Leap Day The rarest date on the calendar is February 29. If we assume all days of the year are just as likely birthdates, a human has a 1 in 4,161 chance to enter Earth on leap day. That’s about 0.07% of the population, which would mean approximately 232,000 Americans were born on 29 February. Why […]
Odysseus Few literary characters rise to a level of timelessness in which their stories survive millennia. Still, fewer characters see their names become eponyms folded into multiple languages. One such gargantuan of the page is Homer’s Odysseus. If you’re into the Romans or the Irish, you might know him better as Ulysses. Though the champion
Platypus, Platypuses, & Platypodes On this whacky world of ours, a scad of critters compete for the title of most bizarre. The variety of life is so immense that picking one is likely a fool’s chore. Certain faunae (arcane pluralization foreshadowing) objectively qualify for a shortlist of the most bizarre creatures. One such beast is
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Presidential Range Map [note: to read our article on the Presidential Range, point your browser here]
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Nature FOMO As hard as it is to believe, the era of social media is already 20 years old. Life before (the)Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and MySpace seems a distant past. Two decades is more than enough to have shown us that the technology is a mixed bag. It has an undeniable allure and
Pico de Orizaba – Mexico’s High Point Mexico does not often garner the reputation of a nation with a lot of mountainous splendor. The sandy biomes – deserts and beaches – yes. Soaring peaks – not so much. As we learned when Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston visited the Sierra Madre, however, perhaps that non-mountainous stature
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❤️ Is there a more ubiquitous symbol on Earth than the heart? The character spans all countries, religions, and philosophies. It can represent love, courage, conscience, emotion, the seat of life, or the seat of the soul. And, of course, the 20th century brought us the commercialized popularity of Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day Card circa
The Secret Power of Mint Chocolate. Ice cream. Cookies. Coffee. Tea. Chewing gum. They can all feature mint flavorings. In the 21st century, where delectable chemistry can produce seemingly unending concoctions, it’s easy to forget that many of our seasonings and spices are plants, not just artificial flavors. Even chocolate, which can be quite delicious mixed with
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Hailing Frequencies Open To a child born in 1956, the Apollo missions to the moon transpired during a formative period. Teenagers across the United States watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin prance across our grey satellite, many dreaming of one day leaving their footprints on an alien world. Though the monumental achievements of the space
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Like a Moth to a Flame Thus hath the candle singed the moth. –Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice Many of the oldest similes and metaphors feature an elemental timelessness. The notion of “a moth to a flame” connects us to our ancestors around fire rings before the advent of artificial light. Watching an insect inexorably drawn to
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