Intellect PlusCards starting with P
1,597 cards. Page 9 of 27.
Pepper ports and a 1797 tsunami shaped West Sumatra’s capitalPadang, capital of West Sumatra, grew from 833,562 (2010) to about 965,050 by mid-2025, Indonesia’s 16th-largest city. A precolonial pepper and gold mart, it passed from Pagaruyun…
Pepsin can lie dormant in your throat and wake up with the next refluxYour stomach's main protein-cutting enzyme only works in strong acid, yet it survives milder conditions without being destroyed. Carried up into the throat by reflux, pepsin sits …
Peptide analysis of tooth enamel can identify the sex of children and infantsResearchers studying archaeological remains found that analyzing peptides in tooth enamel can reveal the sex of nonadults. By examining the protein amelogenin in 43 teeth from 29 …
Peptides are the short protein chains doing much of your cells' talkingString a few amino acids together and you get a peptide; keep going past a certain size and it becomes a protein. These short chains act as hormones, antibiotics and venoms, and b…
Per centum turned hundredths into everyday comparison languageA percentage expresses a ratio as parts per hundred—45% means 45/100 or 0.45. Latin per centum supplies the name; Rome already taxed auction sales at 1/100 (centesima rerum venali…
Perceived competence in specific skills shapes how students feel about learning EnglishA survey of Chinese senior secondary students found that a learner's self-perception of their abilities significantly influences their emotional experience when studying a foreign…
Perceived tension between faith and science predicts evolution acceptanceResearchers who developed a new measurement tool, the PCoRE, found that how students perceive a clash between their religious beliefs and evolutionary theory is a more powerful pr…
Percentiles quietly set internet bills, speed limits and children's growth chartsYour internet provider may ignore your heaviest five per cent of usage when it bills you, and the speed limit on your road may have been set by watching how fast most drivers alre…
Perched high in the Asir Mountains, Abha is Saudi Arabia's cool, elevated mountain retreat.Known as the Bride of the Mountain, Abha sits 2,270 metres above sea level. This high-altitude capital offers a mild climate that defies the desert heat, making it a premier desti…
Perched high in the Huíla plateau, Lubango is Angola’s cool, mountainous urban heart.At an elevation of 5,774 feet, Lubango defies the tropical heat of the surrounding lowlands. Originally established in 1885 for settlers from the Madeira Islands, this southwester…
Perched high in the mountains, Kunming’s massive airport serves as a vital Asian gateway.Located 2,100 meters above sea level, Kunming Changshui International Airport is a sprawling hub connecting Southwestern China to the world. Replacing an older facility in 2012, t…
Perched high in the Pyrenees, Europe’s highest capital city is a unique mountain enclave.Andorra la Vella, the capital of Andorra, sits at an elevation of 1,023 meters. While its name implies an ancient origin, it functions as a modern commercial hub and tax haven. Th…
Perched on a dramatic canyon, Ronda is a city defined by its deep, jagged history.Ronda, a Spanish municipality carved in two by the hundred-meter-deep El Tajo gorge, is far more than a scenic mountain retreat. From its origins as an ancient settlement to its r…
Perched on a Himalayan ridge, Gangtok serves as the capital of India's smallest state.Meaning Top of the Hill, Gangtok is a city carved into the steep, terraced slopes of the eastern Himalayas. Once a quiet hamlet, it transformed into a vital pilgrimage center and …
Perched on a Los Angeles hilltop, the Getty Center is a masterclass in geometric light.Architect Richard Meier spent twelve years crafting this sprawling campus, using honey-colored travertine and aluminum to manipulate the Southern California sun. By overlaying two…
Perched on a rocky ridge, Mardin is a living museum of limestone and history.Mardin, a city in southeastern Turkey, clings to a steep slope overlooking the Mesopotamian plain. Known for its distinct Artuqid architecture and beige limestone structures, this…
Perched on an extinct volcano, this fortress has endured 26 sieges in 1,100 years.Edinburgh Castle stands on a volcanic plug that has been occupied since the Iron Age. Once a royal residence, treasury, and mint, it evolved into a formidable military garrison. T…
Perched on the Andean slopes, Bucaramanga is Colombia's hidden industrial and botanical powerhouse.Founded in 1622, this high-altitude city in the Cordillera Oriental has evolved from a gold-mining settlement into a major manufacturing hub. Known for its pleasant climate and ab…
Perchloric acid is a powerful industrial tool that can also be dangerously explosiveAs one of the strongest known acids, perchloric acid is essential for everything from rocket fuel to etching electronics. Yet, its extreme reactivity makes it a volatile neighbor …
Percier and Fontaine dressed Napoleon’s empire in RomeEmpire style is early-nineteenth-century Neoclassicism’s second phase across architecture, furniture, and decoration, named for Napoleon I’s First French Empire. It traded Directo…
