Delayed gratification means giving up pleasure now to get a greater reward in the future. We cut down on the junk food today, so we look good at the beach next summer. We save money now, so we can relax in retirement. We all delay gratification to some degree, and it starts at a … [Read more...]
The English idiom tongue-tied describes someone who is speechless. Originally coined by Shakespeare, the expression is still commonly used today. There are many reasons that people sometimes feel tongue-tied, and being a native English speaker or an English student has nothing to … [Read more...]
When Manuel Segovia and Isidro Velazquez had a falling out, it became international news. No one remembers what started it. Some say it was because they disagreed on the proper way to speak their own language. Their feud was widely reported around the world because there was much … [Read more...]
The Maori people wept with joy. They celebrated their beloved river being granted the same rights as a human being by the New Zealand government. This means the river now has a legal right to exist. Defenders of the river can now use the courts to sue anyone who seeks to harm … [Read more...]
International tourism analysts say that 2020 will be a lost year. With a projected $2.2 trillion lost and 100 million jobs wiped out, many hotels, airlines, and restaurants are in survival mode. Tourism-related businesses are trying to stay afloat and weather the storm, hoping … [Read more...]
Napoleon wasn’t tall, but he wasn’t short either. At five foot five inches (1.65 meters), he was only an inch shorter than average for a Frenchman of his time. Despite the myth, to this day, people dismissively describe aggressive men of short stature as having a Napoleon … [Read more...]
When he turned 60, Indian billionaire Kochouseph Chittilappilly wanted to do something big. He had a vision of a kidney donation chain. And the chain would start with him. Some said it was a publicity stunt. Others thought he was joking and wouldn’t actually go through with … [Read more...]
Unlike some parts of the US, in Texas, face masks have been mandatory since early July. When a bus driver in Lubbock asked a passenger to put on a face mask, the passenger smashed up the bus and attacked the driver. This was not an isolated incident. Across the US, face mask … [Read more...]
When a humpback whale began playing with Nan Hauser like a toy, she feared the worst. The 50,000-pound mammal swam toward the marine biologist and began to nudge her. Nan had been deep-sea diving for 28 years, but had never known a whale to be this touchy-feely. It appeared … [Read more...]
On May 25th, 2020, George Floyd was murdered. Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria said, “The officers knew what was happening -- one intentionally caused it and the others failed to prevent it. This was murder -- it wasn’t a lack of training…” Officer Alex Kueng held George … [Read more...]
One of the most expensive bottles of wine in history cost $225,000, but no one will ever know if it was truly worth it. In 1989, New York wine merchant, William Sokolin, brought the precious bottle to the Four Seasons Hotel. He proudly showed it off until a jaw-dropping accident … [Read more...]
Climate change is speeding up. According to some research, the earth is losing 200 species of plants, insects and animals a day. Britt Selvitelle and Aza Raskin believe that understanding non-human language can save the world. They are neither linguists nor environmental … [Read more...]
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje remembers his first day of school like it was yesterday. The sun was shining, and the air was crisp. He particularly remembers how a policeman smiled at him before spitting in his face. It was the youngster’s first experience with institutionalized … [Read more...]
Mohan Paswan made a living as a tuk-tuk driver in New Delhi. Every week he sent money back home to support his family. In January, he was hurt in a traffic accident. He needed someone to take care of him. His 15-year-old daughter jumped on a train to save the day. Jyoti Kumari … [Read more...]
An unassuming man in a T-shirt and baseball cap stood playing a $4 million violin near the Washington DC subway station entrance. For 43 minutes, he played beautifully on his nearly 300-year-old instrument. This is no surprise since Joshua Bell is one of the world’s most talented … [Read more...]
Author AJ Jacobs jokes that his specialty is being able to focus on the negative. He says he’s not alone in having a glass-half-empty personality. He says that humans are wired this way. It may have been useful to keep our eyes on dangerous predators in prehistoric times, but for … [Read more...]
Twenty-seven-year-old Angus Barbieri was a big man with a big appetite. At 456 pounds, he was also classified as “grossly obese.” Unhappy with his weight, he decided to take matters into his own hands. In 1965, the six-foot man visited a hospital in Dundee looking to lose a … [Read more...]
Private Wojtek is hailed as a war hero in Poland, but the renowned soldier was neither Polish nor human. Wojtek was a brown bear who was dealt a poor hand as a cub. After hunters killed his mother, Wojtek wandered the world alone until he was found and adopted by a young … [Read more...]
In 1606, the bubonic plague returned to London. Two years earlier, it had killed 30,000 of its inhabitants. The plague hit like a hammer that winter. This time the city took no chances. It shut down on a massive scale. All the theaters closed. This was a bitter blow for … [Read more...]
Aristotle once questioned what separates humans from animals. He decided it’s not language or reason. It’s laughter. Aristotle wrote that the moment when a baby first laughs is when the child becomes fully human. According to historian Barry Sanders, Aristotle believed that … [Read more...]
