Iceland's Althing is called the oldest parliament. It has a gap.
Iceland dates its Althing to 930 and calls it the oldest parliament, though the assembly stopped sitting for about 45 years.
The collection
All stories.
The complete edition. Fresh thinking from across our world.
Panama Canal locks lift ships 85 feet above the sea
Gravity-fed water from Gatún Lake raises each ship in three steps. France's first attempt ended by 1889 and the United States finished the canal in 1914.
A tidal lagoon wall makes power as the tide rises and falls
A tidal lagoon walls off part of the sea, then lets the height difference between the tide and the lagoon push water through turbines twice a tide.
A 1958 patent fixed the Lego brick that barely sold
Lego's plastic brick barely sold for years. Godtfred Kirk Christiansen's 1958 coupling patent, not his father's toys, is why it finally gripped.
Irish Garda vetting has no expiry, but some employers set one
Irish Garda vetting has no fixed expiry, but a new role, a return to study or a three-year policy can each mean vetting again. Here is how it works.
Let's Encrypt made HTTPS certificates free and automatic
Let's Encrypt automated the forms, waiting and server setup as well, then issued its billionth HTTPS certificate in February 2020.
GATT ran world trade for 47 years, then became the WTO
The US Congress never ratified a planned trade organisation, so a 1947 treaty ran world trade until the WTO replaced it in 1995.
Apple unveils the iPhone 18 Pro, Pro Max and first foldable
Apple's iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max go on sale September 18. The foldable iPhone Duo follows on October 23, at new chief John Ternus's first launch.
Triple glazing's second gap cuts heat loss further
Triple glazing adds a third pane and a second gas-filled gap, so it loses less heat than double glazing. The whole window, frame included, sets the result.
A decree on the Rosetta Stone let Champollion read hieroglyphs
A priests' decree of 196 BC, carved in three scripts, let Jean-François Champollion read hieroglyphs in 1822. Thomas Young had laid the groundwork.
Alan Turing swapped 'Can machines think?' for a game
Alan Turing's 1950 imitation game asks a judge to tell human from machine by typed questions. His own sample machine got a sum wrong.
How to clear your cache in Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge
Clearing a cache slows one page load, but clearing cookies signs you out everywhere. Steps for four browsers, an iPhone, and one misbehaving app.
Wittgenstein argued a truly private word can never be corrected
Wittgenstein argued a language only one person could understand fails, because nothing outside that person could catch a wrong use of a word.
Carbon dating can age remains up to about 60,000 years old
Carbon dating measures decaying carbon-14 against stable carbon-12 to work out how long ago an organism died, a method Willard Libby built in Chicago.
Onyx Storm sold 2.7 million copies, or 1.3 million, in a week
Rebecca Yarros's first novel found no publisher. Onyx Storm later broke a fiction sales record, and the New York Times and Circana still disagree on its size.
In 1961, Cuba sent volunteers to teach a million adults to read
Many of the volunteers were teenagers who lived with rural families. By the end of 1961, about 75% of the million adults had basic literacy.
Littler and Van Gerwen traded 170 finishes in one Dublin match
Two treble 20s and the bull make darts' highest finish, 170. In 2026 it shaped a Premier League semi-final in Dublin and a world quarter-final.
Museums scan mummies to read them without unwrapping
CT scanners let researchers see inside a wrapped mummy in cross-section, revealing bones, teeth, amulets and embalming tools without cutting the wrappings.
A census counts everyone on one day, then checks who it missed
A census counts every resident against one fixed date, then a separate survey checks how many the count still missed, and where.
A combi boiler heats water only when a tap opens
A combi boiler connects to the mains and heats water the moment a tap opens, with no cylinder to fill, top up or wait to reheat.
Ford's moving line cut Model T assembly to about 90 minutes
Ford cut assembly from twelve and a half hours to about 90 minutes in 1913. One car design, identical parts and 84 single-step jobs made it possible.
Sequoyah's Cherokee syllabary took hold within a few years
Sequoyah built the Cherokee syllabary from the language's own syllables. The Cherokee Nation adopted it in 1825, and literacy reportedly rose fast.
Smart thermostats learn your routine from your own adjustments
A smart thermostat learns a routine by copying the adjustments a household makes. The Heating Hub's Jo Alsop says geofencing drove Tado's 28% saving claim.
Adam's Bridge: a sunken shoal chain between India and Sri Lanka
Adam's Bridge is a 29 km chain of shoals between India and Sri Lanka, almost all underwater, that NASA says people could cross on foot until the 15th century.