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HealthGuard, a service of NewsGuard
8 hours ago
Health & Medicine
HealthGuard, a service of NewsGuard
The pseudoscience and conspiracy-oriented website Natural News first reported that President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 task force had announced such a policy. However, the article relied on outdated and inaccurate information. Dr. Luciana Borio, a member of the task force, helped write a report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in July 2020 that mentioned government food stamps in a larger discussion about COVID-19
tranquoc2004vn
18 hours ago
Geography & Travel
Amy McKenna
Encyclopedia Britannica Editor
There are five generally recognized regions of Africa, based largely on geographical location: North Africa, Central Africa, Eastern Africa, Western Africa, and Southern Africa. Eastern Africa can be further divided into the traditionally recognized regions of East Africa and the Horn of Africa. Which countries are included in each region is not always agreed upon, however, especially for countries in proximity to more than one geo
HealthGuard, a service of NewsGuard
a day ago
Health & Medicine
HealthGuard, a service of NewsGuard
The School Entry Immunization Bill, signed into law by Colorado’s governor in June 2020, does not make any reference to COVID-19 or a COVID-19 vaccine. The law did toughen the state’s process for obtaining a religious or personal belief vaccine exemption, requiring parents requesting such an exemption to either submit a form signed by a health care provider, or complete what the law calls an “online education module” about vaccine
cajesch
2 days ago
History
Michael Ray
Encyclopedia Britannica Editor
The Vietnam War claimed the lives of as many as 2,000,000 Vietnamese civilians, 1,100,000 North Vietnamese soldiers, 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers, and some 58,000 U.S. troops. In the decades following the war, some 2,000,0000 Vietnamese refugees fled the country.
Hailey Olson
2 days ago
Entertainment & Pop Culture
CatherineB
Well... I don't actually *know*, of course, but I would hazard a guess that the idea of a single person (or even two) stepping into the iconic shoes of Alex Trebek right away may have been just too much to wrap everyone's head around. This rotation makes it clear that there is no one person immediately stepping up to the plate to "replace" Alex. Right now it feels like if we can't have Alex, we might as well
Jonathan Peppar
2 days ago
Entertainment & Pop Culture
Alicja Zelazko
Encyclopedia Britannica Editor
Instant ramen was invented by Momofuku Ando in 1958. In his biography, The Story of the Invention of Instant Ramen (2002), Ando recalls walking through the streets of Osaka a year after World War II ended and seeing a long line of people shivering in the cold waiting for a bowl of ramen. Food shortages were widespread then, and Ando remembered telling himself “Peace will come when people have food.” About a decade later Ando resolv
Jonathan Peppar
2 days ago
Science
J.E. Luebering
Encyclopedia Britannica Editor
Wilbur Scoville was a pharmacist who, in 1912, published a paper that described a process for putting a number on a pepper’s pungency. It was the first time that spiciness had been systematically quantified.As FiveThirtyEight summarizes what became the Scoville Organoleptic Test:Capsaicin is the compound in chile peppers that makes them irritatingly delicious. A measured amount of capsaicin oil is extracted from a pepper using an a
Jonathan Peppar
2 days ago
Science
Melissa Petruzzello
Encyclopedia Britannica Editor
Soil is a complicated medium, formed slowly by both biological and geological processes, and exists as a thin barrier on the uppermost layer of the Earth's crust on land. Given that soil is found nearly everywhere on our continents (with the exception of very rocky areas), we are not likely to ever lose all of the Earth's soil. However, what we are at risk of losing is our arable soil, the soil that is deep enough and rich
Jonathan Peppar
2 days ago
Health & Medicine
Henry Bolzon
Encyclopedia Britannica Editor
Through Shakespeare’s lifetime, (1564-1616), there were, not only, several outbreaks of the bubonic plague that ravaged England and all of Europe, but other notable killers such as small pox, syphilis, typhus, and malaria. Shakespeare’s England was not spared, the plague had already killed a third of the European population over the centuries. The bubonic plague was caused by rats infested by fleas. Symptoms include red, grossly
Jonathan Peppar
2 days ago
Technology
Michael Ray
Encyclopedia Britannica Editor
The main determinants in the security of a given password are the size of the character set and the length of the password. These are sometimes expressed as the "bits of entropy." As there are 26 characters in the English alphabet, an 8-character password using only lower-case letters would have 268 (or 208,827,064,576) possible combinations. Now 208 billion possible combinations sounds like an awful lot, but a malicious
Michael Roop
2 days ago
History
azeidan
