Travis P. asks: Is it true that Eskimos have dozens of words for snow? It’s impossible to say precisely how many words for snow certain native peoples of the far north have. Why? To begin with, we are talking about a group of related languages, not just one, and even within these languages there are variations from specific region to […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader SHOCK WAVE In September 1949, a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance plane flying over the North Pacific from Japan to Alaska detected levels of radioactivity in the atmosphere at least 20 times above normal. Other planes in the Pacific reported similar observations in the days that followed; elevated radiation levels were […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Origin of Valentines Day While not thought to be directly related to modern Valentine’s Day traditions, the beginnings of celebrating love (of a sort) in February date back to the Romans. The feast of Lupercalia was a pagan fertility and […]
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For many people, being dead is a fairly limiting handicap that prevents them from doing most of the things the living take for granted. In the 1930s, a man called Charles Vance Millar challenged that unfair stereotype via various stipulations of his will that allowed him to continue playing jokes on people despite being dead. A lawyer by trade, Millar […]
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It was presumably a cold, wintry February day in the United States capital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (the capital would not move to DC until 1800) when President George Washington put pen to paper and signed the Postal Service Act of 1792. While a rudimentary colonial mailing service had been around since for nearly a century and a half, this new law […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? In 1985, Bary Bertiger, an engineer with the high-tech giant Motorola, had an intriguing idea: If a company could put enough low-orbit satellites in the air to attain direct access to the entire surface of the Earth, and use that network to support a satellite […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Origin of Gatorade and How the Tradition of the “Gatorade Shower” Got Started During a typical sticky, unbearable August weekend in 1965 in Gainesville- the home of the University of Florida Gators- football practices were well underway in anticipation for […]
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Walter Hunt is a man who is simultaneously considered to have possessed one of the finest inventive minds in all of American history while also being an individual almost no one has ever heard. This is despite the fact that it’s almost guaranteed that one of his inventions is currently lying somewhere in your home, the safety pin. This was […]
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Jason H. asks: How does an Islamic person know where to face when they’re in space and supposed to be praying towards Mecca? The first Muslim person in space was Royal Saudi Air Force pilot Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in 1985 aboard the United States shuttle Discovery. He was followed up by the first Muslimah in space, […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader It’s a good bet that after you read this article, you’ll start paying more attention to background props in movies. A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE It was Christmas Eve 2009. Gergely Barki, an art historian and researcher with the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest, had settled in with his daughter Lola to […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Can Fish Get Thirsty and Why Can’t Freshwater Fish Live in Saltwater and Vice Versa? For fish, or at least teleost fish (which make up about 96% of all fish), the desire to drink is an urge that originates from the […]
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chastitydetori. asks: Why do athletes dump Gatorade on their coaches after winning a game? During a typical sticky, unbearable August weekend in 1965 in Gainesville- the home of the University of Florida Gators- football practices were well underway in anticipation for the upcoming season. However, the weather had wreaked havoc on the freshman football team over the weekend. 25 players […]
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Americans eat a lot on Super Bowl Sunday, according to one 2015 study consuming triple the amount of their daily allowance of calories per serving during the Super Bowl. In fact, it’s the second largest food consumption day of the year in the country (behind Thanksgiving). Of the many millions of pounds of snacks eaten in honor of America’s (still) […]
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Becky G. asks: Why are cowardly people called “yellow bellied”? The color of warning signals, smiley faces, rubber duckies and the Sun (at least from our perspective- in fact the Sun is white if viewed from space), for many of us yellow has a favorable connotation; yet, at various points throughout human history, yellow has decidedly been a symbolism of, […]
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Kevin A. asks: Why are significant days called red letter days? While it’s commonly stated that the practice of marking important dates in red didn’t begin until the Middle Ages, in fact, in ancient Rome red ink was sometimes used on calendars to identify significant dates, as well as occasionally used on important text in documents, with the underlying reason […]
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Helen W. asks: Is it possible for a fish to get thirsty or do they always get the water they need automatically? For fish, or at least teleost fish (which make up about 96% of all fish), the desire to drink is an urge that originates from the hindbrain, whereas in land-based animals it originates in the forebrain. It is […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Curious Case of the Pillownauts Today we take it for granted that astronauts can function in the weightlessness of spaceflight, but at the dawn of the space age in the early 1960s, scientists weren’t sure that was possible. Some experts […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Here’s the bizarre story of an anonymous artist so desperate to receive credit for his work that he took himself to court. THE MIRACLE OF MARIENKIRCHE On March 28, 1942, the German port city of Lübeck was nearly obliterated by Allied bombers during World War II. More than 230 British […]
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