One of the first things Regiina Nohova had to learn when she moved to the Czech Republic was how to open her mouth wider when she spoke. As a native-born Estonian, she simply wasn’t in the habit.
“In Estonia, we speak slowly,” she said. “We almost don’t open our mouths when we speak. We don’t have to articulate the words. It’s our nature. It’s colder there, and people spend more time inside, and that’s why we’re like this. I think there’s a very big difference between Estonian and Czech people, and how they speak and express themselves.” Read more…
“Stand Your Ground,” “Shoot First,” “Make My Day” – state laws asserting an expansive right to self-defense – have come into focus after the February 2012 killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
In 2005, Florida became the first state to explicitly expand a person’s right to use deadly force for self-defense. Deadly force is justified if a person is gravely threatened, in the home or “any other place where he or she has a right to be.” Read more…
It takes the earth one day to complete one spin on its axis. The time it takes the earth to complete one trip around the sun is a year. But these units of time don’t divide evenly, resulting in our calendar year being 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and a little over 45 seconds long. Every 4 years we take those extra hours and minutes and fit it in an extra day, on February 29th, which we call Leap Day. Every fourth year thus is Leap Year. If we did not have the extra day every 4 years, in 100 years our calendar would be off by 24 days. Read more…
The Mousetrap
For her 80th birthday in 1947, Queen Mary requested a radio play be written for her by Agatha Christie. The play – broadcast on May 30, 1947 – was called Three Blind Mice but when Christie adapted it to a stage play in 1951 it was renamed The Mousetrap. It debuted on November 25, 1952. [...]
Leap Year
It takes the earth one day to complete one spin on its axis. The time it takes the earth to complete one trip around the sun is a year. But these units of time don’t divide evenly, resulting in our calendar year being 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and a little over 45 seconds [...]
Leonardo da Vinci the genius
Leonardo da Vinci, who was born in Vinci, near Florence in 1452, is known for his visionary ideas. He made sketches of scissors, the parachute, helicopter, airplanes, and engineering designs, some of which came into use 400 years after his death in 1519. But his notebooks never provided an explanation on the mechanics of his [...]
10 good uses for salt
Just a pinch of it and it’s worth it. We’re talking salt here. Used throughout human history, mentioned often in the Bible, ubiquitous and cheap. Mined from salt rocks and extracted from sea water, salt is… well, the “salt of the earth.” You can’t live without it healthily. At the same time, you can’t live [...]
Pay-for-Delay Drugs
Pharmaceutical companies have sought for years to protect their expensive brand-name drugs by paying generic rivals handsome sums of money to put off efforts to introduce cheaper, generic alternatives that could steal market share. The controversial practice, known as “pay for delay,” occurs as part of patent litigation settlements and typically buys a brand-name drug company [...]
The great global climate change quick guide
Did the earth get hotter? Yes. Is it common? Yes. Since 1900, the average temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. Over the past 300 years, the temperature has risen by about 0.6 °C. Of course, we didn’t have cars and electricity for most of this time. So the great climate debate is not if [...]
Television firsts
The first public television pictures were transmitted in 1926. The first TV interview was made with Irish actress Peggy O’Neil in April 1930. The first televised sporting event was a Japanese elementary school baseball game, broadcast in September 1931. The first daily broadcast was started by the BBC in November 1936. The first TV commercial [...]
Oldest boats
Rock drawings from the Red Sea site of Wadi Hammamat, dated to around 4000 BC, show that ancient Egyptian boats were made from papyrus and reeds. Yet the world’s earliest known plank-built ship, dated to 2600 BC, was discovered next to the Great Pyramid in 1952. Made from cedar and sycamore wood, it was in [...]
