When solutions end up creating more problems. Earlier, people just made typos. They might write “onw” instead of “one” or “teh” instead of “the” because their fingers touched slightly wrong ...

From Greek mythology to Turritopsis jellyfish: an investigation into immortality.

How can water make such musical sounds? And, how does anything make sound at all?

Ordovician life, the importance of dirt, and tips for being a lazy gardener

From backyards to backstreets, evolution marches on.

The world, and your phone, is dependent on chemicals. What happens when they run out? When  you hear the word “elements”, you probably think of the Periodic Table.  A large uneven grid, list...

Are AI trained with computers and data? Yes — but first, you need a human. Look closely at the image on the screen. Scrutinise each pixel. Trace out the houses, the buildings, the lamp-posts...

How to measure the immeasurable — and why it can sometimes go wrong. Different  people have different swearing habits. Some people spew out expletives  at the drop of a hat, while others fee...

How your next word is predicted — and how you can make it more accurate. Have you ever cursed the autocorrect on your phone? Tried typing someone’s name, maybe, and had it changed to a rand...

Do users have a ‘body’ that exists independently from the online profile? Is there life after deletion? That’s a question that has never been answered. Or rather, it’s been answered many di...

Dear Snipette readers, This 11th of June, we are celebrating our second anniversary. (!!!) That is not a sentence we ever expected to be able to write. Neither are the ones that follow. We...

Hello, Snipette readers! Change is afoot, and we wanted to let you all know. Social Media Good news first: we’re glad to welcome a new member to the Snipette editorial team. Trisha Sam [htt...

Why does the Earth spin one way and not the other? There’s a logical reason. The Sun sits, a big bright blob in the centre of the Solar System. Small and smaller balls spin round in concentr...

The new climate movement that thinks Greenpeace isn’t green enough One day in the middle of last October, Greenpeace experienced a sit-in by climate activists at their headquarters. Apparent...

In Japan, an year is more than just a number. But is this culturally rich system still relevant today? 30st April 2019 is going to be a momentous day for the people of Japan. For the first t...

The hidden details that influence your decisions — and the Aztec way to deal with them Suddenly, the subsidies stopped coming. They just didn’t arrive. Then, people found the money going to ...

Privacy, Patreon, and paywalled Papers: the ethics of payments on the World Wide Web If there’s one way the State of Tamilnadu makes money, it’s through alcohol. While all states levy taxes ...

Who owns the Mound? The answer is not so clear. The Mound rises up like a tiny mountain on the grass. Tiny compared to mountains, that is: on the scale of those who live in it, the Mound can...

Why can’t people from different social networks stay in touch with each other? In two months’ time, Google Plus will be gone. I first saw the message circulating sometime last October. “Sav...

Hello, Snipette readers! This is to inform you of some upcoming changes in content and scheduling. A lot of you sent in responses to our Year-End Survey, and after taking a careful look at ...

Most invasions are planned in advance. But this one was an accident. He sets out in search of food every morning, his mighty wings keeping him aloft. The food may be many tens of kilometres ...

How long does your brain take to buffer? And what’s that got to do with your big toe? If you get onto a bus anywhere in Tamil Nadu, be prepared for music. Private and state-run buses alike ...

How fast does time move? The answer depends on what you’re thinking. Time is fixed. A second is a second, there’s no question about it. Or so people thought. Then came Albert Einstein, with...

How fast does time go, exactly? The answer can depend on who you are. The screen flickers high and low, in bits and pieces. Some regions go dim for a while, only to brighten up again. The pi...

Hello, Snipette readers! It’s time once again, for a new year to come round — and with it, more new things that we’re planning at Snipette! In this email, we’ll take a brief look back, and...

What is a plant made of? The answer may surprise you. Plants grow. Everyone knows that. But what do they grow from? Animals take material from the food they eat: part of it comes out the ot...

Thin Air [https://medium.com/snipette/thin-air-1827216638bd] The book that sparked ‘Thin Air’ This piece was inspired by Gabrielle Walker’s book An Ocean of Air. A substantial amount of the ...

