Stoicism was a test of control, not a mood
Stoicism sorts what you can act on from what you cannot. A Vietnam prisoner of war and Roman rebels both lived by that test.
kind archive
Explainer.
Every explainer in the edition.
Eyewitness memory holds up only if tested once, says Wixted
A witness's first identification, taken early and carefully, can be reliable. Every test after that risks changing what they remember.
How Louis Braille turned army night writing into a six-dot code
At 15, Braille reworked a soldier's code of raised dots into a six-dot cell blind people could read and write. He died before it spread widely.
ZDNET picks Bitdefender as the best antivirus for 2026
ZDNET names Bitdefender its top antivirus pick for 2026, but Microsoft advises against running a second antivirus alongside Windows Defender.
Cambodia refilled its classrooms with anyone who could teach
After the Khmer Rouge killed or drove out most educators, Cambodia put anyone with some schooling in front of a class after weeks of training.
What the Large Magellanic Cloud gives astronomers
The Large Magellanic Cloud sits close enough for astronomers to resolve single stars, and far enough to double as a ruler for the universe.
Lee Strasberg turned Stanislavski's system into the Method
Lee Strasberg, teacher of Brando and Clift, reduced Konstantin Stanislavski's acting system to one idea, emotional truth, and called it the Method.
A hydrogen fuel cell sends electrons round a wire to make power
A fuel cell splits hydrogen into protons and electrons, sends the electrons round a circuit and makes water. It can beat a petrol engine on efficiency.
Corn on the cob needs five minutes, or no boil at all
Delish boils corn for about five minutes. Serious Eats tested more than 60 samples and heats it to 180°F instead. Here is how each method works.
US importers pay the tariff, then pass part of it to shoppers
A US tariff is paid by the importer at the border. Federal Reserve research found at least 30% of 2025's China tariffs reached shelf prices, slowly.
A university GPA is a weighted average, not a raw one
A GPA multiplies each grade by its course's credits, adds the results, then divides by the total credits attempted across the whole term.
Pirate radio stations keep coming back after raids
Pirate radio stations split the studio from the transmitter and hide aerials on rooftops. Raids and seizures have not always kept them off the air.
A heat pump moves heat, which is why it works far below freezing
A heat pump carries heat from outdoor air into a home rather than burning fuel. That lets it run far below freezing, and run backwards to cool a room.
UK press regulator IPSO decides where a correction must run
IPSO, the UK press regulator, sets how prominent a newspaper's correction must be, in print and online. Rulings on The Sun and the Press & Journal show how.
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.
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.
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.