Back about 2000 years ago, the Greek scientists were becoming fascinated with magnetism when they stumbled upon lodestones, a naturally occurring magnet. Lodestone is a piece of magnetite, an iron oxide, which produces a strong magnetic field. Now, to be clear, not all magnetite is magnetic (it won’t stick to your fridge by itself) but [...]
If you’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places, try your local tennis game. Event the most inexperienced player will have no trouble finding love on the court. In tennis scoring, love means zero. This is believed to come from the French word l’oeuf, for egg. The egg shape signifies a round zero, [...]
Be mindful, world travelers, when you order a tall glass of cool lemonade. It can mean different things in different parts of the world. It all started with limonade in France. It was simply water with some pure lemon juice added for a spritz of flavour. In french the addition of -ade adds action or [...]
I’m always interested in how words evolve over time. Nowadays we have the dictionary to settle all disputes about what’s proper or not, but the whole idea of the printed word is relatively new. As languages were created and shared through speaking, much like the telephone game, when the word was finally written down at [...]
For the first fact of Christmas, I bring you a partridge in a pear tree. That’s how the song goes, but it seems that the pear tree shouldn’t actually be there. Partridges are a bird rarely seen in trees, and a pear tree wouldn’t be a great gift in the middle of winter, being completely [...]
Unfortunately wisdom teeth are on my mind these days, as I’ve got one being a pain in the… jaw. I’m all for the wisdom part though. These molars, usually four, at the very back of the mouth come in at the age of 17 to 25. The origin of the wisdom moniker may come from [...]
Imagine you were a visiting anthropologist from a different planet, on assignment to “live among the apes”. From the fresh outside perspective, many things about us would be fascinating. Our language, the multitude of sounds that emanate from our little naked-monkey heads, is rather amazing if you stop to think about it. From the corner [...]