Hello, Snipette readers! Editors Badri [https://medium.com/u/72e9114ca8b3] and Manasa [https://medium.com/u/76a7bca179b] here. We’ll be brief: When do you usually read Snipette? We are pla...

Thinner than thread and stronger than steel, silk is not simply for snares. She’s full of brains. Very full. That’s practically all she is — a brain with its support system, carried on eight...

Long before JPEGs, typewriting and knitting were making pictures from dots Type the symbols colon, dash, and right-parenthesis, and voìla, you get a smiley face. (Nowadays, most people leave...

No matter where or how you write, a bit of you stays behind The phone suddenly began beeping with SMSes. Your account has been debited by ten thousand rupees, the first one said. It was foll...

The old type of printing-press is gone — but the lines they made us say are still very much around You press a button on the keyboard, and a metal block of the corresponding letter automatic...

Humans dream of contacting aliens — but will we understand what they’re saying? “Are we alone in the Universe?” That’s a question humans have been pondering all the time, including in this ...

The conscious, the subconscious, and the neural network of your smartphone’s keyboard Before showing up for an examination, the man telephoned Sigmund Freud to fix an appointment. He also ma...

A library without librarians, a bookshelf without books, and other wonders of the modern word. It’s late in the night, when most people are getting ready for bed — if they aren’t asleep alre...

I help water to freeze and ice to fall, and can make clouds rain at my command. Birds have large wings and streamlined bodies to help them stay aloft. But if you’re small enough, you don’t n...

A netizen’s guide to the postal service These days, messaging is much easier than ever before. Apps and services like WhatsApp and Telegram allow you to send not just short texts, but also p...

Darkness is just the absence of photons. Or is it? A National Heritage is something special. Whether it’s a work of art or a natural wonder, it’s something unique that people are proud of. I...

They talk about Life on other planets, but have we even seen the limits of life here on Earth? Planet Mars is ice cold and desert dry. Except in the frozen ice-caps, there’s not a drop of wa...

Are today’s people really more tech-savvy? Or is it the other way round? Smartphones now outnumber computers, in terms of customer usage. Not everyone needs a laptop to work, but everyone ne...

I was reading a ‘book’ the other day. It was designed quite well. The hardest part of software design (or so they say) is not the program logic or intricate algorithms. It’s not the tracking...

In order to truly read quickly, we need a language that’s seen and not heard. There are no staff in the Ximen Intelligent Library of Taipei. You pick the books you want, and an automated sys...

When chess moves are logical but don’t make sense My brother was once playing chess against a computer. He was winning the game, though both sides had only a few pieces left. The computer h...

They wanted to listen to Sputnik. Instead, they invented the GPS. It’s interesting to track an Ola cab coming to you once you’ve hailed it. To start with, the car is several feet wider than ...

Hello, Snipette readers. We are now officially one year old! While we published our first article in February of 2017, the magazine in its current iteration of Understandability, Perspecti...

How does a river fight disease? By making your illness catch a cold. The river Ganga has always been known for its healing powers and the purity of its water. Even when stored for a long tim...

How do you pick up a tune, and hold it in your hand? A gentle music drifts around the room. It comes from the piano in the middle — an antique, with a sturdy wooden body and ivory keys. Insi...

First there were six. Then there were nine. And then there were eight. Now, are there 110? The English word “planet’ has been in use for centuries. It was being used in the time of Old Engli...

Europe’s new Privacy Policy, and what it’s trying to do Unless you’ve got around to unsubscribing, your email inbox is probably full of updates and promotions and notifications and newslette...

Light, sight, and why things may not be the same colours they look Did you know that the sky looks blue? You probably did, specially if you’ve seen it. But just because it looks blue doesn’t...

Newton was an alchemist. Mary Poppins may have been a witch. What are scientists today?

The little creatures that rule the world Drifting through the warm ocean waters, the Portuguese Man-o’-War is no ordinary jellyfish. It is not a jellyfish at all. In fact, it may not even be...

