Ronald Koes could never have guessed that his quest to understand what makes some petunias red—and others blue—would lead him to lemon groves in California. But as a result, this University of Amsterdam geneticist has now answered the long-standing question of why some lemons taste sweet and others, sour. The secret: a powerful molecular pump[…]
10 Fascinating Things You Didn’t Know About LEGO Brace yourself: You’re never going to look at your favorite toy the same way again. Like Easy-Bake Ovens and Troll dolls, you probably remember these famous plastic bricks fondly from your childhood. But did you know the first one was made in 1932 and out of wood? Didn’t think[…]
Circumzenithal arcs have been described as an “upside down rainbow” or “a grin in the sky.” They’re wonderful! People who look up a lot may occasionally see the rainbow-like arcs that look like a grin in the sky. They’re called circumzenithal arcs, and they’re not really rainbows. Instead, they’re caused by ice crystals in the[…]
15 Amazing and Fun Basketball Facts Dr. James Naismith Only Wanted Passing When he created basketball in 1891, Dr Naismith envisioned a game where only passes were used to advance the ball up the court. Dr Naismith thought it was ingenious when players began to pass the ball to themselves by dribbling. Peach[…]
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Carrots The orange veggie is more complex than you thought Whether you are talking about wild or domestic carrots, chances are this is one of your favorite vegetables. Belonging to the species daucus carota, you can find carrots all around the world, as they remain a star vegetable in[…]
Zebra stripes confuse biting flies, causing them to abort their landings Scientists have proposed more than a dozen ideas to explain why zebras evolved stripes. Some say the bold patterns confuse their predators, or that they keep the animals cool. But all of these ideas have been disproved or lack strong evidence. In 2014, researchers[…]
Kids today have iPads and Xbox game consoles, but a lot of Baby Boomers had a childhood gadget that we loved just as much, and it didn’t even require batteries. The Etch A Sketch first appeared in toy stores in 1960 and became an immediate must-have in kids’ letters to Santa. In the half-century since then, Ohio[…]
Regardless of what the label says, they all tend to look and taste the same. So why the five distinct categorizations? Everybody has that moment when they realize they don’t know about something that they should probably know about. Whether it’s history, language, science, or cultural phenomena, you’ve felt the stinging personal embarrassment of[…]
The cat’s meow is her way of communicating with people. Cats meow for many reasons—to say hello, to ask for things, and to tell us when something’s wrong. Meowing is an interesting vocalization in that adult cats don’t actually meow at each other, just at people. Kittens meow to let their mother know they’re cold[…]
The Human Nose Can Detect a Trillion Smells A rose, a fresh cup of coffee, a wood fire. These are only three of the roughly 1 trillion scents that the human nose and brain are capable of distinguishing from each other, according to a new study. Researchers had previously estimated that humans could sense only[…]