In the 16 and 1700s, wife selling was a type of marital separation that people did when they couldn’t afford divorce. It was shaming, mysoginistic, and patriarchal (basically it was a terrible time to be female). BUT wife selling was an attempt to work within a crushingly unfair system and sometimes even worked to the […]

Seldom written about, female gladiators fought for glory and Rome from around 509 BCE to 200 AD. What little information we have about them was in a few historical writings and one remaining frieze. image: Amazonia and Achillea

2012 published research detailed how you could influence someone’s honesty on say, a test. It all depended on if they signed an agreement to be truthful at the beginning or the end of the test. A lot of what is discussed in the paper feels like common sense. And was also hard to reproduce. How […]

In 1948, Idaho Fish and Game got the bright idea to transport beavers into the back country with PARACHUTES. It was a wild and wacky compromise to save dwindling beaver populations, promote healthy forests, and keep beavers out of post WWII housing developments.

It’s 1789 and the beginning of bureaucracy in the United States. James Madison is writing letters to smooth the path of George Washington’s disorganized congress. The way it all went down is hilarious. Not one of the 4 letters BUT this one was written by James Madison to George Washington on Dec. of 1789. He […]

While baby Egyptian fruit bats start life getting carried around, once they get too heavy, their mothers leave them in a cave while they forage. It’s tough love that gets them out of the cave and learning how to find home and food. image by Yuval Barkai from New York Times Science Current Biology article […]

The first roller skates were patented by John Joseph Merlin in 1760. He showed off his new fangled wheeled shoes with an epic entrance to a party that ended not quite how he thought it would.

With enough pressure and heat, just about anything with enough carbon in it could become a diamond. And thankfully for us, when a scientist was asked, could he turn peanut butter into a diamond, he decided to find out. How NOT to make a diamond at home:

How do whales open their mouths to grab a mouthful of food without drowning?! Because it’s not just krill that goes in, but hundreds of gallons of water. Amy digs into why. The adaptation is remarkable. Check out Science News magazine for a cool diagram! And here’s my other (Amy’s) sources:  EurekAlert Baleen Whales use […]

In 2007, a woman’s 5,000 year old skeleton was found in Burnt City, Iran. She was at least six feet tall and had what researchers think may be the first example of a prosthetic eye. image: Check out the original paper!