dead people can be put in to pay? How do they afford to keep it going? Cemeteries are just like any other business; they need to make money in order to stay open. However, unlike […]
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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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Extending nearly 1.2 million square miles across Belarus and Poland, the 7,000 year old Białowieża Forest is home to more than 12,000 distinct species of plants and animals. Comprising the largest, and one of the last holdouts of, primeval forest in Europe, the Białowieża has been designated a World Heritage Site and a Biosphere Reserve by the United Nations. As […]
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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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Mark D asks: How does the witness protection program really work? Is it like in the movies or what? Born of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, and the brainchild of longtime Department of Justice attorney, Gerald Shur, the U.S. Marshall Service Witness Security Program (WITSEC) has successfully protected more than 18,000 people since it first began operations in […]
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Byron H. asks: When exactly does a speed limit come into effect? Is it when you see the sign or the instant you cross it? If it’s an increase in speed can you legally accelerate up to the speed so your speed matches the sign right when you get to it, or do you have to wait? On paper, speed […]
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Nick C. asks: How did they settle on six feet deep for graves? If there’s one thing everyone knows about graves other than the fact that they’re really spooky at night, it’s that they’re always six feet deep. In truth, despite “six feet under” being synonymous with the very idea of death, it has little to no relevance in burial […]
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An expensive meal at a fancy restaurant, a declaration of romance, and a big, fat diamond ring- this is a pretty standard formula for an engagement proposal. After all, it has been ingrained in all of us that a diamond ring equals love and the bigger the diamond, the more love there must be. Well, believe it or not, diamonds […]
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Jeremy R. asks: Why do we still teach kids to write in cursive when it’s almost literally never used anymore except in signatures, which are also becoming a thing of the past thanks to e-signing and advancements in payment options? I mean, even teaching kids any handwriting skills is bound to go the way of the Dodo at some point […]
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In Central Asia, bordered on the north by Uzbekistan, the southeast by Afghanistan, the southwest by Iran and the east by the Caspian Sea, lies the country of Turkmenistan. With the world’s fourth largest proven reserves of natural gas, Turkmenistan is the world’s 11th largest exporter of this valuable resource. A dangerous substance, if not properly managed, rather than becoming […]
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Erin G. asks: Why do we color code electric wires the way we do? Black, white, green, red, blue, orange, brown and grey, the color of the insulating sheath on an electrical wire generally designates its purpose. So, before you start fiddling around with that new light fixture, besides switching off the breaker to a given circuit, it’s a good […]
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