Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, July 8, 2016)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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swallowtail
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Using the Active VoiceYou should always use the active voice if an agent is identifiable or contains information that is relevant to the rest of the sentence. On the other hand, when an agent is unknown or irrelevant, we usually switch to the passive voice and do what to the agent? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Nikola Tesla: "The Man Who Invented the 20th Century"Deemed "the patron saint of modern electricity" by contemporary biographers, Nikola Tesla was an inventor, physicist, and mechanical and electrical engineer best known for his revolutionary contributions to the fields of electricity and magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tesla was the holder of myriad patents and is credited by some with the invention of radio technology. What strange behaviors led many to regard Tesla as a "mad scientist"? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 US Air Force Claims to Have Recovered a Flying Disc (1947)On July 8, 1947, an officer at the Roswell Army Air Field in New Mexico announced the recovery of a crashed flying disc, prompting the Roswell Daily Record to proclaim the "capture" of a "flying saucer." The next day, the official story changed—the debris was now simply a weather balloon. The case was ignored until 1978 when supposed witness testimony emerged, shaping the event as an alien encounter. A government investigation discredited this theory, explaining the "aliens" as what? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Käthe Kollwitz (1867)Kollwitz was a German Expressionist painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose work centered on human suffering. Her initial focus was the plight of the poor, whom she encountered firsthand at her physician husband's clinic in Berlin. After their son died in World War I, however, Kollwitz channeled her depression into a cycle of prints emphasizing a mother's love and a memorial sculpture of grieving parents. Unfortunately, many of Kollwitz's drawings and prints were lost in 1943 when what happened? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Accidents will occur in the best-regulated families.Charles Dickens (1812-1870) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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nose into (something)— To investigate something; to try to find information about something, especially private, secret, or sensitive matters. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Mariposa Folk Festival (2018)This three-day folk music festival is the oldest in Canada, where it has served as a model for many smaller festivals. Since 1961 the festival has presented a broad spectrum of folk music by performers from all over Canada, the United States, Britain, Africa, and Australia. The events are held on the grounds of Tudhope Park in Orillia, Ontario, about 60 miles north of Toronto. The Mariposa Folk Festival helped pioneer the workshop concept, emphasizing the importance of establishing a dialogue between the artist and the audience. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: sailorshurrah, hurray, hooray - Hurrah, hurray, and hooray are alterations of huzza, a sailor's cheer. More... jumper - First a loose jacket worn by sailors, from jump, "a short coat." More... put through the hoop - An ancient marine phrase for a punishment for sailors involving an iron hoop. More... smart money - A phrase meaning money bet by those in the know, originating in 1926; earlier than that, it meant "money paid to sailors, soldiers, workers, etc., who have been disabled while on the job." More... | |
| In the News | |
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Nanoscale Microscopy Technique Allows Scientists to Pinpoint RNA Molecules in the BrainCells contain thousands of messenger RNA molecules, which carry copies of DNA's genetic instructions to the rest of the cell. MIT engineers have now developed a way to visualize these molecules in higher resolution than previously possible in intact ... More... | |