Haiti's restavek children work for their keep, not a wage
A restavek in Haiti is a child sent by poor parents to live with another household, where they fetch water, clean and mind children instead of school.
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One hour outside the ISS costs seven hours in a pool
Astronauts rehearse a spacewalk underwater for about seven hours per hour outside, then spend the night before in an airlock adjusting to suit pressure.
UK pets and Brexit: a new certificate for every EU trip
Since Brexit, taking a dog, cat or ferret from Great Britain to the EU needs an animal health certificate for each trip, at around £100 to £150 a time.
Frederick Taylor's stopwatch built US scientific management
Frederick Taylor timed factory tasks to fractions of a minute and turned the results into scientific management, a system that made him famous and hated.
New York rewrote factory fire safety after the Triangle fire
A locked stairwell door trapped ninth-floor workers in New York's 1911 Triangle fire, and the state answered with 38 new safety laws.
A German school ran 14 years and reshaped modern design
The Bauhaus lasted from 1919 until the Nazis shut it in 1933, yet its white walls, steel chairs and factory-made lamps still set what modern looks like.
Best AI: a different winner for every task
There is no single best AI. Testers who compare notetakers, chatbots, or raw models each crown a different winner, and the field moves too fast to settle.
One of India's 89 top civil servants was a Dalit in 2019
Caste still sorts India's job market and its marriages: a surname reveals caste to employers, and inter-caste marriage stays rare.
Nations choose their side of the date line
No single authority draws the International Date Line, so nations near it pick whichever side keeps their own calendar in one piece.
City of London approves twin towers to replace Fountain House
The City of London Corporation approved two new towers on Fenchurch Street, joining a pipeline of new skyscrapers due by 2030.
Pakistani police shot Dhaka students demanding language rights
Police shot Bengali-speaking students in Dhaka in 1952 after they defied a ban on assembly. The protest helped shape Bangladesh's 1971 founding.
Mark Zuckerberg blocked Facebook's Like button for two years
Facebook's engineers had a working Like button ready by late 2007, but Mark Zuckerberg blocked it for two years while a smaller rival shipped one first.
Harry Brearley found stainless steel while testing gun barrels
Harry Brearley was hunting for a steel that would stop gun barrels wearing away. In 1913 his Sheffield lab produced one that would not rust instead.
Buffon showed that falling needles could estimate pi
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, worked out in 1777 that a needle tossed onto lined paper could estimate pi through chance alone.
Bank of England rate rises squeeze debt before they cool prices
A rate rise makes debt dearer months before it slows prices, and the squeeze lands on borrowers and renters long before it reaches anyone else.
Why grief refuses to run on a schedule
Grief has no fixed timetable. Many people never move through the five stages, and expecting grief to end on time causes its own pain.
Joe Russo called it a passion project. Critics called it a dud.
Netflix spent a reported $320 million on The Electric State. Three much cheaper films each beat its three-day viewing figures.
Kiwi skin is edible, and it adds fibre to the fruit
Kiwi skin is edible and adds fibre, vitamin E and folate, though a history of kidney stones is reason enough to peel it.
The Earl of Sandwich didn't invent the sandwich
John Montagu gave the sandwich its name at a card table in 1762, but bread wrapped around food is thousands of years older than his title.
Comparing universities properly takes more than a league table
A league table averages a whole institution. The course you want, its entry threshold and your own circumstances decide more than that average does.
Mary Austin opens the trunks that held Freddie Mercury's lyrics
Mary Austin packed Freddie Mercury's handwritten lyrics into four trunks in the 1980s. In the week he'd have turned 80, she is publishing them.
Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's Last Theorem after 358 years
Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's Last Theorem in 1995, working in secret for years and closing a gap that turned up during peer review.
China chose its officials by exam until 1905
China's civil service exam ran from the Tang dynasty to 1905, testing millions on Confucian classics, with about one in a hundred winning a post.
Brazil's Pix instant payments undercut card fees
Brazil's central bank launched Pix in 2020, free for individuals and far cheaper than cards, and it now leads the country's payments.