Today I found out Ernest Vincent Wright’s 1939 novel Gadsby is over 50,000 words long, yet doesn’t contain a single letter “e” anywhere other than the cover. Given that ‘e’ is the most commonly used letter in English, you might think this would have been impossible, but Wright stated this wasn’t nearly as limiting as one might think. For instance, […]
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Myth: a cocoon and a chrysalis are the same thing. In fact, the chrysalis is a butterfly pupa, which is a hard skin which appears after the caterpillar’s final shedding of its skin when it’s attached to a leaf via a silk pad spun by the caterpillar. A cocoon is just a constructed silk casing used by moths and certain […]
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Myth: Ben and Jerry, from Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, are a couple. In fact, Jerry was dating his eventual wife when Ben and Jerry were roommates. He also left the company for a few years to help his future wife, Elizabeth, pursue her Ph.D. in psychology. The rumor that Ben and Jerry are gay received a huge boost when […]
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Rubber is made black by adding various chemicals, such as carbon black. This isn’t just for cosmetic reasons, but because adding chemicals like carbon black to the rubber drastically increases desirable qualities of the rubber. For instance, with tires, carbon black works as a reinforcing filler in rubber, which increases the durability and strength of the end product. Specifically, adding […]
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