• Why Mattresses Come with Warning Tags
• The Rise of the Recliner as a Male Social Space
• Plywood Manufacturing History Surprisingly Interesting
• Why Aren’t There Universal Sockets in Every Country?
• How Air-Conditioning Invented the Modern World
• How to Fix a Toilet and Other things We Can’t Do Withou…
That Cat Could Hold His Whisky, It Could Hold Him
• Ernest Hemingway Taught One of His Many, Many Cats to Drink Whisky
• The Physics of Whisky’s Aesthetically Pleasing Residue
• The Question That Won Me the Ig Nobel Prize: Are Cats Liquid?
• Scientists Finally Answer the Important Question, Are Cats a Liquid?
• Is a Cat a Liquid…
A Social Function
• 35 Thoughtful Questions to Ask at Thanksgiving Dinner
• 12 Pieces of 100-Year-Old Advice for Dealing with Your In-Laws
• This Thanksgiving Pass the Stuffing — And Don’t Pass on the Discussion of Social Issues
• Solving the Riddle of What to Drink on Thanksgiving
• New York Today: What Are You Thankful For…
Safety Zones
• These Are the Safest Countries in the World to Visit
• Three Graphics That Show Why Finland Is the Safest Place on the Planet
• This Unexpected Country Is Apparently the World’s Safest Place to Travel
• Land Mines in Ukraine’s East Put It Among World’s Most Dangerous Areas for Civilians
• People in These Places Le…
Learning from Nature
• The Physics of Champagne Bubbles Could Help Power the Future
• Wake Up and Smell the Traffic? London Tries Coffee to Power Buses
• Holy Smokes! Tobacco May Fuel Planes in the Future
• Full of Beans: Coffee Grounds to Help Power London’s Buses
• This Commuter Bus Runs on Poo…
Body Oddities
• Women Less Likely to Receive CPR in Public, Study Finds
• Hemorrhoid Cream Has Weird Benefits for Under-Eye Area
• The Age Your Brain Matures at Everything — and It Isn’t Even Fully Developed until Age 25
• How the Human Brain Tracks a 100-Mph Fastball
• Leggo My Eggo! – Apparently Frozen Waffles Are Brain Food, Who Knew?…
Around Japan 7
• Watch Black in Tokyo, a Short Documentary about Living in Japan as a Black Person
• Takayama-Laos Connection (Google Translate)
• Miss Laos 2011 Louknum Posts ‘Japan’ Via Social Media
• Yaoi Fans Rejoice as Shinto Shrine Seemingly Opens Part-Time Positions for Male Shrine Maidens
• Only 36% of Toilets in Pu…
Surrounded by Sound
• Since 2010, Sad Songs Have Become Less Common All over the World
• Sorry, Christmas Music Might Be Bad for Your Health
• Scientists Analyze the Moods of 90,000 Songs Based on Music and Lyrics
• The Simple Statistical Analysis That Explains the Entire History of Popular Music
• This Bird’s Songs Share…
That Time of the Year
• The Year in #MeToo: Read the Post’s Stories about the Movement
• In 90 Years Women Have Made Person of the Year Covers Eight Times
• The Choice
• Person of the Year 2017:TheSilenceBreakers
• ‘MeToo’ Movement Named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year…
The City Struggle
• These Cities and Countries Will Pay You to Move There
• 25 Record-Breaking Cities: Highest, Cheapest, Oldest and Most Crowded
• What the Happiest Countries on Earth Can Teach Americans
• Why Is Leamington Spa the Happiest Place in Britain?
• Swiss Mountain Village, Population 13, Opens Hotel to Avoid Extinctio…
What to Do About Misconduct
• What Happens after Men Apologize for Bad Behavior?
