El Niño strength comes down to Pacific sea temperature
An El Niño is judged by how far the Pacific warms above normal. NOAA and NASA track it with buoys, floats and satellites, and 0.5C marks the start.
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Phonics teaches children to read by blending letter sounds
A phonics programme teaches a child to match letters to sounds, then blend those sounds together, starting with the letters used most often.
Tree rings date a drought to the exact year
A tree lays down one ring a year, wide when the season is wet and narrow when it is dry. Matched across many trees, those rings date droughts to the year.
Is Taco Bell safe to eat after the US Cyclospora outbreak?
Taco Bell pulled the lettuce tied to a US Cyclospora outbreak in July. Food safety scientist Tamika D. Sims says there is no reason to avoid the chain now.
Africa's crust has thinned to 13km at the Turkana Rift
Columbia geologists found crust at a stage called necking under Kenya and Ethiopia. They suggest the Indian Ocean could follow in a few million years.
How lost-wax casting turns a wax copy into a bronze sculpture
Wax is buried in a mould, melted out and replaced with molten bronze. The method runs from Benin's royal casters to Leonardo's unfinished horse.
Sweden raised the Vasa warship after 333 years underwater
Engineer Anders Franzén found the wreck in 1956. Cold Baltic water had left an estimated 95% of the wood, so divers could lift the hull in 1961.
The Dewey system shelves books by subject number, then letters
Melvil Dewey published the scheme in 1876. Ten classes of a hundred numbers sort a book by subject, and author letters settle ties on the shelf.
Jai Arrow leads Rabbitohs out for 100th game after MND
The NRL gave South Sydney special dispensation to list the retired 30-year-old, and more than 40,000 fans sang Stand By Me as he walked out.
The 1871 act that ended religious tests at Oxford and Cambridge
The Universities Tests Act of 1871 ended Oxford's religious tests, in place since 1581, and opened Oxford, Cambridge and Durham to all faiths.
A chaplain's student hostel gave the Sorbonne its name
Robert de Sorbonne, a royal chaplain, opened a hostel for Paris students in 1257. Officially, the Sorbonne stopped being a university in 1970.
The Pantheon's dome has lasted nearly 1,900 years without rebar
Rome's Pantheon has stood almost 1,900 years with no rebar, largely left alone. Graded concrete, a hollow crown and a self-sealing mix explain why.
Mutinous soldiers failed to oust Niger's military ruler
Soldiers moved against General Tiani on 29 August and lost. Nigeria denies backing the attempt, and Niger's oil-driven growth rolls on regardless.
Elizabeth Holmes will move to a halfway house next year
Elizabeth Holmes will leave her Texas prison camp for a halfway house next August, years before her full release in 2030.
Max Miedinger drew Helvetica in 1957 as Neue Haas Grotesk
Max Miedinger drew a sans serif for a Swiss foundry in 1957. Stempel renamed it Helvetica when it licensed the design for Linotype in 1961.
Most volunteers gave shocks they believed could kill
Stanley Milgram ran his Yale obedience experiment as Adolf Eichmann stood trial claiming he had followed orders. Most volunteers obeyed.
Office nap pods spread from Google to the law firms
MetroNaps pods costing about $13,000 each spread from Google and Silicon Valley to PwC, KPMG and the law firm White & Case.
Gloria Steinem's new memoir, and the life behind it
Gloria Steinem died aged 92, weeks before her second memoir, An Unexpected Life, came out. It goes back to Toledo, India, and a lasting fear of poverty.
The African Union depends on outsiders to pay for peacekeeping
The African Union and its partners run ten peace operations. A UN official said in 2009 that their funding rests on the UN or a small pool of donors.
France's 35-hour law traded fewer hours for flexible shifts
France's working week fell to 35 hours under the loi Aubry. Its real effect was to make firms renegotiate contracts around flexible, annualised hours.
Ford's moving line cut a Model T from 14 hours to 93 minutes
In 1913 Ford's Highland Park plant started a moving assembly line. Build time fell from 14 hours to 93 minutes, and the car's price fell with it.
A Minecraft Movie out-opened Barbie despite poor reviews
A Minecraft Movie scored 48% on Rotten Tomatoes and spent a decade in development. A young crowd still made it a $163 million opening weekend.
A 1927 IBM gadget solved Nuremberg's language problem
A system used at a 1927 labour conference ended up carrying Nuremberg's war-crimes trial live, in four languages at once.
A 1978 US law put Native American families first in adoption
The Indian Child Welfare Act told US states to place a Native child with family or their tribe first. The Supreme Court upheld it in 2023.