Carl Sagan once said “somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” It’s that desire to know what is not already known that drives humanity beyond the stars. We push beyond our own world to the reaches of space to see what’s out there. And what we’ve found is literally beyond comprehension. The James Webb…
Author: Ian Fortey
Have you ever heard the saying “everything old is new again?” There are plenty of examples of this being true in the worlds of music and fashion and even artistic movements. New generations rediscover the past and people get to enjoy it all over again. It happens so often that sometimes we don’t even realize…
If you ever watch life hack videos on YouTube, you know that people are constantly finding cool new ways to do things. Sometimes that means taking an already existing tool or item and adapting it to a new purpose that makes it even better. This adaptability has a long history. Sometimes people invent a thing…
Have you ever wished you could be someone else? It’s not an uncommon thought, we’re often envious of some part of another’s life. Money, fame, freedom, all sorts of things. Or maybe it’s less what someone else has and just wanting to get away from something you have to endure. No matter the reason it’s…
Sports are likely as old as mankind in one form or another. We play games when we have the time and ability to do so. And that means we’ve had a long, long time to develop different sports. Some obviously become popular and take the world by storm, like baseball or soccer. Others are a…
The US self-help industry is worth over $10 billion a year. That’s a ton of money people are spending to get other people to tell them how to be better people in one way or another. You’d think, if it worked, it would decrease in value every year as people got better and better until…
The world is full of inverse correlations that we pay little attention to. Things like how the less water you consume, the hotter you feel on a summer’s day. That makes sense, and you’re not likely to wonder about it. Anything where two variables have a contrary relationship qualifies, so long as the value of…
April Fool’s Day has been observed in one form or another for hundreds of years. Some of the tricks and jokes played on the day are simple and harmless, while others can be oddly elaborate and mean spirited. In modern times, you can count on newspapers, businesses and websites to run fake stories every April…
Emojis have been a staple of internet discourse for decades now. The earliest proto-emojis were just colons and parentheses that people added to statements to vaguely resemble sideways smiley faces. Arguably this grew out of the fact that text offers very few context clues when it comes to mood or sarcasm. The emotion behind the…
By and large, most people have curious minds. Most of us love a mystery. Maybe not a full on Sherlock Holmesian mystery, but we like to understand why things happen and where they came from. Language can often help with this by giving clues about the origins of things. But language and common knowledge, and…
If there’s one thing pop culture fandom loves, it’s hate. People can’t get enough hate watching, hate listening, hate whatever else you can think of. Just look how people react to any new installment of Star Wars, Star Trek, the MCU, or the DCEU. Sure, there’s lots of love but there’s plenty of negativity to…
America has often been described as a litigious country and there’s no shortage of examples of lawsuits we perceive as frivolous or silly. The thing nearly all lawsuits have in common, whether they have merit or not, is that there is a plaintiff and a defendant and they are two separate entities. That said, every…
There’s been a big backlash in the media over the last few years against landlords who practice less than hospitable landlording. But it’s hard to be sympathetic to one of the few groups of people still known as lords out there in the world. And while there’s no doubt many landlords are reasonable people who…
There are two kinds of talking to God in the world, regardless of your beliefs. In one version, a person talks to their god through prayer and may even say God spoke to them and told them they need to become a veterinarian, or devote their lives to Xbox, or whatever it is. We usually…
Nearly every ancient polytheistic culture had gods of the weather. Most of us are aware of Thor, the god of thunder, but there were gods of the wind and rain and lightning and more throughout North and South America, Africa and Asia. Weather has always fascinated and confused mankind. And even today, when we can…
Have you ever done something unusual and thought to yourself “I bet I’m the only person in the world who’s ever done this?” It’s impossible to know how true that is for any given task, but it’s also an entirely reasonable thought. After all, someone always has to be the first and sometimes only person…
Humans like to break reality into temporal chunks, which we consider past, present and future. The present is always the hardest to hold since it’s constantly becoming the past and the future gets here, then becomes the past before we know what happened. Thinking about the world in these terms means we sometimes lose track…
Becoming the President of the United States isn’t easy. Some people devote years to the pursuit and never make the grade like Lyndon LaRouche, who ran for President 8 times and never succeeded. Others show up once and inexplicably win the day. And while being President is impressive all on its own, a number of…
Most philosophies would have you believe that humans are innately good. Left to our devices, we all sort of lean into what is right, which gives rise to the notion that good and right are universal concepts. But then along comes someone who ruins the whole idea because they seem kind of like utter scumbags,…
Everyone likes to save a few bucks when they can, right? And it’s even better if you find a few bucks in an old jacket pocket or your couch cushions. The best money is found money. But most of us do it on a small scale. What do you have to do to save billions…
The medical world is a very organic and ever-changing thing. Science improves, and we gain a superior understanding of the causes and treatments of disease. What was treated 100 years ago with something like cocaine and leeches can be treated with antibiotics or NSAIDS today. The world of mental health is very similar. The things…
We told you before about some major disasters in human history that were swept under the rug by the powers that be in order to skirt responsibility or, in some cases, to “keep up morale.” But whatever the reason, there’s no shortage of instances where something terrible happened and those in power chose to pretend…
It could be argued that the scale of the universe is such that our minds will never be able to comprehend it. In fact, it seems very likely that even things here on earth are far beyond what our minds could imagine at the best of times. That’s one of the reasons people will refer…
When it comes to mysteries of science, even the experts can be stymied sometimes. And then, with a little contemplation and testing, a simple solution can present itself. And every so often, the solution is so simple it makes the whole problem look a little goofy. 10. Europe’s 300-Year Vanilla Problem Vanilla comes from an…