• Reconciling Love and Admiration for Men Who Behave Badly
• How to Be a Good Guy in the Office without Avoiding Women Altogether
• How to Flirt Safely (by a Guy Who Is Definitely Not about to Be Fired for Harassment)…
Language Policing
• China Would Really Like You to Stop Saying “Tofu”
• Eight Ways English Is Creeping Its Way into Chinese, as Explained by a Chinese YouTuber
• “Good on the Floor?” Five Funny Times Google Translate Drops the Ball with Japanese Idioms
• Quebec Tries to Say Au Revoir to ‘Hi,’ and Hello to ‘Bonjour’
• French the New Lingua Franca of the World — Vraiment?…
Conversation School
• The Secret Life of ‘Um’
• Why Small Talk Is Actually Really Good for You
• The Police Have Discovered Social Media Banter — the Result Is No Joke
• The Languages That Take the Most (and Least) Time to Learn, per the US Foreign Service
• A Map Showing How Much Time It Takes to Learn Foreign Languages: Fro…
Words of the Year 2017
• ‘Complicit’ Is the Word of the Year, According to Dictionary.com
• Dictionary.com Chooses ‘Complicit’ as Its Word of the Year
• Word of the Year 2017: Dictionary.com Says ‘Complicit’ Topped ‘Totality’
• Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2017: ‘Feminism’
• Nobody in the UK Has Ever…
Perspectives on Perception
• People Are Less Dismissive of Ideas They Hear Than Those They Read, Study Finds
• Why Reading Aloud Helps You Remember More Information
• You Remember in the Opposite Order as You See
• Burgeoning British Appreciation of Pseudo-Profound Baloney
• Scientists Identify Precisely What Makes a Poem Pleasing
Nothing Here, Move Along
• We’d Rather That Bridges Never Wobbled — But Here’s Why They Do
• The Bridge Wobbles. So Do You. That’s When the Trouble Starts
• 5 Facts about Roundabouts
• Shaftesbury Avenue – the UK’s Worst Illegal Parking Blackspot
• The Design Philosophy Behind Uncomfortable Subway Benches, Explained
• The Father of the Most Hostil…
Christmas Turkeys
• Which Is the Greatest City for Christmas: London or Paris?
• Mall Declares War on Infuriating Christmas-Time Slow Walkers
• What’s the Difference Between a Gift and a Present?
• Wearing an Ugly Holiday Sweater Will Score You This Amazing Airline Perk
• Want Priority Boarding On Your Alaska Airlines Flight This Holiday Season? Wear…
Collecting Interest
• Winston Churchill’s 12-Word Definition of Success May Just Change Your Life
• Read Albert Einstein’s Handwritten Advice from 1922 on Living a Happy Life
• Einstein Scribbled His Theory of Happiness in Place of a Tip. It Just Sold for More Than $1 Million
• Make Tough Decisions Easier with a Decision Matri…
A Fight for Love and Glory
• When a Student Asked How Someone Knows They’re in Love, This Professor Had an Adorable Answer
• American Weddings Vs. European Weddings
• One in Ten Grooms Now Take Their Wife’s Surname, Study Finds
• The Occupations with the Highest and Lowest Divorce Rates in the U…
Herd Recently
• Sheep Also Yawn (Contagiously)
• What a Border Collie Taught a Linguist about Language
• To Save the Planet, Scientists Figured out How to Fix Cow Farts
• Why Farmers Treat Cows Like People
• The Secret Logic of Cows
• The Secret Life of Cows
• Cowabunga! Strange Cow Stories
Flying Business
• When Chuck Yeager Tweeted Details About His Historic, Sound Barrier-Breaking Flight
• The Flying Martha Ornithopter, a Winged Mechanical Toy That Soars with the Power of a Rubber Band
• No More Flying with Reindeer: Unique Alaska Planes to Retire
• A Japanese Airline Wants to Make Crying Babies on Planes a Thing of the Pas…
Skunks, Sloths, & Feline Physics
• Why Do Cats Love Scratching Furniture?
• How Can a Cat Survive a High-Rise Fall? Physics.
• Skunk Research Review
• Things You Probably Don’t Know about Sloths
• Fox Mistakes Bedsheets for Snow
• Wolves Are Probably Smarter Than Our Dogs
• Your Dog Is Probably Dumb…
Customs & Emigration
• Decidedly American Behaviors That Are Considered to Be Rude in Other Countries
• 4 Ways Foreign Tourists Disrespect the Cultures They’re Visiting
• Garçon! Some Outdated, Embarrassing Phrases, Por Favor
• Gestures You Shouldn’t Use in Other Countries
• 11 Things That Tourists Should Never Do in Morocco, Eve…
Dust Off Your Didgeridoo and Snore No More
• Maru and the Aquarium
• Are Cats Solid or Liquid? And Other Award-Winning Absurd Scientific Research of 2017
• 2017 Ig Nobel Prizes Awarded
• Dining on Humans and Cat Fluidity Honored with Ig Nobels
• 2017 Ig Nobel Prizes Celebrate Research on How Crocodiles Affect Gambling and Other Odd Studie…
Human Nature 1
• An Examination of the Multitude of Senses Humans Have Besides the Basic Five Defined by Aristotle
• Beyond the Big Five, Humans Have Dozens of Senses
• We Have More Than Five Senses
• The Naked Ape at 50: ‘Its Central Claim Has Surely Stood the Test of Time’
• Do People Walk in Predictabl…
A Little Real America
• “Why Does Each State ~?” Google Search Autocomplete Maps
• What US States Want: Google Autocomplete, 2014
• By the Numbers: How Americans Spend (More of) Their Money
• How Americans Watch TV
• This Is What Dinnertime Really Looks Like Around the US
• The Food Each State Hates th…
More Squirrel Talk
• Squirrels Gone Wild: Their Quirky Behaviors Explained
• Why Is That Squirrel Squawking at Me? Deciphering the Chatter
• Squirrels Are Hardwired to ‘Dance’ When a Car’s Coming
• Squirrels Actually Organize Their Nut Hoard — Here’s Why
• Squirrels Sort Their Nuts Like You Sort Your Fridge
• Squirrels Are Probably More Organized Than You, Stud…
Street Smarts
• The U.S. Cities with the Worst Traffic Jams for Their Size
• Understanding Highway Hypnosis
• 20 Things You Didn’t Know about Traffic
• What’s the Difference Between a Street, a Road, and an Avenue?
