The Little Mermaid is a fairy tale by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen about a young mermaid who is willing to give up everything to gain the love of a prince and an eternal soul. The story has been adapted into numerous films, TV series, an opera, and a ballet. Who served as the model for the famed Little Mermaid statue that sits on a rock in the Copenhagen harbor? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
In Roman religion, Minerva was the goddess of wisdom and war, as well as of handicrafts and the arts. Probably of Etruscan origin, she was worshiped in various parts of ancient Rome, most notably with Jupiter and Juno in the great Capitoline temple. Her temple on the Aventine Hill was a meeting place for skilled artisans, actors, and writers. Minerva came to be identified with what Greek goddess? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
The ginkgo is a tall and slender picturesque deciduous tree with fan-shaped leaves. A “living fossil,” the ginkgo is the only remaining species of a large order of gymnosperms that existed in the Triassic period; its form has not changed in millions of years. A combination of amazing disease resistance, insect-resistant wood, and the ability to form aerial roots and sprouts helps ginkgoes live more than 2,000 years. Where does the name “ginkgo biloba” come from? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
Tiger’s eye is a yellow-brown, semiprecious chatoyant gemstone consisting of quartz with parallel veins of silicified altered crocidolite. The gems are usually cut en cabochon, meaning with a convex, rounded surface that is polished but unfaceted, in order to best display their chatoyancy. Notable sources of tiger’s eye include the US, Canada, China, Brazil, Namibia, India and Burma. What is tiger iron? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
Wasabi is a member of the cabbage family that grows naturally along stream beds in mountain river valleys in Japan. Its root is used as a strong, mustard-hot spice that produces vapors that burn the sinus cavity rather than the tongue. Wasabi paste is often served with sushi and sashimi, but because true wasabi is so expensive, most American and Japanese sushi bars serve imitation wasabi made of what? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
Home-distillation of alcohol came to be called “moonshining” in English speaking countries because it was usually conducted at night to avoid arrest for the production of illegal liquor. Home-distillation is, however, a world-wide phenomenon and is not illegal everywhere. In New Zealand, for example, stills are legally sold openly on the market along with instruction manuals. What used to be a common, perhaps unreliable, folk test for determining the presence of lead in moonshine? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
In the US and Canada, an AMBER Alert notifies the general public through a variety of media, including radio and television, that a confirmed abduction of a child has taken place. It is named after Amber Hagerman, a 1996 kidnap victim who might have been quickly located had the means to distribute critical information been available at the time. To avoid false alarms, the criteria for issuing an alert are rather strict. What percentage of alerts meets these criteria? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
A cicada is an insect with a stout body, a wide, blunt head, protruding eyes, and two pairs of membranous wings. Male cicadas have platelike membranes on the thorax, which they vibrate like drum heads, producing a loud, shrill sound. The Magicicada species have the longest known life cycles of any insect–17 years. They live only one week as winged adults, however, spending the rest of the time in the form of larvae, burrowed underground. To what are their long life cycles an adaptation? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
The contact lens, a thin plastic lens worn between the eye and eyelid, usually serves the same general corrective purpose as conventional glasses, but may be worn for cosmetic or therapeutic purposes as well. Leonardo da Vinci is frequently credited with having introduced the general principle of contact lenses, but it was A.E. Fick, a Swiss physician, who made the first, albeit uncomfortable, contact lens in 1887. According to estimates, how many people use contact lenses worldwide? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
Montefiore was a famous 19th century British-Jewish philanthropist. He was connected through marriage to the famed Rothschild family and became affiliated with the family’s banking business. After accumulating a fortune on the London stock exchange, he retired at age 40 to devote himself to philanthropy and to securing political and civil emancipation for Jews in England, founding a hospital and girls’ school in Jerusalem in 1855. Montefiore was knighted by what queen? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary