In October 1939, as Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin were plunging the world into war, an American educational reformer named Abraham Flexner published an essay in Harper’s Magazine under the marvelous ...

You can learn so many fascinating things on the internet. For example, did you know that Subway bread is so full of sugar ...

Introduction: The Joy of Delightfully Useless Knowledge Welcome to the wonderfully absurd world of hilariously useless facts! You know those random tidbits that serve absolutely no practical purpose ...

Discouraged by a steady decline in the number of U. S. students studying languages, and by the racial and religious discriminations against teachers in other lands —which they deplored*—2,500 members ...

How a chemical in lizard spit inspired one of the most important medical advancements. Our lizard friend the Gila monster probably has no idea that a chemical in its spit inspired one of the most ...

IN conversation with a learned friend lately, our talk ran on various definitions of culture, and on the fact that for one reason or another we found them all unsatisfactory. This led us to ponder the ...

The address for the Institute for Advanced Study is 1 Einstein Drive, named after undoubtedly the most famous scientist to work here. The campus lies amid sprawling green meadows, oak trees and a ...

In October 1939, as Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin were plunging the world into war, an American educational reformer named Abraham Flexner published an essay in Harper’s Magazine under the marvelous ...

This is how fundamental discoveries — aka, “useless knowledge” — are usually made: not so much by hunting for something specific, but by wandering with an interested eye amid the unknown. It’s also ...