• If You Drive Down a Stretch of Route 66, the Road Will Play “America the Beautiful”
• Interactive Crossing Light…
Around Japan 3
• Which Japanese Anime Character Should Be Prime Minister of Japan?
• Stuff That Happens in Morning Rush Hour Trains in Japan
• Post-War Common Sense That Is Inconceivable Now
• Foreigners Misreading Japanese Kanji of “Two Men One Woman” Is Too Pure for Japanese Internet
• Letter from First-Grade …
Merkel Tops Power List
• How Long and How Often Do Japanese Women Bathe? Survey Investigates
• Japanese Women List Reasons They Wish Their Husbands Would Die in New Husband Death Note Book
• The Top 10 Traits of “Domestic” Women in Japan, According to Japanese Men
• 5 Powerful Reasons to Be a Woman in Japa…
Map Lust 1
• Map of Aussie Slang
• European Languages by Use of Grammatical Genders and Gendered…
• The Western World According to American Political Scientist…
• Countries with a Positive Net Migration Rate
• Countries’ Yearly Population Change
• Percent of the World’s Population Within 10,000 K…
Tongues, Toes, & Videos
• Scientist Finally Figures Out Why Holes Feel Larger with Your Tongue Than with Your Finger
• Surprise, Your Pinky Toe Does Serve a Purpose
• How Long Can a Person Safely Hang Upside Down?
• How Long to Nap for the Biggest Benefits
• Does Self-Control Deplete over the Course of the Day? Maybe Not, Says New Stud…
Autocomplete Search Trends 1
• Sometimes Accidental Google Searches Bring the Best Results
• Google Auto Fill “Why Is Province/Territory So ~?”
• Google Autocomplete with ‘Why Is (State) So ~?’
• What Is Diversity? You Asked Google — Here’s the Answer
• Am I Old? You Asked Google — Here’s the Answer
• Why Is Life So Hard? You As…
Dumber & Dumbest
• Some of the Strangest and Funniest ‘I Woke Up to This’ Moments
• The 25 Dumbest Ways You Managed to Injure Yourself
• The 25 Dumbest Ways You Managed to Injure Yourself
• 911 Dispatchers Share the Dumbest Calls They’ve Ever Received
• People on Twitter Are Sharing the Dumbest Things They’ve E…
Do You Swear?
• The Size of Things: An Ngram Experiment
• Swearing Is Good for You by Emma Byrne; How to Swear by Stephen Wildish — Review
• Daily Telegraph to Readers: Are You Able to Specifically Describe ‘Crap’?
• Language Patterns Reveal Body’s Hidden Response to Stress
• The Randomness of Languag…
Learning Curve Ball
• The Era of Easily Faked, AI-Generated Photos Is Quickly Emerging
• There’s a Glaring Mistake in the Way AI Looks at the World
• Google’s AI Thinks This Turtle Is a Rifle
• Hey, So, Your IPhone May Have Tagged All the Photos of You in a ‘Brassiere’
• Your IPhone’s AI Is Tracking All Your Pictures That It…
Butterball, Bath, & Beyond
• Japan’s “Leftover Bathwater Drink” Wants You to Imagine Beautiful Nude Women as You Sip It
• KFC Cooks Up Fried Chicken Bath Salts in Japan
• You Can Now Smell Like Fried Chicken Thanks to This KFC Drumstick Bath Bomb
• This Ice Cream Is Flavored Like Thanksgiving Dinner Foods
• Thanksgiving-Inspired Ice…
Advice Columns 1
• Ask Amy: Good Guy Is Punished for Good Deed
• We Were Going to Eat That
• Carolyn Hax: Snooping in Husband’s Texts Just Confirms What You Already Know
• Carolyn Hax: What to Do When You Realize That You Sound Like a Braggart
• Carolyn Hax: A Mother Might Need to Discipline Herself to Pick Her Battle…