Karen C. asks: True or false, you should suck the venom out of a snakebite after someone gets bitten? There are a number of productive things you can do to help a snakebite victim; trying to suck out the venom isn’t one of them. Actually having a negative effect, potentially further damaging the tissue around the bite and thus helping […]
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John A. asks: When did people start smoking tobacco? While who exactly was the first to smoke tobacco has been lost to history, Jordan Goodman, in his book Tobacco in History, theorizes that tobacco was first cultivated thousands of years ago in the Americas, around the regions that have become known as Mexico and Brazil. The populations grew the plant […]
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Our very good friends over at Neatorama are currently running a Black Friday weekend sale in their popular NeatoShop. They are offering all their awesome shirts for just $14.95 each and are also giving free world wide shipping (yes, world-wide) on orders over $75. The sale runs now until Sunday the 30th at 11:59pm. So if you’re looking for some […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Truth About Prepositions and the End of Sentences A great man once said, “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.” Eloquently highlighting the ridiculousness of strictly adhering to the rule against ending a sentence […]
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Little pearls swimming in a creamy custard flavored with vanilla or lemon, many of us have fond (and others not so fond) childhood memories of tapioca pudding. Although this staple dessert of the 1970s went out of vogue for a while, today it’s making a comeback. You may not know, however, that the tapioca we use is a refined product […]
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Jill A. asks: Why does the panama canal have locks? Isn’t the ocean the same level on both sides? Rising 85 feet above the surface of one ocean, and then descending again to be gently floated on another one, ships that traverse the Panama Canal shave nearly 8,000 miles off of their voyage to the other side by investing a […]
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For those of you in the United States who are about to celebrate Thanksgiving and want to look particularly knowledgey at your family get-together tomorrow, here is a roundup of all the Thanksgiving related articles we’ve made here at TodayIFoundOut for you to peruse. Or, you know- don’t. But when there are awkward pauses in the conversation at your Thanksgiving […]
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James I. asks: I was at Lowes and noticed mailboxes say “approved by the postmaster general”. What specifications do a mailbox need to reach to be approved in this way? I mean, it’s a box with a little door and a flag. Are those the requirements? What’s the process here? Thanks! While the United States Postal Service (USPS) and the […]
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Andy L. asks: Who first said “penny wise and a pound foolish”? The person credited with coining the phrase, “penny wise and pound foolish,” Robert Burton, also said about writers, “They lard their lean books with the fat of others’ works,” and “We can say nothing but what hath been said.” So, with Robert Burton’s insight in mind, here’s a […]
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John Dalton (1766-1844) was a distinguished scientist who is known for, among many other things, his theories about atoms, his law of partial pressures of gases and liquids (published in 1803), and being one of the first scientists to study color blindness. In fact, because of his work, for some time a common term for color blindness was “Daltonism,” and […]
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On the last day of October in 1517, a scholar and priest named Martin Luther did as priests commonly did at the time when they had something to discuss amongst the clergy- he nailed a piece of paper to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany. Unlike many other such documents nailed to the doors of churches, this […]
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A great man once said, “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.” Eloquently highlighting the ridiculousness of strictly adhering to the rule against ending a sentence with a preposition, Winston Churchill may not have realized that his defiance is supported by history. As it turns out, there was never any such generally recognized rule. […]
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Nothing put more fear into this author as a child more than being told, right before bedtime, “Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.” I was a logical kid and I knew that ghosts, boogie men, vampires, and the monster living under my bed were all imaginary. But reminding me that there are very real bugs that may be living […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Why Don’t Birds’ Legs Freeze? How a bird reacts to the cold depends on what kind of a bird it is and there are a variety of methods they use to keep their legs warm, from the mundane to the much […]
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F. Whisten asks: Is it true that all clams are male? If so, how do they reproduce? Encased in a hard shell, brainless and possessing only a single limb (a retractable foot that looks like a tongue), clams seem like a species for which reproduction would be difficult. And yet, each year, millions of clams are born – thanks in […]
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Walter K. asks: Why are movie theaters allowed to make their concessions so expensive? In 1948, the Supreme Court ended the stranglehold Hollywood studios and distributors had on the U.S. movie market. Declaring the big eight a monopoly and ordering them to divest of their ownership of movie theaters and cease other non-competitive practices, with U.S. v. Paramount Pictures, et […]
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Today, we mostly think of the fax machine as an outdated piece of technology. While there are still some uses for it in an office-setting, technological advances are sending the fax machines to the same pasture as pagers, land-line telephones, and disposable cameras. Even if this is the last we hear of the beeps and bops that echo as an […]
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Pat A. asks: Were Kamikaze pilots all just volunteers or how exactly did they get selected? During WWII, thousands of Japanese pilots made the ultimate sacrifice for their country by becoming, essentially, flying suicide bombers. But what was it that made these men so willing to lay down their lives in such a way? Were they really bright eyed volunteers […]
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