Dating back at least to the time of Socrates, some early societies decided that certain disputes, such as whether a person committed a particular crime, should be heard by a…
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In the summer of 1963, a high school teacher changed the way the world looked at “The Wizard of Oz.” His name was Henry Littlefield, and he was teaching an…
Are you afraid of black cats? Would you open an umbrella indoors? And how do you feel about the number thirteen? Whether or not you believe in them, you’re probably…
Imagine that one day, you’re summoned before a government panel. Even though you haven’t committed any crime, or been formally charged with one, you are repeatedly questioned about your political…
Muhammad Ali spent years training to become the greatest boxer the world had ever seen, but only moments to create the shortest poem. Ali captivated Harvard’s graduating class in 1975…
Without water, a human can only survive for about 100 hours. But there’s a creature so resilient that it can go without it for decades. This one millimeter animal can…
We consume food between 1 to 2.5 kilograms of food each day, and every scrap makes it through the digestive system which is the most diverse and convoluted system in…
When French mathematician Laurent Schwartz was in high school, he started to worry that he wasn’t smart enough to solve math problems. Maybe you know a similar feeling. You sit…
For the microscopic lab worm, C. elegans life equates to just a few short weeks on Earth. Compare that with the tortoise, which can age to more than 100 years….
It’s the height of the Gold Rush, 1850s California. A young tailor named Jacob Davis notices that his gold-mining customers are wearing through pants faster than they can patch them….