Anyone who’s ever driven a car has seen the little warning on basically every passenger-side mirror: “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.” But, why can’t objects be displayed accurately in those mirrors? It’s actually a careful design choice made with safety in mind. The way we see things depends on how light reflects…
Target’s got some of the strongest brand recognition going in the retail world. Their name is reinforced by their red & white logo (literally a target), which also happens to be painted around the eye of their mascot, a Bull Terrier named (appropriately enough) “Bullseye”. So, it would seem like those giant red concrete spheres…
Imagine: you’ve just removed a luscious bundt cake out of the oven & placed it on a cooling rack. Slowly but surely, your kitchen fills with the distinctive, diet-smashing aroma of baked vanilla, and your mouth fills with watery saliva. Why does that happen? Why do our mouths water at the sight/thought of, well, “mouth-watering”…
What’s the deal with that odd loop on the back of a button-down shirt? The loop, seen on many dress shirts for both men & women, is a small piece of fabric typically between the shoulder blades, where the upper back of the shirt meets the pleat. While it’s great for annoying someone when you…
We walk on sidewalks all the time, so much so that we usually don’t ever think about the stuff we’re stepping on: the rigid, smooth, gray hard stuff under our feet. But, have you ever stopped to wonder what the proper name for that stuff is? Is it concrete, or is it cement? And, what’s…
In the past 2 days, I’ve heard 4 different people say, “Welp…I’ve already blown my New Year’s resolution!” Which got me thinking: why do we make these sweeping annual promises to ourselves? Where did this tradition come from? And why does this tradition continue when so many people fail? Well, to start, we have the…
We’ve all heard the phrase, “Whoops, I let the cat out of the bag” when someone accidentally reveals a secret. But where did that phrase come from? And who put that cat in a bag to begin with? The phrase’s first documented usage was in a book review in The London Magazine back in 1760:…
The other day, as I was trying to describe to someone the difference between my current & past mothers-in-law, I began to wonder: “why do we call our spouse’s relatives ‘in-laws’ in the first place?” It’d be easy to assume that it’s because your spouse’s family members are related to you by law, not by…
While you might be proficient in the kitchen, you could potentially find yourself with a deflated cake or bone-dry brownies if you happen to go bake in Aspen, CO. Because an oven at high altitude can, very often, wreak havoc on your baked goods? But, why does altitude affect baking? It boils down to air…
How each of us sees the world is, of course, subjective. But, some colors are meant to be constant. Oranges are forever orange. Fire engines are always red. Tennis balls are always yellow. Or…are they green? Which is it? According to the International Tennis Federation, a tennis ball should be yellow in color, a mandate…