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Why do you never see a baby housefly?

20 Mar 2017

Because baby houseflies don鈥檛 exist. A little backgrounder on the flies鈥 reproductive cycle can clear up this seeming conundrum. Within a week of mating, a doggie-style activity lasting from a few...

The Strange Friendship Between Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

20 Mar 2017

Doyle had become interested in spiritualism in the late 1800s and joined the British Society for Psychical Research (SPR). In 1894 he was one of the members of a committee sent to investigate a...

Welch's Grape Juice

20 Feb 2017

Woodrow Wilson鈥檚 secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan, was ridiculed in 1913 for serving Welch鈥檚 grape juice instead of wine at a dinner honoring the British ambassador. This proved to be...

Chemistry lesson for The Food Babe鈥 and everyone else #17: The Carnation Tragedy of the '30s

17 Feb 2017

Back in the 1930s a flower merchant with a greenhouse full of carnations got worried when the weather forecast called for extremely cold temperatures. So he placed a kerosene burner in the...

Carmine Dye and the Cochineal Insect

15 Feb 2017

At least in a manner of speaking.聽When Hernan Cortez came to America in 1518 he was intrigued by the beautifully coloured Aztec fabrics, particularly the stunning reds.聽He asked the natives about...

A Spoonful of Sugar

20 Jan 2017

Mary Poppins, starring Julie Andrews, was a big hit for Disney studios in 1964. The film was a musicalized version of the children鈥檚 books about a magical English nanny written between 1934 and...

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