BIG QUESTIONS

There are three answers: A heck of a lot, not that many, and a whole heck of a lot. Or, if you want specifics: 5, 2, and at least 99.

Head shrinking is rumored to have occurred all over the world, but documented only among a few indigenous South American tribes living in Peru and Ecuador. How do you take a flesh-and-bone head and shrink it?

Quack, in the sense of a medical impostor, is a shortening of the old Dutch quacksalver (spelled kwakzalver in the modern Dutch), which originally meant a person who cures with home remedies, and then came to mean one using false cures or knowledge.

From your car, to your lawn mower, to your snow blower, to your chainsaw—the power of almost every engine you deal with is measured in terms of horsepower. None of these things seemingly have anything to do with horses, so where did that measurement come

Humans have observed marine mammals stranding themselves on land since at least the first century CE, when the ancient Romans and Greeks recorded beaching incidents. Modern marine biologists are only able to determine the cause of a beaching about 50 perc

Fictional characters, and even real-life folks, often talk about animals and people—particularly snarling dogs and knife-wielding lunatics—being able to “smell fear” on people. No one ever seems to be able to describe just what fear smells like, though.

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. What gives?

Daven Hiskey runs the wildly popular interesting fact website Today I Found Out. To subscribe to his “Daily Knowledge” newsletter, click

It all goes back to Loki.

Yes. And our pets sometimes need transfusions, too, so it’s always handy to know what type of blood Spot or Fluffy has (if he or she has had any blood work done, the vet will have this

Whether you end a letter or e-mail with it—or you recognize it from the end of each Gossip Girl episode—“Xoxo” is commonly known to refer to the phrase “Kisses and hugs.” But how did these two inconspicuous letters come to represent that well-known