I learned this today. Machu Picchu was most likely a royal estate for Inca emperors and nobles that was probably built in the 1420s and abandoned a little over 100 years later. The Incas had no written language, so all information about the site has been deduced by modern archaeology. The Incan Empire came into […]
#125 What was Machu Picchu built for? Read More »
I learned this today. The body produces a fever because pyrogens cause the hypothalamus to raise its set-point for body temperature. Fever is a defense mechanism, and most fevers happen when your body has a bacterial, viral or parasitic infection. Other things, such as alcohol withdrawal and heat stroke, can also cause a fever. Raising
#124 What makes the body produce a fever? Read More »
I learned this today. The first prime minister of the UK to live in 10 Downing Street was Sir Robert Walpole in 1735. 10 Downing Street is located in the City of Westminster, in London. In 960, an abbey was built there, and the area became known as “west minster” to differentiate it from the
#123 When did UK prime ministers start living in 10 Downing Street? Read More »
I learned this today. A wormhole is a hypothetical tunnel that would connect two separate points in space. Wormholes are hypothetical and have obviously never been discovered. They were first theorized in 1916. Karl Schwarzschild, a German physicist and astronomer started looking into Einstein’s field equations. These are the equations that Einstein used in his
#122 What are wormholes? Read More »
I learned this today. Fruits have been preserved as jams since at least before the ancient Greeks. Since the Paleolithic period, people have been preserving foods in different ways. Drying was the easiest way and probably the first form of preservation. Chilling would have been possible in cold climates, but not all year round. People
#121 When did people start making jam? Read More »
I learned this today. Gin was sold from a cat in London in 1739 because Captain Dudley Bradstreet found a loophole in the 1736 Gin Act. Between 1690 and 1751, England went through a period of high consumption of gin. In 1743, it was estimated that people were drinking an average of 10 liters of
#120 Why was gin sold from a cat in London in 1739? Read More »
I learned this today. Dark matter is a hypothetical matter in space that doesn’t absorb, emit or reflect light, yet has gravity and keeps the universe together. It is theorized that dark matter makes up 27% of the universe. The part that we can see, the ordinary matter, only makes up about 5%. If dark
#119 What is dark matter? Read More »
I learned this today. Pykrete is a frozen material made of 14% sawdust and 86% water. It is as strong as concrete. Pykrete was put forward during World War II by Geoffrey Pike, who was the head of Project Habakkuk, an idea to use pykrete to build a floating aircraft carrier. The material was like
#118 What exactly is pykrete? Read More »
I learned this today. A society without money is not only possible, it is probably the best way that society will survive the rise of automation and AI. Money has been with us for about 5,000 years and our entire society is based on money. The majority of our time is spent trying to earn
#117 Could a society without money work? Read More »
I learned this today. People stormed the Bastille during the French Revolution not to free political prisoners but to get at its stores of gunpowder and weapons. The storming of the Bastille is taken to be the start of the French Revolution, but the revolution technically started on May 5th when a number of different
#116 Why did people storm the Bastille on July 14, 1789? Read More »
