Keith in Valparaiso, Indiana, wonders why his mother uses the term icebox for what other people call a refrigerator. Before electric refrigeration, people kept food cold by putting it in a an insulated box that was literally cooled with a block of...
Martha explains how experiments with dead frogs and live wires led to the invention of the battery, and inspired a couple of familiar English words.
manto n.— «Deposits of copper-cobalt-manganese-zinc mineralization at Boleo occur within widespread, stratiform clay-rich horizons or beds known as “mantos” (manto is a Spanish term used in mining parlance for a general mineralized layer or...

