Pour cornflakes into a bowl. Add cold milk. Pick up a spoon. You have made breakfast — unless, according to one of the internet’s most persistent culinary arguments, you have accidentally made soup.The question “Is cereal a soup?” sounds ri...
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Put a glass of water near a cat and it may drink calmly. Turn on a faucet and the same cat might become fascinated, batting at droplets for minutes. Lower it into a bathtub, however, and you...
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Ask a child to draw the Sun and there is a good chance they will reach for a yellow crayon. Search for a Sun emoji and you will find the same convention. For centuries, artists have painted...
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The internet has produced plenty of suspiciously convenient health claims, but few are as appealing as this one: every time you fart, you supposedly burn 67 calories. Repeat the process ofte...
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The sky is so reliably blue on a clear day that the color can feel like a property of the atmosphere itself, as though Earth were covered by an enormous blue ceiling. It is not. Air is essen...
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If Mars can come within roughly 55 million kilometers of Earth, why does a spacecraft sent there travel something closer to 480 million kilometers — and spend around seven months doing it? T...
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There is a moment at almost every birthday party when the room changes. The lights dim, a cake appears, tiny flames tremble above the icing and everyone waits while one person silently makes...
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Stay in a swimming pool or bathtub long enough and something peculiar happens to your hands. The smooth pads of your fingers turn into a landscape of ridges and valleys, as if the skin has s...
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Dog owners become experts in noticing small mysteries. One week the mystery is a dog that seems unable to stop licking its front paws. The next it is the same animal stepping onto the lawn a...
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There are few moments quite like looking into the toilet and discovering that something which is normally brown has turned unmistakably green. It is the kind of question many people would ra...
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