Intellect PlusCards starting with S
3,033 cards. Page 32 of 51.
Some philodendron flowers heat up, burning oxygen as fast as hummingbirds doDuring flowering, some philodendrons warm the central spike of their bloom in three separate peaks. The heat stirs up beetles sheltering inside, spreads scent into the air and may…
Some pine cones stay sealed for years until a wildfire melts them openCertain pines, including Pinus radiata, lock their cones shut with resin and hold their seeds for years. Only the heat of a forest fire melts the seal. The seeds then drop onto fr…
Some places belong to no town at all, from Danish islands to Dutch poldersAlmost all of Denmark is divided into municipalities, except a tiny cluster of islands in the Baltic that has been run by the military since 1685. Places like that are unincorpora…- Some plants spike their nectar with nicotine to keep visitors movingA wild tobacco from Utah lures birds and moths with a sweet scent, then laces its nectar with bitter nicotine. The likely payoff: a pollinator takes one sip, dislikes the aftertas…
Some plants won't flower until they've remembered a winter.Winter wheat, many biennials and fruit trees need weeks of cold before they can bloom. Plants measure it with a molecular memory: prolonged chill gradually switches off a gene tha…
Some rectangles cross themselves, and some have no right angles at allEveryone knows a rectangle has four right angles. Geometers are less sure. A crossed rectangle folds over itself like a bow tie, and on curved surfaces the shapes called rectangle…
Some researchers train as paramedics just to understand paramedicsQualitative researchers want to know how people experience their world, not just how often something happens. That can mean joining the group under study; one example trains as an…
Some Romansh speakers switch to Swiss German just to understand each otherSwitzerland's fourth national language has five regional written forms, and speakers from opposite ends of its territory often cannot follow one another at first. Rather than stru…
Some savannas pack in more trees per hectare than neighbouring rainforestPicture a savanna and you probably imagine lonely trees dotting a sea of grass. Yet Brazil's cerrado can hold 800 to 3,300 trees per hectare, matching or beating nearby tropical f…
Some scientific experiments are designed to run for half a millennium.While most research concludes within a few years, a select group of experiments spans generations. This video explores six of the longest-running scientific studies in history, in…
Some seeds only germinate after a trip through an animal's gutFor many plants, fruit is a bribe for transportation. By offering sugary pulp, they trick animals into carrying their offspring away from the parent tree. But for some species, th…
Some singers can produce two notes at once with a single voice.In Tuva, Mongolia and beyond, overtone singers hold a low drone while a second, whistling melody floats above it. They don't have two voices. They reshape their mouth and throat t…
Some single nerve cells stretch from your spine all the way to your toesA nerve cell's axon is usually about a micrometre wide, yet the longest ones in your body, in the sciatic nerve, reach from the bottom of the spinal cord down to each big toe. Oth…
Some stars that look like partners only line up by chance from EarthTwo stars side by side in the night sky may have nothing to do with each other. Astronomers separate true star systems, bound by gravity and circling one another, from optical dou…
Some substances are chemical chameleons, acting as both acids and bases depending on context.In chemistry, amphoterism describes substances that shift their behavior based on their environment. When paired with a base, they act as an acid; when paired with an acid, they a…
Some synchronised satellites trace a figure eight across the sky each dayA geosynchronous satellite circles Earth once every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds, matching the planet's spin. Only a perfectly circular one over the equator stays fixed over…
Some things sell better precisely because they cost more.Normally, raise a price and people buy less. But for some luxury goods, demand goes up with the price, because the expense is the point. Economists call them Veblen goods, after t…
Some tropical fish survive by eating the scales of their neighborsWhile most fish focus on hunting smaller prey, a specialized group has mastered a much stranger niche. These carnivorous grazers use everything from blunt-force impact to massive,…
Some tropical places get two rainy seasons, and rainforests get noneA rainforest never has a wet season, because its rain arrives evenly all year. Yet parts of the tropics enjoy two, as the band of storms called the Intertropical Convergence Zone …
Some trucks raise an axle off the road when it isn't neededHeavy dump trucks and trailers often carry a lift axle that can be lowered to spread a load across more tyres, say to cross a weight-limited bridge, then hoisted clear of the road…