They may seem still. But actually, they’re always on the move. Ants move around while travelling. But when trees travel, they also stay put exactly where they are. Trees don’t travel like w...

Will Martian astronauts be able to load YouTube? Mars rovers, as mentioned last week [https://medium.com/snipette/rover-control-96d3acad4f5d], can’t be controlled directly with a joystick. E...

4G is coming to the Moon. Can it be used for spacecraft on Mars? “Download large files in a matter of minutes. Enjoy group video chat with your friends and family. Stream movies and more, wh...

Travel is fast, on the roadway that has no cars. When Charles Dickens wrote about them in the 19th century, horse-carriages were still new. Dickens marvelled at how fast these carriages coul...

In your telephone-line, it enables eavesdropping. In your brain, it could be the mechanism behind metaphors. I was speaking to a friend on the phone the other day, when I suddenly heard the ...

There’s General Relativity and Special Relativity. And then, there’s the relativity we encounter every day. I’ve noticed that, when Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is discussed, it’s often d...

Computers are good at doing their job, but you should remember to tell them to do it. Have you ever spoken to a computer? I don’t mean saying hi to Siri or Alexa, or asking Google what the ...

If Mars was magnetic, could Life have lived? Among the swirling clouds of cosmic dust, small lumps were slowly forming. Tiny particles happened to get together, and their combined gravity se...

Why does the moon stay up in the sky? Because it’s always falling. If you go out at night on the 31st of January, remember to look up at the moon. Wednesday’s full-moon is going to be a spe...

It was first invented in the 1970s. They’re still working on it today. What if any surface could be digitally changed to show whatever pattern or image you wanted? If you could change your r...

Why you may get WhatsApp messages from people you’ve never heard of before. Suddenly, my friend got a load of WhatsApp photos. They were pictures the sender had taken during a trip to the Hi...

Hello, Snipette readers. Last month, by the end of the year, we realised we had reached a hundred followers. Firstly: Hoorayyy! Secondly, one hundred is a lot of people. So we’d like to th...

When you’re inside water, sleeping is not so easy. At first glance, it looks like just a ball of baked mud. The scorching sun has been shining down on the land for months, turning the very b...

What you speak is what you think. Or is it the other way round? What language do you think in? Sometimes, thoughts come into your head. Just like that. It’s only later that you put them int...

Fireflies blink their lights. In the ocean, it’s more dramatic. Deep down in the ocean, there is no red. The ocean is so deep and so filled with water, that even light has to fight to make ...

The kudu antelope explains how and when to eat. Have you ever wondered why you can’t eat a large amount of acacia leaves without falling sick? It’s not that your body can’t handle so much ac...

Introducing vectors, the hidden arrows that make your images sharp Normally, computers don’t draw lines. They only draw dots. “Green dot,” they say, “green dot, green dot, blue dot, blue do...

How does money travel in time? Here are the details. This article is a follow-up of Time Travel: How banks make money by borrowing it from the future [https://medium.com/snipette/time-travel...

How banks make money by borrowing it from the future Tall ships and tall kings Three times three What brought they from the foundered land Over the flowing sea? Seven stars and seven stones ...

Learning to drive is not easy. Especially if you’re a car. The van in front was following the road rules a bit too meticulously for his liking. It would stop the moment a signal turned red, ...

They can rise when they’re hungry. They can sink when they’re thirsty. And they prefer things with a pinch of salt. In the shallower parts of the Akanko, or Lake Akan, there live many round ...

What’s a person? The answer’s not nearly as simple as you’d think. On the 16th of March 2017, the Parliament of New Zealand passed a new law recognising Te Awa Tupua as a legal person. That...

Electric cars. How do they work? How do they feel? What would it be like to own one? The first thing you’ll notice about the car is that it makes no noise. It just starts moving, so silently...

As we gear up for electric cars, a smaller revolution has gone relatively unnoticed. Last July, India announced it would end the sale of petrol cars by 2030, and move towards electric ones i...

