Depending on where you are in the world and what you believe about the law, prison is meant to be a punishment, a deterrent, or a rehabilitation. Sometimes it may do all three, sometimes it may do only one and even then just barely. It seems to depend on the sentence and the prisoner in…
Author: Ian Fortey
When you’re a child, your parents have to teach you what’s dangerous or else you’ll probably bumble your way into all kinds of chaos and trauma. Hot stoves, sharp knives, electrical outlets, there are all kinds of hazards that look great to you as a toddler but you need to learn they are dangerous. Ironically,…
The word “chemical” brings to mind a lot of imagery of science labs and dangerous compounds, even though everything has a chemical structure from corn syrup, which is C6H14O7 to good ol’ water which everyone knows as H2O. So a chemical compound can take literally any form, some of which are harmless, some of which…
Language can be a very slippery thing some days. We can play fast and loose with the rules of language and grammar to the point that words can end up meaning totally different things over time, like how literally has gradually come to mean the exact opposite thing. We also routinely make up new words…
For a lot of people food is something in which they can take joy and comfort. We indulge in junk food, try to eat healthy food, make too much food to celebrate special occasions and, thanks to the internet, we can learn about new and exotic foods to try from all over the world. But…
Everything comes from somewhere, as vague a statement as that may be. But sometimes the origins of things can be surprising, like how bagpipes don’t come from Scotland or pasta doesn’t come from Italy. And then there’s another level of surprising origins when you discover that multiple things all come from the same place. 10.…
Every age probably thinks of itself as pretty enlightened. Today, we all seem to be fairly certain that we know how the world works but we can still see examples of people believing some stunningly foolish things all the time. In the future, it’s very likely people will be writing articles about the world of…
Short of going back in time, the best way most of us have to get a feel for what battle was like back in the day is by watching TV and movies. Unfortunately, both of these have bred a number of misconceptions about what went on in ancient warfare. Such as… 10. Spartans Were Great…
Being a confidence man takes a lot of brass, as they say. To be able to look a person in the eye, lie to them, and scam them out of their time, money, and trust is not a thing just anyone can do. And when a con artist can do it to multiple people for…
When you look at the entirety of our culinary history there are thousands, if not millions, of dishes that have been developed all around the world across time. There’s no way that anyone could ever sample them all, and there’s no way that anyone would ever like them all, either. And maybe that’s part of…
Have you ever had that moment in which you wonder if some tool or invention exists and when you look into it you’re disappointed to discover someone else thought of it first? Or worse, you have an idea that doesn’t exist, and it takes forever for someone to make it a reality? That sort of…
Military history shows us that, no matter where you’re from, strict discipline, training and dedication along with some innovation and cleverness can do amazing things. But along with that comes a long list of rituals, beliefs and superstitions that sometimes make sense and sometimes are absolutely baffling to outsiders and sometimes even insiders. Take, for…
People online love exposing secret rooms. Every so often, a new tale goes viral, featuring someone discovering a hidden room with all manner of creepy implications. But usually these stories are just of homeowners or apartment renters finding the mysterious locations and, while vaguely creepy, are not all that unusual anymore. What you may find more unusual is the…
Istanbul, Turkey, is sometimes known as the City of Cats and estimates of how many cats live in the city range from over 100,000 to a million. That’s a heck of a thing to be known for. Madrid, Spain is home to the world’s oldest restaurant. And if you head to Columbia, South Carolina you’ll…
In science fiction people have managed to travel through time in starships, DeLoreans, hot tubs and duffel bags among many other things. It’s just that easy. In real life, science can’t even decide if time travel is even theoretically possible, although a lot of prominent names lean towards it being impossible. But hey, what are…
What’s in a name? It’s generally one of the first things we learn about a new person, place or thing. We need to know how to refer to it. And we’ll probably not bat an eye over 99 names in 100. But every so often something happens to a name that makes it problematic and…
Water, water, everywhere, about which we rarely think. For a substance that is integral to life as we know it, most of us don’t spend a lot of time thinking about our water until something happens to it, as was the case in Flint, Michigan, Jackson, Mississippi, Puerto Rico and numerous First Nations reserves in…
A cognitive bias is essentially just a mistake in how you process information. It causes you to misinterpret or misunderstand information and the end result is that you come to a wrong decision or conclusion without realizing you made any kind of mistake. It can be difficult to realize they exist, especially since some 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…
The human mind loves a good mystery. It’s almost impossible to be presented with a puzzle and not want to try to solve it; that’s just the way our minds work. And while some mysteries are very simple, and some are nearly impossible, others are just completely unexpected and unbelievable. Sometimes the solution is even…
Birds do it, bees do it, and even kleptogenic salamanders do it. No, it’s not fall in love, although maybe that’s part of it. It’s just reproducing. And while as humans we’re most familiar with the process of one male and one female sharing some genetic material so that a baby can be formed, not…
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…
You know you’re in for a treat when you hear a much older person start a sentence with “back in my day.” The world used to be different and we all know it. But what gets lost sometimes is just how different things used to be in the day-to-day world. We don’t need to look…
Plastic surgery has existed in one form or another for hundreds of years. Of course, 16th century plastic surgery was by no means as refined as it is today, but it did set a precedent and start a trend of trying to fix, at first, disfigurements and then, in time, just things people felt were…