Some values people refuse to trade away at any price, and that changes negotiationsAsk someone whether they would take one life to save many, and many will refuse no matter the arithmetic. Philosophers call such commitments protected or sacred values. They sit a…
Some violence is slow, quiet and built into how societies workMost people picture violence as a sudden blow. Researchers also describe slow violence, gradual harm through pollution and degradation that may go unnoticed for years, and structu…
Some visual illusions fool our judgement but apparently not our grasping handsShow people the Ebbinghaus illusion and their perceptual judgements go wrong, yet some studies find that when they reach out and grasp, no error appears. That split fuels a theory…
Some wildfires smoulder underground for months without a visible flameNot every wildfire roars through treetops. Ground fires creep through buried roots, peat and forest duff, smouldering for days or months. In Indonesia, a scheme to create rice fie…
Someone ordered a 100-patty burger at In-N-Out, and the chain changed its rulesIn-N-Out once stacked patties and cheese to any height a customer would pay for. In 2004 somebody asked for a 100×100: one hundred patties with one hundred slices of cheese. Word …
Somerset County Cricket Club is the only first-class English side founded outside its home county.Established in 1875 following a victory against Devon, this unique club has spent over a century chasing the elusive County Championship title. Despite a history defined by cheerf…
Somerset County is a high-altitude Appalachian landscape shaped by coal, snow, and historySpanning over 1,000 square miles of rugged Pennsylvania terrain, Somerset County is defined by its extreme weather, industrial legacy, and pivotal role in American history. From t…- Somerset Maugham was born inside the British embassy to dodge French conscriptionFrance was about to make every boy born on its soil to foreign parents a citizen liable for military service. So the British ambassador set up a maternity ward inside the embassy,…
Something hidden behind the Milky Way is tugging on our galaxyOur galaxy and thousands of its neighbours are drifting towards a patch of sky we can barely see, blocked by the dust and stars of the Milky Way. Astronomers named the target the …
Sonata form got its name decades after Haydn and Mozart had perfected itHaydn and Mozart wrote the model examples of sonata form in the late 18th century, yet no theorist of their day used that name. The textbook template came later, built by 19th-cen…
Sonata shifted from vague label to classical music's master planA sonata today usually means a three- or four-movement instrumental work, yet the word once covered many Baroque shapes. By the early nineteenth century it named a principle for o…
Song China invented lasting paper money and a standing navyRuling 960 to 1279, the Song dynasty reunited China after the Five Dynasties scramble and split into Northern (Kaifeng) and Southern (after 1127) eras. It issued the world’s first…
Song China invented the modern restaurantThe first eating places that look like today’s restaurants appeared in Song dynasty China in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Tang street food culture was already thriving by t…
Song dynasty’s prose master renamed himself Old DrunkardOuyang Xiu (1007–1072) sat at the centre of the Eight Masters of Tang and Song, revived Classical Prose for the exams, and still signed himself Zuiweng—the Old Toper. Histories, c…
Songbirds taught themselves language-like repertoires for territory and matesOscine songbirds in suborder Passeri number about four thousand species beside roughly one thousand Tyranni across much of the world. Complex, often learned songs advertise identi…
Songbirds, single-celled giants and even pea plants show signs of learningPut a stuffed owl in a songbird's cage and the birds panic, then gradually calm down. Swap in a different owl and the alarm returns. That narrow, stimulus-specific fading is habit…
Songhai outgrew Mali then fell to Moroccan gunsIn the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Songhai Empire dominated the western Sahel and ranked among Africa’s largest states. Sonni Ali conquered, Askia Muhammad organised and…
Songtsen Gampo turned a valley kingdom into Great TibetUnder Yarlung king Songtsen Gampo in the seventh century, Tibet leapt from the Yarlung Valley to a plateau empire later stretched by Trisong Detsen and Tritsuk Detsen. Chinese pri…
Sonia Orwell: The woman who guarded a literary legacy while fighting for her ownSonia Orwell was more than the widow of a literary giant. As George Orwell's sole heir and executor, she spent decades fiercely protecting his estate, navigating CIA propaganda de…
Sonic began as a rabbit, took his shoes from Michael JacksonSega needed a star to fight Mario, and its first idea was a rabbit that grabbed things with its ears. The hardware could not cope, so the team chose a hedgehog that rolls into a b…
