tiny park in Japan
When bigger isn’t better In an era of the biggest, fastest, best, two parks aim to be the smallest. In Nagaizumi, Japan, just an hour from Tokyo, the…
Category: Briefs
Trashy birds make use of human habits
The Eurasion coot has been nesting in Amsterdam since the 1980s, and everyone has noticed that the usual leaves and reeds it uses for nests has been…
This QR code goes to wikipedia
Churches adopt QR codes In the emerging cashless society, churches have gone high tech for collections, especially following the pandemic, Rather than…
What is a paraprosdokian?
A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or…
Trees with email addresses attract fans
In 2015, the City of Melbourne gave about 70,000 trees unique ID numbers and email addresses as part of an urban forestry project. The goal was practical:…
Lobsters get a better rep
Today at a good restaurant, you are going to pony up at minimum $100 for a lobster dinner. Too bad you didn’t live in the 1800s. Lobsters were once seen…
Why do you get brain freeze?
Brain freeze, technically known as sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia, happens when something cold hits the roof of your mouth fast’like chugging an icy…
The secret lives of dinosaurs
Ever since we learned about dinosaurs, we’ve been thinking about the differences between dinosaur sexes. Scientists have been studying it for decades and…
Vin Vasive
Government has a mess of mascots Sports mascots have made waves over the years with their antics. Think of the San Diego Chicken who virtually created the…
One scary near miss
How do nuclear-capable countries know if a rocket is an attack — or just something scientific? Answer: The country firing the rocket is supposed to tell…