What is the loudest noise you can imagine? The human ear’s pain threshold is near 130 decibels. For comparison, a jackhammer puts out about 100 decibels, and a jet engine comes in at about 150 decibels. Yet there was a sound that was measured at least 172 decibels 100 miles from the source. This source
The Pantone Color Institute has just announced the color of the year for 2021, and as befitting leaving the chaos of 2020, it has chosen two colors. This is only the second time in 22 years that two colors have been selected. As explained on the Pantone website (https://www.pantone.com/color-of-the-year-2021), their selections for next year are —
Along with pets, some nice plants really brighten a homestead. You may have heard that houseplants can also improve air quality. But is it really true? Well, maybe. Some supporting evidence comes from NASA, which was wondering if living greenery could help clean the air aboard a space station. A 1989 NASA experiment found that
If you have a child between four and fourteen that wonders what it’s like to be grown up, one solution is to take them to a KidZania theme park. Unlike your typical ride-oriented park, KidZania parks provide the opportunity for children to play adult roles in their own scaled-down city. The parks are completely enclosed
Have you ever watched a large flock of birds or a school of fish? Notice how they all tend to synchronize their movements? It can be mesmerizing to see how a large group of animals moves together. Scientists have a name for it — Swarm intelligence. Isn’t it unfortunate that we can’t do the same
Assuming everyone has survived Halloween, here’s a question — when we get scared, what impact does that have on our bodies? The surprising answer is, depending on the type of person you are, the effects can be more good than bad. Being in or even viewing a scary situation does cause physiological changes, like an
What if you’re a freelance food writer, observing the restaurant culture of Atlanta, Georgia, and suddenly you’re stuck at home like everyone else? How do you cope? You could open a restaurant… for a chipmunk. For Angela Hansberger, this strategy started when her uncle, owner of a bowling center in Ohio that COVID-19 shut down,
Have you ever seen a problem and think “Someone should do something about that”? Dutch fashion designer Bas Timmer was starting a career as a cold weather-gear specialist in 2014 when he saw a homeless man one cold night. He could’ve given the man one of his signature fashion hoodies, but what would’ve that done
We seem to have fallen into a trap. The warmer our climate gets, the more refrigeration we need to cool both us and our perishables (already we have an estimated 3.5 billion refrigerators and air conditioners), which means generating more energy, which has always meant releasing more greenhouse gases. What if there was a way
How many unused items do you own? The city of Berlin, Germany estimates that every household has almost 250 unused items. This is a real problem considering Berlin has a goal of eventually becoming a zero-waste city. So how do you get people to reuse items when it’s so easy to find replacements? One idea