WEIRD HISTORY
A pregnant mother with untreated syphilis can pass it to the unborn fetus. Halfpoint Images/Moment via Getty Images – By Casey Pinto, Associate Professor of Public Health Sciences, Penn State Published: 2026 May 01 – Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by …
How do babies learn language? Irene Zaccari, CC BY-NC-ND – By Naja Ferjan Ramírez, Research Scientist, University of Washington Published: 2016 Apr 15 – Any adult who has attempted to learn a foreign language can attest to how difficult and confusing it can be. …
Not all space debris burns up in the atmosphere before it makes it back to Earth. PaulFleet/iStock via Getty Images – By Matthew Ray, Professor of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Stout And by Reese Hufnagel, Research Assistant, Department of Chemistry and Physics, University of Wisconsin-Stout Published: …
The 2016 survey of the Dragon Hole revealed its immense depth. Huanqiu View 6 Images – By Bronwyn Thompson 2025 Dec 28 – In the South China Sea, near the Paracel Islands, the aqua-colored waters of an expansive shallow reef platform suddenly gives way …
Andy Craddock/Unpslash – By Karen Stollznow, Research Fellow of Linguistics, Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University; University of Colorado Boulder Published: 2026 Apr 30 – You’ve probably seen it on social media before: a paragraph of scrambled text that looks like …
DOERS/Shutterstock – By Stuart Thompson, Senior Lecturer in Plant Biochemistry, University of Westminster Published: 2026 May 11 – Researchers at MIT have suggested that rice seeds can hear the sound of rain, according to a new study. MIT calls it “the first direct evidence …
Premenstrual dysphoric disorder is a severe form of premenstrual syndrome. By Eliza Zhitnik, PhD Student in Health Policy and Management, UMass Amherst And by Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, Assistant Professor of Health Promotion and Policy, UMass Amherst Published: 2026 May 08 – People with premenstrual dysphoric …
Redacted documents from the Jeffrey Epstein files can fuel conspiracy thinking. Brendan Smialowski via Getty Images – By Matthew N. Hannah, Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Politics and Culture, University of Wisconsin-Madison Published: 2026 May 08 – Jeffrey Epstein’s death on 2019 Aug 10, …
The Thing is from the fictional Yancy Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where creator Jack Kirby was raised. Richie S/flickr, CC BY – By Miriam Eve Mora, Managing Director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, University of Michigan Published: 2026 May 07 – …
A viceroy butterfly showing off its surprisingly strong anisotropic wing structure. Depositphotos – By Malcolm Azania 2026 May 06 – When you hear about designers biomimicking butterflies, your first thought is probably about creating remote-controlled flying toys or small, artificial flying machines that could …