The weekend in Europe seems to have begun with Sundays as a Christian holiday: businesses closed each Sunday and people were given the day off to attend to spiritual matters. Its extension beyond Sunday coincided with industrialization, whose labour-intensive conditions exhausted workers. Businesses in the 19th century found that Sunday leisure was no longer enough as more and more workers began missing work on Mondays. To mitigate
Michael Roop
2 days ago
Health & Medicine
Kara Rogers
Encyclopedia Britannica Editor
Although it is possible to become sick with the flu anytime of the year, you are unlikely to catch it in the summer mainly because the influenza viruses that cause the flu survive better in cold, dry climates. Summer generally is hot and humid, therefore limiting the extent to which the virus can survive and circulate in people. Summer flu can affect individuals who travel to cooler climates where influenza viruses are active. Indi
Michael Roop
2 days ago
Science
John Rafferty
Encyclopedia Britannica Editor
Tornadoes are associated with thunderstorms, spiraling winds, and ultimately, the tight rotation of funnel clouds, and these phenomena can be spotted and tracked using doppler radar and reports from witnesses on the ground, but determining whether a tornado actually occurred requires a bit more evidence. Meteorologists, storm chasers, and eyewitness reports frequently note thunderstorm development and evidence of atmospheric rotati
Matthew Tollefsen
2 days ago
Amy McKenna
Encyclopedia Britannica Editor
Assuming that you are referring to when one is considered an adult in a legal sense, it doesn’t necessarily happen at age 18. It really depends on where one lives. The age at which one reached the age of majority, or legally an adult, is 18 in many, but not all, countries. In the United States, the age at which one reaches the age of majority can vary by state. Most, but not all, states set it at age 18. That said, whether or not a
Matthew Tollefsen
2 days ago
Science
Pat Bauer
Encyclopedia Britannica Editor
The biggest spider web ever recorded was found in Madagascar and described in scientific journals in 2010. It was woven by a newly described species called the Darwin’s bark spider (Caerostris darwini). This orb weaver spider is unique in that it spins its web across a river. The bridge lines, which anchor the web, can be as long as 25 meters (82 feet), and the web as a whole spans an area of as much as 2.8 square meters (30 square
Matthew Tollefsen
2 days ago
History
Jeff Wallenfeldt
Encyclopedia Britannica Editor
The Cuban missile crisis, the tense 13-day standoff in October 1962 between the United States and the Soviet Union over the deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles in nearby Cuba, is often presented as a triumph for young American Pres. John F. Kennedy, whose steely-eyed resolve and tough stance are characterized as having prompted his Soviet counterpart, Premier Nikita Khrushchev, to blink first, back down, and remove the missiles.
Carter Matthew
2 days ago
History
Brian Duignan
Encyclopedia Britannica Editor
Although it is not commonly remembered as such, the Boston Tea Party of 1773 was arguably a riot, as that term is currently defined in U.S. law. Generally speaking, a riot is “a disturbance of the peace created by an assemblage of usually three or more people acting with a common purpose and in a violent and tumultuous manner to the terror of the public” (Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of Law) or “a disturbance of the peace by sever
Carter Matthew
2 days ago
Science
Erik Gregersen
Encyclopedia Britannica Editor
About 200 comets are discovered every year. On average, about 160 of those are discovered by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory shortly before the Sun vaporizes them. Of the rest, about half (roughly 20 a year) are Jupiter-family comets, which, as the name implies, are comets with an orbit roughly similar to that of Jupiter. Another one-third (roughly 15 a year) are comets with very long periods of thousands of years. (One such
Carter Matthew
2 days ago
Amy Tikkanen
Encyclopedia Britannica Editor
For centuries, early humans went about their lives in a natural state--aka naked. But according to recent studies, about 170,000 years ago our ancestors began wearing clothing. Why? It appears that two factors played a role--loss of body hair and migration. Early humans were covered in fur, which protected against the cold and Sun. At some point, however, they lost much of their body hair. According to a widely held theory, as our
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Questions by Britannica
4 days ago
Brian Duignan
Encyclopedia Britannica Editor
In the United States, “early childhood education” generally refers to educational programs, including preschool and developmentally oriented daycare, designed for children who are younger than kindergarten age (four to six years old). Early childhood education is important because it promotes the timely development of foundational social, emotional, and cognitive skills and dispositions that facilitate learning in regular school se