As I mention in my article on this topic at Interesting Thing of the Day, there are some plants that bloom so rarely that the appearance of their flowers is heralded as a major event. One such plant, the Titan Arum lily, draws huge crowds to botanical gardens whenever one is about ready to bloom; [...]

To the best of my recollection, I’ve never been lost in the woods (or elsewhere away from civilization)—or at least not sufficiently lost that I didn’t have a general sense of which direction I needed to go. But if I were, I’d have many options for getting my bearings. I recall learning, as a kid, [...]

Before we had precise, standardized units of measure such as meters and feet, lengths (and even, ocasionally volumes) were reckoned based on the average dimensions of human body parts. In Body-Based Units of Measurement at Interesting Thing of the Day, I listed a few such historical units of measure, which can still come in handy [...]

We tend to take honey for granted as just another sweetener choice, but in fact there is much more to this sticky treat than meets the eye. Honey has been used as a folk remedy in cultures around the world for millennia, and has been prescribed informally as a cure for smallpox, baldness, eye diseases, [...]

The idea that there are dozens of Eskimo words for snow is (mostly) an urban myth, but in English, we have at least eight different terms for a snow crust. These are from the Glossary of Meteorology at the American Meteorological Society by way of Interesting Thing of the Day:

snow crust: the general term for [...]

Years ago I took a microbiology class to fulfill the requirements for a degree. It was specifically designed for students like me, arts majors who needed those crucial science credits. As such, it stayed away from “serious” biology and focused more on the societal impact of microbiology. From infectious diseases to the misuse of antibiotics [...]

The primal power of volcanoes has fascinated humanity for thousands of years, and it is no different today. Tourists flock to sites with particularly spectacular displays of volcanic activity despite the potential danger they pose. My own experience with volcano tourism involved a few nights’ stay below the slopes of the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica. [...]

According to the article What’s Left of Patagonia at Interesting Thing of the Day, both seals and sea lions are pinnipeds, or “fin-feet,” but…

Sea lions have much larger front flippers than seals. Sea lions have back flippers that can rotate underneath them; seals don’t. When on land, sea lions can walk on all four flippers, whereas seals [...]