Percussion is probably music's oldest family, yet scientists don't treat it as oneA percussion instrument sounds when it is struck, scraped, shaken or rubbed, by a beater, by hand, or against a twin. It is thought to include humanity's oldest instruments, and i…
Pereira: The Colombian city that rose from jungle ruins to economic powerhouseNestled in the Andean foothills, Pereira is the beating heart of Colombia's Coffee Axis. Once a forgotten site of colonial ruins, this city has transformed into a vital logistical…
Perelman turned down a million dollars for proving the Poincaré conjectureIn 2010 the Clay Mathematics Institute offered Grigori Perelman US$1 million for settling a question Henri Poincaré posed in 1904. He refused, saying Richard Hamilton, whose Ricci…
Perestroika set out to rescue Soviet socialism and helped end itMikhail Gorbachev's restructuring was meant to make the planned economy work better, not abolish it. Instead, within six years it had legalised private businesses, let Soviet citi…
Perfect checkers from the start is a proven drawCheckers—draughts in British English—are jumping-capture board games for two. American checkers on an 8×8 board was weakly solved in 2007 by Jonathan Schaeffer’s team: perfect pla…
Perfect competition means every firm ends up earning zero economic profitEconomists' ideal market has countless tiny sellers offering identical goods to perfectly informed buyers. It is almost never seen in reality, and its logical endpoint is striking…
Perfect crystals do not exist: why atomic imperfections define the materials we useCrystalline solids are defined by repeating atomic patterns, yet these structures are never truly perfect. From missing atoms to misaligned planes, these microscopic interruptions…
Perfect pitch may have more to do with your first language than your genes.People with absolute pitch can name a note out of thin air. It is often called one in 10,000, but nobody really knows. What is clear is that it is far more common among people who…
Performance poetry is an ancient oral tradition reborn through modern technology and live competitionLong before the printing press, poetry was a performance art. Today, it has evolved from Dadaist sound experiments and 1980s radio broadcasts into a global phenomenon. From compet…
Perfume means to smoke through—then chemistry took overPerfume mixes scented oils or manufactured aroma molecules with a fixative and a solvent to make bodies, objects, or air smell good. Ancient texts and digs show early use, and one…
Pericles built the Parthenon and argued Athens into radical democracyComic playwrights mocked his oversized skull as a sea onion, but for roughly three decades Pericles was the man Athens listened to. He turned an alliance into an empire, paid poor…
Peridot is one of only two gemstones formed in the Earth's molten mantleMost gemstones originate within the Earth's crust, but peridot is a rare exception. Born in the intense heat of the upper mantle, this olive-green gem is often carried to the surf…
Peridotite is the dense, green engine of the Earth’s mantle and a diamond host.Deep beneath our feet, peridotite dominates the upper mantle, acting as a primary source for the planet's most precious treasures. This coarse-grained, ultramafic rock is not just…
Period products split into disposable and reusable kitsFeminine hygiene covers pads, tampons, liners, cups, cloth pads, period underwear, sponges, discs, and cleansing items used around menstruation or vaginal discharge. Some are sing…
Periodic driving stabilizes patterns in interacting quantum systemsResearchers using a programmable quantum simulator made of Rydberg atom arrays found that periodic driving can stabilize coherent revivals in many-body systems. By studying betwee…
Periodic functions reveal the hidden rhythm governing everything from heartbeats to complex sound waves.Nature and mathematics share a rhythmic heartbeat. Periodic functions are patterns that repeat at regular intervals, defining phenomena as diverse as the phases of the Moon, the s…
Peripheral nerve repair still falls short of full recovery, review findsA review of research on peripheral nerve injuries, which can follow trauma or medical procedures, examined the surgical, pharmacological and cell-based therapies currently used to…
Peritonitis is a life-threatening inflammation of the abdominal lining that demands urgent medical attention.The peritoneum is a delicate membrane lining your abdomen and organs. When it becomes inflamed, the result is peritonitis, a condition characterized by severe pain and rigidity. W…
Perl: The Duct Tape of the Internet That Evolved Into a Modern PowerhouseDeveloped in 1987 as a simple Unix scripting tool, Perl became the essential glue of the early web. Known for its expressive power and the iconic camel on its manual, it evolved f…
Perlis: The tiny Malaysian state that defies administrative norms and royal traditionPerlis is Malaysia's smallest state, yet it stands out for its unique governance and geography. It is the only state in the country without administrative districts and is ruled b…
