In the US, one exam can buy a pupil college credit
The US Advanced Placement programme lets high schoolers sit a college-level exam and trade a passing score for credit. It has run since 1956.
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South Korea capped its working week at 52 hours
South Korea's 2018 law cut the legal week from 68 hours to 52. A Stanford study found more leisure spending, but rising health costs for precarious workers.
Football mocked an Irishman's penalty kick, then adopted it
A Notts County defender's goal-line handball in an 1891 FA Cup tie broke football's belief that gentlemen never cheat, and helped force in the penalty kick.
Humpbacks tune their bubble nets, and may learn them from others
Humpbacks blow a rising curtain of bubbles to pen krill and fish, tune it as it tightens, and seem to learn the trick by watching other whales.
Migrant workers built Brasília, Brazil's capital, in three years
A capital promised by Brazil's new republic in 1889 waited 67 years. Then Kubitschek, Costa, Niemeyer and 30,000 workers built Brasília in three.
Newborns hear every speech sound, then tune to one language
Perceptual narrowing starts at about six months, vowels first. By a first birthday, a baby tells apart mainly the sounds of the language spoken at home.
Westinghouse underbid GE, and alternating current won
Westinghouse bid $399,000 against General Electric's $554,000 to light the 1893 Chicago fair, and the win helped settle the AC-DC rivalry.
Why Easter's date follows the moon, not the calendar
Easter is the Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox. That rule took centuries, and in England a synod at Whitby, to settle.
Learning London's streets grows a cabbie's hippocampus
Trainee London cabbies who pass The Knowledge grow a larger posterior hippocampus. Those who fail do not, a UCL study of 79 trainees found.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A 1943 report told England to scrap its elite school exam
A wartime committee recommended abolishing England's Higher School Certificate in 1943. Its replacement, the A-level, arrived in 1951 and is still sat today.
Click beetles flip upright with a snap, not their legs
A click beetle stuck on its back loads a latched hinge behind its head, then lets it snap. That throws it into the air, with little control over the landing.
Ofsted in England: why no single lesson decides the grade
An Ofsted grade doesn't come from one classroom visit. It comes from a planning call, six tracked pupils, and evidence built across the whole inspection.