The following text is from John Muir’s 1913 autobiography The Story of My Boyhood and Youth. Muir describes being on a boat.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Black residents of Richmond, Virginia, had few formal options for banking and other financial services. To this situation, Maggie Lena Walker chartered the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank in 1903. The bank went on to provide home loans and savings opportunities to thousands of Black families over the following decades.

The results of randomized clinical trials testing the efficacy of common medical interventions sometimes fail to conclusions that practitioners reach based on their real-world observations of patients. While there are several possible reasons for this, one is that practitioners may overlook confounding variables that account for the results they attribute to the interventions in question.

Diadromous fish migrate between freshwater and marine biomes during their life cycle. The migration’s obligate nature is why diadromous fish can be those that are merely euryhaline (able to tolerate high salinity): the euryhaline blackchin tilapia can survive high salinity, but its life cycle does not involve relocation to a different biome, as does that of the diadromous wild salmon.

The following text is from Joan Didion’s memoir The Year of Magical Thinking. In the text, the author discusses her home life.

The majority of plastics today wind up in landfills or are, at best, recycled into materials that have a very limited range of applications. To address this problem, chemist Guoliang Liu and colleagues designed a reactor that melts polyethylene and polypropylene-two widely used plastics-into a wax. The wax can then be transformed into a surfactant (a chemical compound usable as a detergent). With this promising new method, plastic waste could be turned into a range of useful cleaning products.

The following text is from H.D.’s 1916 poem “Mid-Day.” In the poem, the speaker is on a path in an outdoor setting.

In 2023 literary scholar Jeremy Douglass cautioned technology investors and enthusiasts who predict conventional books’ ultimate displacement by newer forms of media. Douglass observed that the concept of an ``interactive’’ text is much older than technologists assume, extending back to the first time readers scratched notes into a text’s margins. In addition, newer media, such as video games, haven’t replaced older forms of entertainment, such as comic books, but rather exist alongside them. Douglass believes that rather than supplanting books, technology is simply making new forms of expression possible.

In 2018, scientists discovered an immense aggregation of Muusoctopus robustus (pearl octopuses) along a hydrothermal vent 3,200 meters beneath the ocean’s surface. Water temperatures at this site—named the Octopus Garden—climb as high as \(11^\circ\)C, much warmer than the ambient \(1.6^\circ\)C typical at this depth. Based on observations made over three years, scientists concluded that temperatures at the site likely confer reproductive benefits and that the site is used exclusively for reproduction—6,000 M. robustus adults, hatchlings, and eggs were observed at the garden, but no juveniles were present.

The following text is from Thomas Mann’s 1924 novel The Magic Mountain, translated by John E. Woods in 1995.

Researcher Judith Hilton and her team interviewed 55 people about which factors would make them switch from using single-use plastic containers to reusable containers. The graph shows three of the factors mentioned in the interviews and the percentage of participants who mentioned them.

A student in a political science course is writing a paper on Aristotle’s The Politics, in which Aristotle offers his opinion on political instability and gives advice on how constitutions can be preserved. Aristotle observes that different forms of government can fall in different ways-for example, oligarchies might grant power to military leaders during wartime who refuse to relinquish that power during peacetime-but some methods of preserving order apply across all forms of government. The student claims that in particular Aristotle asserts that in a healthy state obedience to law must be as close to absolute as possible and that even minor infractions should not be ignored.

Almost all works of fiction contain references to the progression of time, including the time of day when events in a story take place. In a 2020 study, Allen Kim, Charuta Pethe, and Steven Skiena claim that an observable pattern in such references reflects a shift in human behavior prompted by the spread of electric lighting in the late nineteenth century. The researchers drew this conclusion from an analysis of more than 50,000 novels spanning many centuries and cultures, using software to recognize and tally both specific time references-that is, clock phrases, such as 7 a.m. or 2:30 p.m.-and implied ones, such as mentions of meals typically associated with a particular time of day.

In a study of urban physical expansion, Richa Mahtta et al. conducted a meta-analysis of more than 300 cities worldwide to determine whether urban land expansion (ULE) was more strongly influenced by urban population growth or by growth in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, a measure of economic activity. Because efficient national government is necessary to provide urban services and infrastructure that attract economic investment, Mahtta et al. propose that absent other factors, the importance of GDP per capita growth to ULE would likely increase relative to the importance of population growth as governments become more efficient. If true, this suggests the possibility that

A student is researching the Chinese government’s 1992 shift to a market economy that emphasizes trade liberalization. One means of trade liberalization involves expanding from ordinary imports into an emphasis on processing imports, which have two types: processing with assembly (in which a firm obtains raw materials from a foreign trading partner without payment and sells the final goods to that partner, charging for assembly) and processing with inputs (in which a firm expends capital to buy raw materials from a trading partner, processes them into final goods, and sells those goods to whichever trading partner it chooses). The student asserts that while initial efforts at trade liberalization were shaped by Chinese firms’ limited capital, this situation resolved during the 2000s.

