More than half of the electricity generated in the United States is produced by coal-fired power plants. Generally, only a small percentage of the coal used in those plants comes from the controversial practice of mountaintop removal mining, or MTR, which involves the use of heavy explosives to blast away up to 1,000 vertical feet of a mountain after its surface has been cleared of timber. What 1970s crises first sparked an increase in the demand for coal and triggered the widespread use of MTR? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
When negative circumstances align, accidents happen—that’s what British psychologist James T. Reason asserts with his Swiss Cheese model of accident causation, a model used in the risk analysis and risk management of human systems. Essentially, the model, which has been applied to healthcare, aviation safety, and emergency service organizations, states that a system produces a failure when all of its “holes” momentarily line up. What are the four levels of failure set forth by Reason? 
An estimated 18 percent of the world’s population is prone to sleepwalking. While most cases simply consist of sitting up in bed, there are a number of documented cases of eating, bathing, and even driving and committing murder while sleeping. The sleep disorder is more common in people with high levels of stress and anxiety and among those with a family history of sleepwalking. What tragic Shakespearean character, wracked with an overwhelming sense of guilt, is driven to sleepwalk? 
Beginning in the late 8th century, the Carolingian Renaissance was a period of literary and artistic growth during which the study of architecture, jurisprudence, and scriptures blossomed. Peaking during the reigns of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, the era also saw the development of Medieval Latin and Carolingian minuscule, which provided a common language, writing style, and method of communication for scholars throughout Europe. Why do some dispute the legitimacy of this “renaissance”? 
Witnessing the late-19th-century severance of American culture from its Colonial American and Native American craft roots, early proponents of the American craft movement began to advocate for well-designed and crafted objects in the American home. Today, independent studio artists continue that work by producing fine art using methods such as glass blowing, pottery, and weaving. What pioneer of the American craft movement is best known for the stained-glass pieces that bear his name? 
First touted in 1971 as a tribe that had lived in isolation on the Philippine island of Mindanao since the Stone Age, the Tasaday were later declared a hoax perpetrated by Philippine government official Manuel Elizalde. His claim was challenged in the 80s by Swiss anthropologist and journalist Oswald Iten, whose investigation of the two dozen Tasaday concluded that they were really members of known local tribes living a staged Stone Age lifestyle. How might Elizalde have profited from the hoax? 
Also known as the torsalo, the human botfly is the only botfly known to attack humans. Its lifecycle begins when a female torsalo captures a mosquito and deposits her eggs on its body. The mosquito then conveys the eggs to a human host, where they burrow beneath the host’s skin and develop. After 8 weeks, the creatures drop out to pupate in the soil. While rare, wound infections can occur if the larvae are killed without being fully removed from the skin. The species is native to what region? 
Initially used for the protection of Roman generals, the Praetorian Guard became the emperor’s personal guard during the rule of Augustus, first leader of the Roman Empire. Upon his death in 14 CE, however, the Guard began to use its military strength to enforce its own political agenda. Soon, it moved into Rome, where it assassinated emperors, bullied its own prefects, and fought vicious street battles against Roman citizens. Which emperor finally succeeded in fully disbanding the Guard? 
Thought to have been used for purposes ranging from burial chambers to devices that tracked astronomical events, megaliths are the large stones found in the Neolithic through Bronze Age constructions of the world’s indigenous peoples. Though some megalithic structures are made of a single, freestanding stone, those built using multiple stones have stood without mortar or cement for millennia. What African megalith that predates Stonehenge by 1000 years is the oldest known astronomical device? 
In Greek mythology, the Lotophagi, or lotus-eaters, were a race of people from an island near North Africa. Lotus fruits and flowers were the dominant plant life on the island and the primary source of food for its inhabitants, a peaceful, apathetic people calmed by the plant’s narcotic effects. The Lotophagi have long been a popular literary referent, appearing in such works as Homer’s epic the Odyssey, Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Lotus-Eaters,” and what landmark modernist novel?