Marathons are one of the most difficult tests of human endurance ever devised.
Training your body to run 26.2 miles requires constant practice and determination. Running a marathon at midnight would seem to make a hard task even harder, but that’s exactly what happens every June in the Norwegian town of Tromsø, one of the world’s northernmost cities.
Three decades ago, Texas was facing an enormous problem: trash, as far as the eye could see, piled up along its scenic and city roadways.
The cleanup was arduous and costly. By the mid-1980s, the Texas Department of Transportation (aka TxDOT) was spending nearly $20 million each year in rubbish removal along highways alone.
Although poinsettias are a multimillion-dollar business in the U.S. today, these fiery plants have ancient roots.
They were first cultivated by the Aztecs hundreds of years ago. Native to Mexico and Guatemala, the poinsettia, known to the Aztecs as cuetlaxóchitl (kwet-la-sho-she), was used for medicinal purposes.
In their first year of life, human babies nearly triple their weight.
And while that sounds like an impressive stretch of growth, it’s nothing compared to blue whales.
These cetacean newborns, which already weigh around 3 tons at birth, pack on upwards of 200 pounds a day, meaning baby blue whales bulk up at a rate of about 8 pounds an hour.
The Swiss are known for their historic commitment to neutrality.
But they have taken a firm stand on one of the most important issues of our time: guinea pigs.
The U.S. Civil War ended in 1865 after four grueling years of conflict.
But the Confederacy’s surrender at Appomattox Court House didn’t instantly bring closure to a tattered nation.
Some personalities are born, while others are cooked up.
The latter was the case with Betty Crocker.
In October 1921, the Washburn-Crosby Co. (which would later evolve into General Mills) advertised a contest giveaway in the back of The Saturday Evening Post.
Legendary reggae musician Bob Marley once said, “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
Turns out, science backs him up. According to a 2023 study by scientists at McGill University in Montreal, listening to your favorite music reduces pain by one point on a 10-point scale.
Uniforms convey a sense of competency across professions ranging from delivery person and airline staff to chef and firefighter.
Psychological implications may be even stronger when it comes to matters of health.
Many states consider themselves the heartland of America, but where exactly is the geographic center of the U.S.?
The world’s most important pieces of infrastructure are overbuilt with safety in mind.
New bridges can handle stresses far beyond what they’d ever experience, and airplanes are similarly designed with redundancies.
Humans are members of the great ape family Hominidae, and the physical similarities between us and our primate cousins are clear.
We have the same arrangement of internal organs and roughly the same number of bones, we lack external tails, and we even get the same diseases.
While cats give off a solitary vibe, often appearing much more aloof than their canine counterparts, felines are actually very social creatures.
They form bonds with littermates, establish colonies, and may develop just as strong a connection with their pet parents as dogs do.
By the time most people in Europe started eating with forks, chopsticks had already been around in Asia for millennia.
The versatile utensil is believed to have been invented in China roughly 5,000 years ago.
America has the eagle, England has the lion, and Scotland has the unicorn.
And while the horned mythological creature may not actually exist, the traits it represents certainly do.
Purity, independence, and an untamable spirit are all qualities Scotland has long cherished.
Baking a no-frills pumpkin pie with canned pumpkin and a premade crust takes about an hour today, though pie-making wasn’t always so simple.
Before the ease of cracking open a can of pumpkin, cooks had to stew their own mixture, cooking pumpkins for hours just to create a custardy pie filling.
Selecting the right pumpkin was paramount to a proper pie, not every pumpkin was a prize pick for the pastry.
It helps our bodies create vitamin D and mood-lifting serotonin, and even syncs our circadian rhythms.
However, some people experience an unexpected side effect after glancing into the sun: sneezing.
In much the same way that movie theaters make higher profits from concessions than they do from tickets, gas stations make more money from convenience items than they do from selling gas.
The profit margins on gasoline are extremely and surprisingly low, so much so that filling stations barely make any money just from selling fuel.
What are the health benefits of having a close friend, like identical twins close, for your entire life?
Well, according to research from the University of Washington, the positive effects on life expectancy can be astounding.