Narwhals are shy whales that live in the remote Arctic Ocean. Some of them have a long tusk, like a unicorn horn, with sensitive nerves. Narwhals are known for this tusk, but many actually don’t have one and its purpose is unknown. One group of scientists came up with a possible purpose in 2014. The scientists suggested that the tusk may help narwhals determine when water around them is likely to start freezing and become dangerous for them. Marine biologist Kristin Laidre disagrees with that idea, though. She reasons that if the narwhal’s tusk serves such an important purpose, then it’s most likely that

To address the susceptibility of materials used in components of high-performance machinery, such as aircraft engines, to creep (deformation that is induced by persistent mechanical stress and that often occurs at elevated temperatures), materials researchers have developed silicon carbide (SiC) fibers for producing aerospace composites. Testing the thermomechanical properties of several commercially available SiC fibers, Ramakrishna T. Bhatt et al. found that in comparison with two polymer-derived SiC fibers, a nitrogen-treated SiC fiber exhibited a lower minimum creep rate, a measure of the rate at which a stress-exposed material deforms at a constant temperature and uniaxial load. The finding suggests that

One of the earliest known maps is a Babylonian clay tablet thought to be almost 4,500 years old. The map the area of a plot of land, shows a river valley, and includes the cardinal directions.

Eighteen letters written by Louisa May Alcott, author of the popular novel Little Women (1868), can be found at the New York Historical Society. letters demonstrate Alcott’s keen business sense in her interactions with publishers.

The Dust Bowl was a period of severe drought that plagued the Great Plains of the US during the 1930s. During this time, dust storms over 100 million acres of land. They even reached as far east as New York City.

Many mechanical calculators were powered by a notched cylinder mechanism called the Leibniz wheel. Leibniz wheel calculators were popular in the first half of the twentieth these ingenious devices were eventually replaced by electronic calculators.

Featuring jagged peaks of black ink surrounded by hazy swirls of blue and green paint, Zhang Daqian’s 1983 painting Panorama of Mount Lu is inspired by the tradition of qinglü shanshui, a type of Chinese landscape painting by the use of blue and green hues to depict ethereal, otherworldly landscapes.

Increasing the heat on an uncovered boiling pot of water does not increase the temperature of the water. What increases is the rate at which the water turns to a pressure cooker pot, though, an airtight seal traps the vapor in the pot, creating pressure that allows the temperature of the water to increase past its boiling point.

Wanting to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Alaska Purchase, up with a motto that best captured the state’s unique character. The commission selected “North to the Future,” submitted by Juneau journalist Richard Peter, as its winning entry.

Recently unearthed Neronian tools in France dating to 54,000 years ago and attributed to \textit{Homo sapiens* may provide evidence that interactions between Neanderthals and modern humans occurred 10,000 years earlier than was previously finding that, if true, would overturn current theories about H. sapiens migration during the Upper Paleolithic.

Guard cells are specialized cells that are part of a plant’s pores. These cells help regulate the amount of carbon dioxide a plant takes in. they help regulate a plant’s water loss.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• Angana Chaudhuri is a scientist.
• Chaudhuri studies sedimentary rocks.
• A scientist who studies sedimentary rocks is called a sedimentologist.
• Shale, chalk, and sandstone are examples of sedimentary rocks.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• “Raymond’s Run” is a short story.
• It was written by African American author Toni Cade Bambara.
• It was first published in her book Gorilla, My Love in 1972.
• It is told from a first person perspective.
• It takes place in Harlem.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• The Royal Alcázar of Seville is a historic royal palace in Andalucía, Spain.
• The palace is famous for its intricate tilework.
• The palace features majolica and arista tiles.
• In the majolica style, designs are painted directly on the ceramic tiles.
• In the arista style, designs are stamped into the ceramic tiles.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• Musicians around the world have used protest songs to raise awareness about human rights violations.
• US folk singer Aunt Molly Jackson released the protest song “Poor Miner’s Farewell” in 1932.
• It exposed the unlivable wages and dangerous working conditions coal miners faced in Kentucky during the 1920s and 1930s.
• South African singer-songwriter Hugh Masekela released the protest song “Bring Him Back Home” in 1987.
• It called on the South African government to free Nelson Mandela, an anti-apartheid leader who’d been unjustly imprisoned.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• Political scientist Graham Allison is known for his Thucydides trap theory.
• Allison’s theory states that whenever “a rising power is threatening to displace a ruling power,” conflict is likely.
• The theory is based on Thucydides’s explanation of the conflict between Athens and Sparta.
• Thucydides wrote that “the rise of Athens and the fear this instilled in Sparta” made conflict “inevitable.”
• History professor Edmund Stewart recently challenged the historical basis of the theory.
• Stewart claimed that Athens was not a rising power and that the rivals experienced a “clash of cultures” instead.

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• Researchers in a 2021 study wanted to determine the rate at which 17 languages conveyed both information and syllables.
• They calculated the bits of information conveyed per second (the IR, or information rate).
• The IR was found to be approximately consistent across the 17 languages (an average of 39 bits per second).
• They calculated the number of syllables spoken per second (the SR, or syllable rate).
• Spanish had the second-fastest SR (7.7 syllables per second).
• Vietnamese had the sixteenth-fastest SR (5.3 syllables per second).