Shakespeare’s Juliet asked “What’s in a name?”, and the playwright supplied an answer -“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” But would it? Do names matter? Each year, the Social Security Administration publishes a list of the most popular baby names. Ten years ago, for example, parents were naming their boys Aiden, […]
“If you grow up hearing certain expressions or phrases all the time, it can be easy to overlook how weird they actually are,” Alex Palmer writes in my favorite online mag, Mental Floss. “Americanisms” are sayings we take for granted, but often don’t realize they make no sense to foreigners. Just a few of the […]
Not only are wasps smart, but they might also be even better at deducing logic than some humans, recent research at the University of Michigan reveals. The intriguing experiment involved educating wasps on the sequence of five colors assigned an alphabetical hierarchy by the researchers, and to avoid an electric shock, the wasps needed to […]
“Was the oldest woman a fraud?” asks Smithsonian.com, referring to French socialite Jeanne Calment, who appeared to be making history when she died in 1997 at the age of 122. (Later investigation revealed that Jeanne had actually died at the age of 59 in 1934. Her daughter had actually assumed Jeanne’s identity, later dying at […]
“Please stop telling that same story,” Elizabeth Bernstein begs in the Life & Arts section of the Wall Street Journal. Storytelling is supposed to be a bonding experience, she says, because, when we share our personal narratives, we disclose something about our values, our history, and our outlook on life. But the bonding benefits of […]
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