How the Calendar Was Invented
A calendar has to reconcile three cycles that do not fit: the day, the month and the year. Every calendar in history is a different answer to that arithmetic problem.
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How a Computer Stores Information
Everything a computer holds is patterns of two states. The interesting part is not the binary, it is the ladder of storage types trading speed against size and cost.
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Why Do We Get Hiccups?
A hiccup is a sudden contraction of the diaphragm followed by the vocal cords snapping shut. Most attacks are harmless and self-limiting, and the reason they start is still not settled.
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How Antibiotics Work and Why They Stop Working
Antibiotics target structures bacteria have and human cells do not. Resistance is what happens when a bacterial population evolves around that difference, and every course of treatment applies the pressure.
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A Public Atlas Predicting Every Possible Single-Letter DNA Change
A new atlas publishes predicted molecular effects for all nine billion possible single-letter changes in the human genome, turning a question that used to need a lab into a lookup.
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Using Supernovae to Hunt for Particles Nobody Has Seen
A physics team has proposed using the gas a dying star throws off before it explodes as a detector for extremely weakly interacting particles, and set new limits using a recent supernova.
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How Do We Know the Age of the Earth?
The Earth is about 4.54 billion years old, and we know that because certain atoms decay at a fixed rate. Rocks containing them behave as clocks that started when the rock formed.
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How Does a Plane Stay Up?
A wing generates lift by pushing air downwards. The popular explanation involving air travelling further over the top is wrong, and the correct one is simpler than it sounds.
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How Recommendation Systems Decide What You See
Recommenders mostly do not analyse the item. They find people who liked what you liked, then show you what those people liked next, and that produces both the accuracy and the tunnel vision.
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Why the Industrial Revolution Started in Britain
Machines were not the cause. Britain had expensive labour and very cheap coal, which made replacing people with powered machinery pay in a way it did not elsewhere.