Category: Pause for Thought

Written By John Bradley Archytas of Tarentum, a pal of Plato’s, built a mechanical bird driven by a jet of steam or compressed air—arguably history’s first robot—in the fifth century…

Written By John Bradley Turkmenistan is bordered by Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and the Caspian Sea. It covers about 491,200 square kilometers, ranking as the 52nd largest country globally. With…

Written By John Bradley Launched in 1977, September 5 marked the 58th anniversary of Voyager 1’s launch. That makes it one of the oldest pieces of space technology that is…

Written By John Bradley WIn scientific classification, there is no difference between crows and ravens. Ravens and crows belong to the same family, but they differ in several ways. Ravens…

Written By John Bradley Seals are part of the Pinniped Order of marine mammals. The pinniped order of marine mammals also includes sea lions, walruses, and fur seals. There are…

Written By John Bradley Nearly 30% of Canadian workers belong to unions, including nurses, teachers, journalists and professional athletes, as well as the more traditionally unionized occupations like retail store…

Written By John Bradley The Greenlanders call their own country Inuit Nunaat or Kalaallit Nunaat, meaning Land of the People or Land of the Greenlanders, respectively. Greenland is a vast…

Written By John Bradley The earliest known funeral practices date back to approximately 300,000 years ago, associated with Neanderthals. The term “funeral” derives from the Latin word “funus,” which encompasses…

Written By John Bradley Static electricity was discovered in 600 B.C. by a Greek man by the name of Thales, who learned that when he rubbed a piece of amber…

Written By John Bradley The Yukon is vast, but it’s the smallest of Canada’s three territories. The Yukon covers an area of 186,272 sq. mi (482,443 km sq)—that’s larger than…

Written By John Bradley Contrary to popular belief, the stomach isn’t the main source of food digestion. While mechanical digestion occurs in the stomach, most of the work is done…

Written By John Bradley Indonesia is known for being megadiverse, meaning it has a vast number of different species, many found nowhere else in the world. Just 17 countries have…

Written By John Bradley At just under 91,000 square kilometres, Tasmania is Australia’s smallest state, around 40% the size of the next smallest state, Victoria, which is Australia’s smallest mainland…

Written By John Bradley The name ”Montenegro” translated into English, means ”Black Mountain”. Locals do not refer to their country as ”Montenegro”, but instead say ”Crna Gora”. Formal languages spoken…

Written By John Bradley The president praises thecongressman who body-slammed a reporter An overcompensating presssecretary lies about crowd size Trump tells the Boy Scouts about a hot New York party…

Written By John Bradley Fusion is the same process that powers the sun and is already being conducted in laboratories all over the world. Scientists have made exponential progress in…

Written By John Bradley Owls don’t have eyeballs—they’re more like eye tubes. They’re elongated and held in place by a bony structure in the skull called a sclerotic ring. Because…

Written By John Bradley Super Bowl rematches have happened nine times, including this year! We’ve seen more than one game between the Cowboys and Steelers, 49ers and Bengals, Eagles and…

Written By John Bradley The word ‘camel’ comes from the Arabic word, meaning ‘beauty’. Camels are mammals. There are two types of camels, Bactrian Camels, and Dromedary Camels. Dromedary Camels…

Written By John Bradley Christmas wasn’t always on December 25th. Although Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ, it doesn’t actually mention December 25 anywhere in the bible. In fact, some…

Written By John Bradley Albania is often referred to as the “Land of Eagles” due to its national flag featuring a black, double-headed eagle. Albania was under communist rule from…

Written By John Bradley 8: The number of Grey Cups won by the Calgary Stampeders since the team’s inception in 1945. 18: The number of Grey Cups won by the…

Written By John Bradley It began with the psaltery, a wooden instrument with strings stretched across its length. However, musicians could only pluck one string at a time to produce…

Written By John Bradley Originally, ‘toilet’ means – “act of washing, dressing, and preparing oneself”. This is derived from French. Arthur Giblin is believed to have invented the first flushable…

Written By John Bradley Canada Geese may be seemingly everywhere now, but in the early 1900s, their numbers had been decimated due to habitat loss and hunting. Today there are…

Written By John Bradley Cricket began as a children’s game in England in the 16th century. Children in the Weald, a small area in the southeast of England, began playing…

Written By John Bradley Istanbul is the only city in the world that straddles two continents: Asia and Europe. Istanbul, which used to be known as Constantinople thanks to the…