Perm: The Industrial Powerhouse of the Urals with a Deeply Complex HistoryNestled on the banks of the Kama River, Perm is a major Russian industrial hub with a name derived from ancient Uralic languages. From its origins as a copper-smelting village to …
Permafrost is more than just frozen ground holding ancient mammoths in place.Common perceptions of permafrost often rely on images of preserved mammoths, but the reality is more complex. This video clarifies what permafrost actually is, why it matters, and…
Permanent villages are a late twist in human timeHomo sapiens appeared roughly 300,000 years ago, yet lasting settlements only spread widely between about 10,000 and 5,000 years ago as the Pleistocene gave way to the Holocene. M…
Permanganate is a powerful, purple oxidizer that demands extreme caution in the laboratory.Recognizable by its deep purple hue, the permanganate ion is a potent oxidizing agent essential for water treatment and chemical analysis. While it is a versatile tool for organic…- Permeability is the invisible dial that dictates how materials respond to magnetic fields.Ever wonder why some materials cling to magnets while others ignore them? Permeability is the secret measure of how easily a substance allows magnetic fields to permeate its struc…
Pernambuco: A Brazilian State Defined by Sugar, Rebellion, and Ancient Cultural RootsPernambuco is a Brazilian state with a complex history shaped by indigenous Tupi-Guarani roots, centuries of colonial sugar production, and a brief, transformative period of Dutch…- Perpignan: The Mediterranean city that Salvador Dalí declared the center of the universe.Perpignan, a historic French city near the Spanish border, blends Catalan heritage with a complex past. Once the capital of the Kingdom of Majorca, it has evolved from a medieval …
Perrault’s court tales taught the Grimms their French stepsCharles Perrault (1628–1703), Académie française member, helped invent the literary fairy tale. His polished versions of older stories shaped the German Grimm corpus more than a c…
Persephone was more than a stolen bride; she was the terrifying Queen of Death.While modern readers know Persephone as the personification of spring, ancient Greeks viewed her with profound dread. As the queen of the underworld, her name was often considered…
Persephone: The Dual Identity of a Maiden Goddess and Queen of the DeadPersephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, bridged the gap between life and death. Known as Kore when associated with her mother, she served as a goddess of spring and grain while …
Perseverance reveals that Mars once endured violent flash floods capable of moving massive bouldersNASA's Perseverance rover has reached the Jezero Crater delta, a prime location for hunting ancient microbial life. While scientists expected a calm, river-fed lake, the rover's h…
Perseverance rover observations reveal layered volcanic terrain in Mars' Jezero craterUsing the SuperCam instrument during its first 286 Mars days, researchers found that the floor of Jezero crater is composed of volcanic and intrusive terrain. The study identified…
Pershing applied to West Point for the free schooling, not the armyA Missouri farm boy who taught Black children in his hometown sat the West Point exam because the education was free and better than anything nearby. John Pershing ended up leadin…
Persia's satraps ruled like kings, but a royal eye watched them yearlyA satrap governed a Persian province with his own court, his own troops and the final say in local lawsuits. To stop these viceroys becoming kings, the empire split off their trea…
Persian Jews have maintained a continuous, ancient presence in Iran for over 2,500 years.Tracing their roots to the Babylonian captivity, Iranian Jews have survived shifting empires, forced conversions, and periods of intense persecution. Despite centuries of social a…
Persian kings invited Ahura Mazda to battle in an empty chariotAt the Achaemenid court, the supreme god of Zoroastrianism had no statue. Instead an empty chariot pulled by white horses rolled out with the army, inviting Ahura Mazda to ride al…
Persian rock reliefs taught kings how to claim the mountainFrom Susa's painted pots near 5000 BCE to Achaemenid cliff tombs, Persian art staged power in stone and metal. Darius the Great's Behistun relief around 500 BC repeats its boast i…
Persians joke one city equals half the worldIsfahan, capital of its Iranian province, sits 440 kilometres south of Tehran with about 2.24 million people—Iran’s third city after Tehran and Mashhad. Crossroads of north–south …
Persistence of vision does not explain movies, despite what you were taughtFilms run at 24 still frames a second, a standard fixed when talking pictures arrived in the late 1920s. The popular explanation, that each picture lingers on the retina, is not s…- Persistent fatigue and cognitive issues common after COVID-19 infectionA meta-analysis of 81 studies found that a significant proportion of people experience lasting symptoms 12 or more weeks after a COVID-19 diagnosis. The research, which pooled dat…