Culture
Singapore has the highest green cover of any major city on Earth at 47 per cent, achieved through a deliberate six-decade urban forestry programme that began in 1967 when the country’s founding Prime Minister decided that trees were essential infrastructure, and the country is now attempting to apply the same approach to food production, with substantially less success than the trees
A Penn professor thought she’d sell 1,000 copies of her ‘Odyssey’ translation. She sold more than a million this year alone, thanks to Christopher Nolan
Quote of the day by Johann Goethe on self-belief: ‘Magic is believing in yourself. If you can make that happen…’
Eight more UNESCO World Heritage sites have been recognized.
Thousands of Vespas swarm Rome’s historic center to mark iconic scooter’s 80th anniversary
There is a language on a small Spanish island in the Canary archipelago that is made entirely of whistles, can carry a full sentence across six miles of mountain ravine, and is still taught to every child in school
In Cantonese, changing the pitch of a single syllable can change a word’s meaning completely — and languages like it are significantly more common near the equator than in colder, drier parts of the world, a pattern linguists have tentatively linked to humidity’s effect on the vocal cords
Almost every nation pumps more carbon into the air than it removes, but one small Himalayan kingdom does the exact reverse: Bhutan absorbs more carbon than it emits, a rare carbon-negative country that measures its success by Gross National Happiness
Neha Sinha: “Your life is less rich if you’ve never known what a firefly is”
Why Are U.S. Mailboxes Blue?
Archaeologists uncover 3,000-year-old tomb near Egypt's Luxor
NRI techie living in US for 9 years shares 5 reasons he moved back to India: ‘I missed…’
The city that lets you become yourself
Striking footage captures 1902 NYC building at dawn of skyscraper age
Fairy tales, fantasy on show during 'Once Upon A Dream'
Jo Harkin: “The Middle Ages was full of bold and irreverent voices”
The Eiffel Tower, now the most photographed structure on Earth, was built in 1889 as a temporary centerpiece for the Paris World’s Fair — meant to be dismantled after 20 years — and was saved from demolition in 1909 only because Gustave Eiffel himself arranged for the French military to use its iron lattice as a radio antenna for transmitting wireless signals across long distances
Until June 2023, South Koreans counted age differently: a newborn was 1 at birth and everyone aged up each New Year’s Day, so a baby born December 31 turned ‘two’ the next morning, until the country standardized to international age
More Thomas Dambo giant troll sculptures heading to Puget Sound area
How Long Would It Really Take to Sail Odysseus' Route Today?
