Classroom Ideas, Current Event Connection, Main

11 Things We Learned This Week!

What did you learn this week? Let us know in the comments or at education@ngs.org.

This week, we learned …

… you’ve been reading the wrong horoscope. Thanks, NASA.

This is my zodiac sign! It was demoted, which explains so much about my life … Etching by Sidney Hall, courtesy Library of Congress
This is my zodiac sign! It was demoted, which explains so much about my life …
Etching by Sidney Hall, courtesy Library of Congress

 

… Oxford tops the overall rankings, but you need to go east to find the best young universities.

This maps the Oxford University campus more than 500 years after it was established, in 1609. Oxford (est. 1096), beat out young whippersnapper Caltech (est. 1891) in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Map by John Speed, courtesy Wikimedia. Public domain
This illustration maps the Oxford University campus more than 500 years after it was established, in 1609. Oxford (est. 1096), beat out young whippersnapper Caltech (est. 1891) in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
Map by John Speed, courtesy Wikimedia. Public domain

 

… how to find a nuclear weapon. It’s harder than you think.

No hiding this mushroom cloud, the telltale sign of a nuclear explosion at the Nevada Test Site during the 1950s. Photo courtesy of National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Field Office. Public domain
No hiding this mushroom cloud, the telltale sign of a nuclear explosion at the Nevada Test Site during the 1950s.
Photo courtesy of National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Field Office. Public domain

 

… all about India’s endlessly inventive cow-based capitalism.

India’s cow-based capitalism is animal-friendly. “The milk is not the main revenue you can source from the cow,” says on entrepreneur. “It is urine and dung.” Photograph by Devanath, courtesy Pixabay. Public domain
India’s cow-based capitalism is animal-friendly. “The milk is not the main revenue you can source from the cow,” says one entrepreneur. “It is urine and dung.”
Photograph by Devanath, courtesy Pixabay. Public domain

 

… it might be time for a “slow teaching” revolution.

A series of tubes! A 1901 prediction of learning in the year 2000, or a diagram of the device on which you’re reading this. Illustration by Jean Marc Cote, courtesy Wikimedia. Public domain
A series of tubes! A 1901 prediction of learning in the year 2000, or a diagram of the device on which you’re reading this.
Illustration by Jean Marc Cote, courtesy Wikimedia. Public domain

 

… what Neanderthals might have sounded like. Try not to laugh.

 

… the AEIOU happiness hack that might change your life.

 

… Canada is finishing the world’s longest recreational trail.

 

… humans may soon claim victory in the war on rats.

The Pied Piper lured the rats of medieval Hamelin, Germany, to their deaths with an alluring tune. Modern ratcatchers use forced birth control, which is less poetic but apparently more effective. Illustration courtesy Dage Johanni et Pauli Sch. & S.H., courtesy Wikimedia. Public domain
The Pied Piper lured the rats of medieval Hamelin, Germany, to their deaths with an alluring tune. Modern ratcatchers use forced birth control, which is less poetic but apparently more effective.
Illustration courtesy Dage Johanni et Pauli Sch. & S.H., courtesy Wikimedia. Public domain

 

… power posing might not make you bolder, and nine other psych studies that have been difficult to replicate.

 

… how to use punctuation marks.

Graphic courtesy TheVisualCommunicationGuy
Graphic courtesy TheVisualCommunicationGuy

2 thoughts on “11 Things We Learned This Week!”

  1. What was the need to invent the H-bomb and atomic bomb?? Just to kill innocents, or to be a cause of earthquake and depletion of any layer of our atmosphere!!! I don’t think it has a single good reason.. I just don’t understand why we invent such kind of technology and now it’s not even easy to detect a nuclear weapon… So it’s a failure or a success!! What North Korea wants to prove now? What are we gonna achieve by all these disaster things… There are many problems in this world wars, hunger, disasters it’s better to use power for the sake of people.. Try not to solve them don’t try to create new one!!!

    Reply

  2. Thanks to Babylonians for giving such a useful thing to us calendar.. But believing in zodiac signs is a stupidity in my perception.. Movement and position of stars are astronomical events and they have nothing to do with our daily routine predication… It’s just a superstition…

    Reply

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