A big cake, lit candles, songs, presents… We all know what goes into a happy birthday. Well, at least what goes into an American birthday. But it’s a wide world out there, and not every country or culture celebrates people growing older in the same way. And then some countries don’t celebrate them at all. …
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New York City has a rat problem. It’s no secret — anyone who has visited the city, let alone living in it, can vouch for that. According to the latest estimates, there are more than three million rats sharing New York’s streets with its human residents. The rodents are so plentiful that they’ve even spawned …
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Are these American sayings typical in your vocabulary? Fun ones to use would be “go bananas” or “pie in the sky.” Thick As Thieves Thieves are known for sharing secrets and in older times, thick also meant “close.” Go Bananas To go bananas means to show big emotions like super happy or over-the-top excitement and …
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Life on Earth has been around for a long, long time. Over all those years, many creatures have changed so much that they barely resemble their ancient ancestors and relatives. But not all. Some life forms — often dubbed “living fossils” — look pretty much exactly like they did dozens and even hundreds of millions …
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Have you ever used these funky British sayings, phrases like “pop your clogs” or “bee’s knees?” Here are more things to say if you want to expand your verbiage. Cack-handed If you did something “cack-handed,” it means you did it in an uncomfortable, clumsy or awkward way. The word ‘cack’ is old-fashioned slang for feces …
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What do you know about Virginia? Did you know that it’s more than 60% covered in forest? The city Hampton became home to the country’s first free public school, the Syms-Eaton Free School, in 1634. Several schools have followed since then in the same location or with the same name. The state has 15.4 million …
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Running a marathon is a true challenge. The 42-kilometer (26-mile) race tests not only the participants’ physical fitness, but also their mental fortitude. With that in mind, does it make the daunting task harder or easier if the runner has four legs? That’s the question that recently faced the organizers of a Canadian half-marathon. Partway …
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Have you read The History of Dessert on a Stick And Where They Came From? Because this is part two. It takes 43 pounds of ice to manufacture and deliver one gallon of ice cream. But Harry Burt created the delivery truck. Ford was producing reliable trucks at the time and Burt wanted to rework …
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These sayings are funny and pretty common. Do you use sayings like “belly up” and “burst at the seams”? A Hot Potato The idea is that “no one wants to touch a hot potato,” and this saying means that there’s a topic that no one wants to touch, a “hot potato” topic, if you will. …
Continue reading “Do You Know Where These Sayings Come From: Part One”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regularly issues recommendations on how to deal with developing health risks. Typically, those recommendations are what you’d expect. They might ask you to throw away contaminated food items, maybe get vaccinated, shake people’s hands instead of licking them… You know, doctor stuff. For an emerging parasitic threat, …
Continue reading “CDC: Burn Raccoon Toilets with Hellfire to Avoid Fatal Worms”