The roundness of an egg allows pressure to be applied from the outside which would break it if applied from the inside. Thus a helpless chick is protected until the moment it needs to break out from its shell. It can then do this with the gentlest of tapping. Eggs are hatched by an adult bird sitting on them, and …

Randall Rose and Stacy Wood, professors of marketing in the university of South Carolina, who have done research on the popularity of reality TV, say that the viewers’ desire to blend fact with fantasy can be a reason for the popularity of this genre of TV. The show’s popularity persists because the viewing experience is inherently different from that of …

The hill girls, Mildred and Patty, wrote “Good Morning to You” in 1893. The song was not a big hit until someone changed the words at a birthday party. Nobody knows who actually manipulated the words. But for birthdays, not many but four words is the all you need: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!“

The author responsible for this phenomenal output was Mrs Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie. She was born in Torquay and during the first world War she took a job as a hospital dispenser. While she carried out her duties, she learned much about various deadly poisons and the knowledge she gained was to stand her in good stead when, after the …

The Palme d’Or (Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded to the director of the best feature film at the annual Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the organizing committee, and the first was awarded to director Delbert Martin Mann Jr for his film “Marty”. The Palme d’Or was established as the film festival’s highest award until …

Wee folk refers to fairies and their kind. Medieval theologians suggest that wee folk may be a special group of demoted angels, spirits of the dead or fallen angels. Ancient texts say the entities are of a middle nature, i.e., between humans and angels, and that they can inter-marry with humans and bear half-human children. The consistent factor in all …

You have probably seen pictures or films of Vikings – that is, actor who were pretending to be Vikings. These are huge men, wearing horned helmets and burning and pillaging churches and homes with no thought for their victims. These tales were written down by the only people who could write at that time – the monks of the monasteries …

A hundred years ago, Germany was divided into many small states. In one of these states, Prussia, the chancellor or chief minister to the king, was Otto Von Bismarck. A strong and ruthless man, Bismarck built Prussia into the strongest of all German states and made its army feared throughout Europe. When the states were gathered into one empire in …

Most know hobbits as the fictional dwarf-like creatures from J R R Tolkein’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy. But scientists discovered the fossilized remains of hobbitlike creatures in Indonesia. They believed them to be a separate species and called them Homo florsiensis or Man of Flores. But some anthropologists refuted that they were a separate species and said the …

In about the tenth century, groups of people began to leave northern India and to travel all over Europe. Being very independent, they kept their original language to a great extent – this is what we now call Romany, and it is a descendant of a form of Sanskrit. Gipdies’ beliefs are basically Christian, but they also have a very …