A new book about how animals perceive their environment reveals immense worlds beyond our own. A bee can see ultraviolet light, catfish have taste buds all over their bodies, and manatees use highly sensitive lips to examine nearby objects. Also...
Elia lives in northern Arizona, alongside the Navajo Nation. He grew up in France and learned English as a second language, but he knows very little Navajo. When he overhears Navajo being spoken, he has a hard time picking up any emotional tones at...
In anatomical nomenclature, a bursa is a fluid-filled sac that helps cushion a joint. Bursa is the Latin word for “purse,” the source of English purse itself, as well as the bursar who controls the purse strings in a college, plus...
Do spelling bees exist outside the United States? Not really. English is unique for how vast and complicated it is, which makes our bees pretty exciting. In France, they have competitions for taking dictation, and the Chinese hold races for looking...
If you’re on tenterhooks, it means you’re in a state of anxious anticipation or suspense. But what IS a tenterhook? The answer goes back to a 15th-century manufacturing process. Also, you probably have a term for those crumbs that...
Pie charts were invented by the Scottish engineer William Playfair, but the name for these visual representations of data came later. In other countries, this type of graph goes by names for other round foods. In France, a pie chart is sometimes...