From Eberhard to Elon Musk, the short but swift history of the world’s most innovative car-company It all started when Martin Eberhard thought of buying a sports-car. He couldn’t bring hims...

Thomas Parker made his electric car in 1874. So why aren’t they more widely used today? All cars need electricity to start. Even if they run on petrol or diesel, they need an initial push to...

Countries around the world are pushing for an electric future. But they’re doing it for different reasons. Yesterday, we featured India’s plan to end the sale of petrol and diesel cars [http...

India plans to make all new cars electric by 2030. Will it work? For a brief while, Delhi was on the top of the list. The question you’d want to ask next is, which list was that? In this ca...

Is your planning system working? Or is it just another item on the to-do list? Nowadays, there are many things that people need to keep track of. Many people turn to productivity systems and...

Stuck in a microwave oven? Here’s how not to get cooked. If you get stuck in a microwave oven, don’t panic. As an ant, your body is small enough to take the rays for a short while. The impor...

From door-latches to iris-scans, the art of blocking people has gone a long way. And it’s still going. In the beginning, people didn’t have passwords. They could just go wherever they wanted...

It’s written on practically every Indian lorry. But what does it mean? Have you ever wondered about the meaning of “Horn OK Please” that comes on the back of so many trucks? The reason for ...

Messages may get lost in the post. But you can at least stop them getting lost in your email. Some people are always on their inbox. Send them an email, and you’ll get a reply within minutes...

What if the main dish was really a dish? It’s a common thing for people to carry their own food while travelling on a train. But when I’m travelling on the 12677 Intercity Express, from Beng...

Imagine if you could pick up a drop of water, and carry it, just like that? Sixteen thousand new plastic bottles are made every second. One week from now, there’ll be enough new ones to circ...

Before leaves, and before coal, there lived the Lepidodendron. Most of the coal deposits humans use today come from the great Carboniferous forests of 350 million years ago. These forests sp...

Why do whales get beached? Now we know. Have you ever tried to say something while your head is underwater? Did it end up garbled, with too many bubbles coming in the way? That’s because you...

There are hundreds of different kinds of pasta — you’ll never be able to remember all of them! — but they’re all made from the same basic ingredients: 100% durum wheat, and water. More flavo...

Take control of your conversations with XMPP (part 2) Most people assume that their WhatsApp or Hangouts conversations are private. Actually, when you sign up for their services, you give th...

An brief introduction to XMPP What with WhatsApp, WeChat, Hangouts, Telegram, and Facebook Messenger, not to mention a lot of others, do you ever get tired of all the apps you have to run, j...

When you first start typing, it takes a long time. First of all, the letters are in some strange order, and you have to search around the keyboard for every stroke. Once you’ve finished one ...

The wildlife of Australia includes a lot of endemic species — that is, species that are found only in Australia, and nowhere else in the world. 83% of the Australian mammals are endemic, as ...

It was the solar-powered racing-cars in Australia that gave Abdul Malek Azad the idea. Azad is a professor at BRAC University in Dhaka, and also the leader of a project to make a solar-power...

If your pencil makes a slip, and your straight line has a dip, or you tried to draw a ship, but messed the sail, or lines were only needed when you had not yet done the final pen, — the era...

If you were a vulture flying for the first time across certain parts of the desert, you would notice the waves. Not cool wet ones, but yellow, lumbering ones spread out across the land. The ...

Note: This is the second installation of a 2-part article. You can read the first part here [https://medium.com/snipette/alternating-current-part-1-9cfddc424df6]. After a few days of waitin...

Alternating Current is called Alternating Current because it keeps changing the direction in which it moves. That happens because it’s made by turning an magnet round inside a coil of wire. ...

The little bits that reveal your secrets When naturalist Gerald Durrell was on his way to the land of Bafut, in Cameroon, he stopped at a marketplace on his way and tried to take photographs...

Imagine being one of your ancestors, hundreds of millions of years ago. You look out of your cave, through the towering trees, and there is danger everywhere. Through the forests run the two...