BIG QUESTIONS

Why Are First-Year Students Called Freshmen?

Image credit: Duke.eduThere was a time when almost every university student was a sophomore. Well, a sophister, to be exact, but that’s where the word “sophomore” originated. A sophist was a wise man (derived from the Greek word sophos), so when Henry VI

Why Are Bottles of Champagne Smashed On New Ships?

Before a ship slides from its berth into the water, it must first get hit on—by a bottle of booze, usually champagne. Here’s the lowdown on the history and physics of smashing some bubbly and launching a ship

Why Is it so Hard for Pandas to Get Pregnant?

In the wild, giant panda mating occurs just as nature specials would have you believe. There’s intense competition for each female, and the dominant male will mate with her several times to ensure success. And that strategy works: Wild female pandas gener

Did Blowing into Nintendo Cartridges Really Help?

When I was a kid with a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), sometimes my games wouldn't load. But I, like all kids, knew the secret: take out the game cartridge, blow on the contacts, and put it back in. And it seemed to work. (When it failed, I'd ju

Naked and Nude: What's the Difference?

Technically speaking, naked implies that a person is unprotected or vulnerable. It also describes something that is unadorned or without embellishment, as in the oft-mentioned naked truth. Nude, on the other hand, means one thing: unclothed.Think of it

What Does a U.S. Ambassador Do?

Christopher Stevens, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, was killed last night along with three other Americans when an Islamist mob stormed the American Consulate in Benghazi. With the tragic story all over the news today, reader Kimberly wrote to ask what, ex

Why Can You Taste Your Eye Drops?

A friend of mine recently got pinkeye. Whenever she put in her eye drops, she noticed a distinct and very unpleasant taste on the back of her tongue.

Why Do So Many Countries End in "-stan"?

Who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp? Who put the -stan in Afghanistan? I don’t know about the former, but we can thank the Proto-Indo-Europeans for the latter.

What's the Song That Clock Chimes Play?

Readers Meg, Wayne, and Rajiv all wrote in to ask about the tune that clock chimes typically play. What’s it called? Where did it come from? How’d it get so popular? Here’s the story.http://youtu.be/2mfBkd7MAdMIn 1793, a new clock was installed at St Mary

Why Does Bad Weather Aggravate Old Injuries?

Reader Jen wrote in to ask, “Why do old injuries ache during crummy ache during crummy weather?" The idea that certain aches and pains correspond with, and can even predict, the weather is widespread, and has been around since at least the days of ancient

What Are "Dibs"?

Everyone wants dibs (such as “I’ve got dibs on that last piece of pizza!”) but do we know what they are or why we call them? Chances are you first started calling dibs back when you were a kid on the playground. Coincidentally, the playground is exactly

How Secure Are Electronic Voting Machines?

It’s not that the machines have slight security glitches. It’s more that they’re almost comically hacker-friendly. Take the touchscreen Diebold Accuvote system. In 2012, nearly one-quarter of Americans are expected to use them to cast ballots. But the mac

Why Do Moths Eat Clothes?

They don’t, technically. It’s actually their larvae, or caterpillars, that eat clothes, not the adult moths.It’s only a relatively small group of moths, the family Tineidae, that have any interest in your clothing. Throughout much of the US, you’ll only f

Why Do Crabs and Lobsters Turn Red When You Cook Them?

While they might be bright red when they hit your dinner plate, crabs and lobsters are usually brown, olive-green or gray when alive and in the wild (at least in the mid-Atlantic U.S.; crustaceans farther south come in a variety of vibrant colors).

Why Are Dalmatians Linked to Firefighting?

Sure, his coloring makes him look good against a red background, but it turns out that in the early days of firefighting, the Dalmatian served an important

Why Can't You Remember Being a Baby?

There are probably blackout periods you can’t remember at all from your childhood, and the memories you do have are likely hazy and garbled. Although pretty much everyone experiences this phenomenon known as childhood amnesia, its causes are still somewha

How Does Aspirin Help During a Heart Attack?

The heart is the most important muscle in the body, so it seems like something of a marketing ploy by the folks at Bayer to suggest that something so simple as a humble aspirin tablet can be of any use when this life-sustaining organ goes into epic fail m

How Did the Chicken Cross the Ocean?

At some point in the last few thousand years, someone in India or Southeast Asia decided to try catching one of the wild fowl than ran through the jungles and roosted up in the trees. We don’t know exactly what that person was intending, but the bird prob

Why Can't You Start Your Own Post Office?

As more and more Americans embrace email and other communication technologies, the U.S. Postal Service has absorbed the hit. The agency lost an estimated $10 billion in 2011 and expects to top that this year, leaving many analysts to wonder how long it ca

Does Peeing on a Jellyfish Sting Actually Help?

Whatever the variables, a sting is never exactly pleasant. Urine is often no good. Sure, urine contains salts, but it's just too variable.

Does Wedding Rice Really Make Birds Explode?

Throwing rice at a newly married couple has been a tradition for thousands of years, possibly going back as far as the ancient Assyrians and Egyptians. Are birds suffering from our holy matrimonies?

What Is a Blue Moon, and How Rare Is It?

Stockbyte/John FoxxBefore Curiosity landed on Mars, the main topic of discussion among amateur astronomers was the blue Moon that is scheduled to make an appearance on August 31. The widely accepted definition of a blue Moon is a full Moon that appears tw

What Causes Eye Floaters?

Eye floaters—or 'muscae volitantes,' Latin for 'hovering flies'—are those tiny, oddly shaped objects that sometimes appear in your vision, most often when you’re looking at the sky on a sunny day.

Why is There a Pyramid Atop the Washington Monument?

The pyramid was supposed to serve as a lightning rod, and since Frishmuth had already done some plating work for the monument, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers called on him to fashion the topper as well.

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