The BrainSnail Blog
Small, practical ideas for learning more with less stress. Study tips, memory tricks and the science of slow and steady.
797 articles · page 7 of 34
What Is Purchasing Power Parity? Why the Same Burger Costs Different Amounts
Exchange rates say what a currency buys abroad; purchasing power parity says what it buys at home. Why they differ and which to use when comparing countries.
What Is the Story of Persephone? The Myth Behind the Seasons
The daughter of the harvest goddess was taken to the underworld, and her mother's grief stopped everything growing.
Why Does Cheese Melt, and Why Do Some Cheeses Refuse To?
Cheese melts when its protein net loosens and its fat liquefies. Why mozzarella stretches, why aged cheddar splits, why halloumi holds its shape.
How Golf Scoring Works: Par, Birdies, Handicaps and Match Play
Golf counts strokes and fewer is better. What par means, where the bird names come from, how handicaps work, and match play versus stroke play.
What Is a Nebula? The Clouds Where Stars Are Born and Die
A nebula is a cloud of gas and dust in space. Some are nurseries where stars form, some are the shed layers of dying stars, a few are exploded wreckage.
How Does Triage Work? Deciding Who Waits When Everyone Cannot Be Treated
Sorting a group so limited treatment does the most good is a different goal entirely from treating each patient as well as possible.
What Is Infinity? Why Some Infinities Are Bigger Than Others
Infinity is not a very large number but a property of collections that never run out. How Cantor tamed it, and why the points on a line outnumber the integers.
What Were Trilobites? The Animals That Ruled the Seas for 270 Million Years
Trilobites were armoured sea creatures with the first complex eyes, and they outlasted almost every other animal group. What they were and why they vanished.
What Is Groupthink? Why Capable Groups Make Bad Decisions
Groupthink is the pattern in which a cohesive group suppresses doubt to keep harmony and decides worse than any member would alone. The symptoms and the cures.
What Is Double Jeopardy? Why You Cannot Be Tried Twice for the Same Crime
Double jeopardy is the rule that an acquitted person cannot be tried again for the same offence. Where it comes from, what it protects, and the exceptions made.
What Was the Russian Revolution? From Tsar to Soviet Power in One Year
In 1917 Russia went from absolute monarchy to the first communist state in eight months. Why the Tsar fell, how Lenin took power, and what came after.
What Is Etymology? Where Words Come From and How to Trace Them
Etymology is the history of words: where they came from and how their meanings changed. How it is done, what it shows, and the trap of folk etymology.
Why Do Apples Turn Brown? The Enzyme Behind Cut Fruit and How to Stop It
A cut apple browns because an enzyme meets oxygen and turns the fruit's own chemicals into pigment. Which fruits do it, and what lemon juice actually does.
What Causes El Nino? A Warm Patch of Ocean That Reshapes the World's Weather
Every few years the tropical Pacific warms and the trade winds collapse. How El Nino and La Nina work, and why they flood some regions and dry out others.
What Is the Blues? Twelve Bars That Built Popular Music
The blues is a form, a scale and a feeling that came out of the American South around 1900. How the twelve-bar pattern works.
What Is an Economic Bubble? Tulips, Railways, Houses and Why It Keeps Happening
A bubble is a price driven by the expectation of selling to someone else at a higher one. How they inflate, why sensible people join in, and how they end.
How Does a Microwave Oven Heat Food?
Microwaves twist water molecules billions of times a second. Why that heats food from within, why the plate stays cool, and why metal sparks.
What Is Sikhism? Beliefs, History and the Five Ks
Founded in Punjab five centuries ago, Sikhism teaches one God and human equality. Its ten Gurus, its scripture, and the five Ks.
How Are Dinosaurs Named? Latin, Greek and the Rules of Giving a Fossil a Name
Every dinosaur has a two-part scientific name, coined by whoever describes it under rules that go back to 1758. Where the names come from, and the errors.
What Is Pascal's Wager? Betting on God With the Mathematics of Chance
Pascal argued that since belief costs little if God does not exist and gains all if he does, the rational bet is to believe. What he said, and why it fails.
What Are Saturn's Rings Made Of? Ice, Gaps and a System That May Be Young
Saturn's rings are almost pure water ice, from dust grains to house-sized boulders, in a sheet wider than the Earth-Moon gap. What they are and how they formed.
What Is Jazz? Improvisation, Swing and the Music That Came Out of New Orleans
Jazz is music built on improvising over a shared structure, with a rhythmic feel called swing. Where it came from, how it changed, and what its players do.
How Does a Laser Work? Light That Marches in Step
A laser makes light of one colour with every wave in step, by making excited atoms emit in unison between mirrors. The physics, and what the beam can do.
What Is Gothic Architecture? Pointed Arches, Flying Buttresses and Walls of Light
Gothic is the style of the great medieval cathedrals, built from about 1140 to 1500. The three inventions behind it, and why its walls could be made of glass.
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