Memorial tanks at the Ukrainian Motherland Monument in Kyiv.
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Who are the Ukrainians and when were they part of the same empire as Russia? A scholar answers basic questions on war in Ukraine.
Listening to music can be a joyful experience.
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As long as you don’t tune out the world and protect your hearing, it’s hard to overdo it.
Cartilage makes this scalloped hammerhead shark’s body flexible.
NOAA NMFS
Hard and strong, or bendy and flexible? A cartilaginous skeleton provides advantages in the ocean, but wouldn’t stand up to life on land.
No matter its cause, diarrhea is uncomfortable.
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Poop comes in many shapes, sizes and textures. The kind that’s too runny might be the result of wayward germs, Crohn’s disease or lactose intolerance.
Step away from the cotton swabs!
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That brownish/yellowish gunk that comes out on your finger if you scratch deep inside your ear? It actually serves an important purpose in your body.
The body starts plugging up wounds as quickly as it can to prevent blood loss and infection.
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Blood plays a vital role in keeping us alive, from delivering oxygen to the body’s organs to fighting off infections.
Specialized anatomy means flightless penguins are master swimmers.
Christopher Michel
How did penguins end up with so few bones – and become lightning-fast swimmers?
Allium schoenoprasum , better known as chives.
Andreas Rockstein/Flickr
Plants need light to feed themselves, so they grow in ways that help them collect as much of it as they can. Sometimes that’s straight up, but not always.
Most candy is basically just a heap of sugar.
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A healthy diet can include some candy. But if you eat too much, it can interfere with your appetite for the stuff your body actually needs.
Lava flows from a fissure in the aftermath of eruptions from the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island, May 22, 2018.
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Volcanoes might seem like nature’s incinerators, but using them to burn up trash would be dangerous and disrespectful to indigenous people who view them as sacred.
Some places rarely see the sun.
Donat Photography / EyeEm
Extended periods of rain are most likely found in locations where mountains are near oceans.
Brown poop can indicate good health.
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The answer is more complicated than you might think. It has to do with how your body gets rid of old red blood cells.
You never know where Uncle Sam will make an appearance.
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The iconic image may have originated with a meat supplier named Samuel Wilson. Or not.
For almost as long as there have been computers, there have been video games.
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Video games are everywhere. So who was the first person to come up with the idea of playing a game on a computer screen?
A dairy barn in Waitsfield, Vermont, built circa 1890.
Thomas Visser
Barns are practical buildings, designed to safeguard farm animals and equipment. Why are so many of them painted to stand out from the landscape?
It only takes light about eight minutes to go from the Sun to Earth.
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The fastest things ever made by humans are spacecraft, and the fastest spacecraft reached 330,000 mph – only 0.05% the speed of light. But there are ways to go faster.
A fly regurgitating digestive juices.
Carlos Ruiz
A fly does some of its digesting outside its body before it even eats any food.
Three upright walkers, including Lucy (center) and two specimens of Australopithecus sediba , a human ancestor from South Africa dating back nearly 2 million years.
Image compiled by Peter Schmid and courtesy of Lee R. Berger/Wikimedia Commons
Walking has taken a very long time to develop, with evidence of bipedalism among early humans in Africa roughly 4.4 million years ago.
On average, two students in every U.S. classroom have ADHD.
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Even when the condition lasts a lifetime, there are behavioral treatments and prescription drugs that make it easier for people with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder to thrive.
Your teeth will be better off if you refrain from chomping on ice cubes.
Credit: Laurence Monneret/The Image Bank via Getty Images
A dentist explains why this is a habit worth breaking – no matter the cause or the strength of your cravings to keep doing it.