Sonic R was a technical marvel that divided players with its unique vocal soundtrackReleased in 1997 for the Sega Saturn, Sonic R was the first 3D racing game in the series. While praised for its innovative transparency effects and lush environments, it remains a…
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 brings a darker, more complex narrative to the big screenThe third installment of the Sonic film franchise blends high-stakes action with emotional depth, introducing Shadow the Hedgehog to the cinematic universe. By drawing inspiration…- Sonic the Hedgehog 4 brings Amy Rose to the big screen in 2027The blue blur returns in a new adventure that draws inspiration from the 1993 video game Sonic CD. With Amy Rose joining the cast and production already wrapped, the upcoming film…
Sonja Henie turned Olympic figure skating into a Hollywood fortune and the touring ice showAt her first Olympics, aged eleven, Sonja Henie finished eighth out of eight. Three years later she began a run of ten straight world titles, then won three Olympic golds, a feat …
Sonnet 12 turns a summer harvest into a funeral processionShakespeare's Sonnet 12 starts with someone counting the strokes of a clock and then piles up evidence that everything fades: a wilting violet, dark hair gone silver, bare trees, …
Sonnet 13 treats a young man's beauty as property held on a leaseShakespeare's Sonnet 13 borrows the language of landlords and tenants. The friend's good looks are only rented, the poet argues, and the lease expires at death unless it passes to…
Sonnet 17 fears future readers will dismiss its praise as a liar's exaggerationWhat if your most honest compliment sounded like flattery to everyone who read it later? Sonnet 17 worries exactly that. Shakespeare imagines his yellowed pages mocked by future r…
Sonnet 19 lets Time destroy lions, tigers and the phoenix, but not one faceSonnet 19 opens by handing Time a licence to wreck the natural world. Blunt the lion's claws, pull the tiger's teeth, burn the phoenix alive, the speaker says, do anything at all.…- Sonnet 2 warns a young beauty that forty winters are laying siegeShakespeare pictures age as an invading army digging trenches across a handsome face. When the beauty is gone and someone asks where it went, pointing to your own sunken eyes will…
Sonnet 20 calls a young man the master mistress of the poet's passionSonnet 20 is the sonnet that makes readers sit up. Shakespeare describes a man with a woman's face, painted by Nature herself, and calls him the master mistress of his passion. Th…
Sonnet 22 argues that swapping hearts makes two lovers the same ageThe speaker of Sonnet 22 refuses to believe his mirror. As long as his beloved stays young, he cannot be old, because the two have exchanged hearts. It is a clever piece of lover'…
Sonnet 26 is a love letter written like a vassal's report to his lordSonnet 26 casts the poet as a feudal servant sending a formal embassy to his lord. He insists the message proves loyalty, not talent, and apologises that his words are too threadb…- Sonnet 29 goes from envying everyone to pitying kings in one thoughtDown on his luck, the speaker of Sonnet 29 weeps alone, curses his fate and envies other men their looks, friends and talent. Then a single memory of the person he loves lifts him…
Sonnet 30 treats grief like a debt you keep repayingMemory in Sonnet 30 works like a courtroom and a counting house. The speaker summons old losses to a hearing, then pays for each sorrow again as if the bill were new. Only the fin…- Sonnet 34: you promised sunshine, so I left my cloak at homeSonnet 34 begins with a grievance anyone caught in a downpour will recognise. A beautiful morning lured the speaker outside without his coat, and then filthy clouds rolled in. Apo…
- Sonnet 35 turns the betrayed lover into his betrayer's defence lawyerRoses have thorns, Sonnet 35 begins, and fountains have mud. The speaker is consoling a friend who has wronged him, piling up excuses from nature. Then he catches himself: by excu…
Sonnet 6 does the maths: ten children make you ten times happierBorrowing the language of perfume-making, Sonnet 6 urges the young man to fill some vial with his beauty before winter ruins it. Then it turns to arithmetic and lending. Breeding …
Sonny Barger did not start the Hells Angels, but he built the global brand.Often mistaken for the club's founder, Sonny Barger actually joined the Hells Angels in 1957, nearly a decade after the group's inception. Yet, his influence was absolute. By relo…
Sonny Bill Williams: The rare athlete who conquered both rugby codes and the ringBorn in 1985, Sonny Bill Williams became a global sporting anomaly by achieving elite success in rugby league, rugby union, and professional boxing. His career is defined by high-…
Sony lost about 300 dollars on every early PlayStation 3 it soldThe PlayStation 3 was pitched as a living-room supercomputer, and its bill of materials proved it. Analysts put the cheaper launch model at roughly 806 dollars to build against a …