Matt Soniak

Joined: Nov 21, 2012

Matt writes about science, history, etymology and Bruce Springsteen for both the website and the print magazine. His work has also appeared in print and online for Men’s Health, Scientific American, The Atlantic, Philly.com and others. He tweets as @mattsoniak and blogs about animal behavior at mattsoniak.com. He lives in Philadelphia with his girlfriend, two cats and a large collection of bourbon whiskeys.

Prettier to look at than they are to actually swim with.

If you didn't know they had them before, now you do.

When the conclave of cardinals have elected a new pope, white smoke is emitted from the chapel chimney.

The Delaware Wedge is a 1.068-square-mile triangular chunk of land where Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland meet. For 200 years, that’s all these states could agree on.

We know cats purr for a variety of reasons. But the actual mechanics of how they make their signature sound remains unclear.

If you're from a town with a strong union presence, you know that if new commercial construction happens without union labor, protests often follow.

You can avoid brain freeze with a couple of easy precautions.

Here's what’s happening in your body when you eat ice cream or drink a chilled beverage too fast.

The border between these two countries is a little odd in places.

An old map error led to some strange—and at times contentious—geography.

Until a few decades ago, Ukraine was almost always referred to as 'the Ukraine'. Then people started dropping the definite article, and now you almost never see it. Here's why.