I love poring over this gallery of physical visualizations. Each artifact is a representation of data from our history dating back to Mesopotamian Clay Tokens from 5500 BC. Some of them are so interesting and beautiful, like the brainwave weaving of dreamers, or this Yakima Time Ball meant to record major life events. Others are useful like this abacus ring from the Qing Dynasty, or mysterious, like South American Quipus. Maybe not useful, but really cool are these 3D-Printed Thoughts. There’s currently 370 artifacts listed — all of them equally captivating. — CD

By far the nerdiest food YouTube channel out there is Adam Ragusea with 2 million followers. He dives deep into the chemical nature of foods, such as what happens with smoking meat at the molecular level, why fennel and liquorice taste the same, or what is the chemical that makes the smell of rain. But also definitively answers many useful questions like “do the eggs of happy chickens taste better?” He references obscure scientific journals, does his own experiments, and mixes in delicious recipes you can follow yourself. He is one of the best science communicators working today. I recommend Ragusea’s food science playlist for the full course. — KK

If you spin this globe and zoom in you can learn the birthplaces of the most notable people in culture, science, sports, or leadership (from 3500BC-2018AD). Clicking on their names will take you to their Wikidata page where you can learn more about them. I learned about an indigenous princess who was born near my parents hometown in Mexico. — CD

It’s amazing how quickly my eyes got used to the detail captured by the new Webb telescope. You can compare the vast difference between the Hubble images of nebulas and galaxies and Webb’s new images on WebbCompare.com. Just slide back and forth and be amazed. — CD

As a Latina who grew up in California, anything I learned about my indigenous culture was by word of mouth or books I had to check out on my own. I’ve learned more scrolling through this visual essay of the Aztec Pantheon than I ever did in school. It’s a beautiful and colorful collection of 137 gods and their iconography. — CD

What came first: Watts Towers or The Beatles’ Abbey Road? The film Tom Jones or Eagles’ Their Greatest Hits? The Dream by Henri Rousseau or England’s Natural History Museum? This Google quiz asks questions like these (and shows relevant images) and challenges you to click what came first. A faster answer will yield a higher score. — MF

Before oil, empires fought over gold. And before gold, empires fought over spice. There were six spices that opened up the Americas, and bound Asia and Europe together permanently. Kate Humble, a BBC host, journeys to the remote geographical sources of these 6 spices in her series The Spice Trail. The depth of her research and travels are astounding. I am in awe of how ignorant I was about these substances, and now I am grateful how intimate with them her travels made possible. There are 3 sessions available on YouTube: 1) Pepper and Cinnamon. 2) Nutmeg and Cloves. 3) Saffron and Vanilla. History + Travel + Food. Highly recommended. — KK

Freelearninglist.org is a directory for finding the best education resources on the internet — including links and descriptions to free courses, YouTube explainer channels, podcasts, subreddits, effective thinking newsletters, how-to websites and more. Each listing is scored on effectiveness, design and popularity. It makes me want to never waste time on the internet with so many mind-enriching resources like this available. — CD

Being able to identify tree species is something I ache to learn, but I am intimidated by the amount research and reading involved. For now, I just enjoy noticing them and taking pictures of them. Also, I just discovered Monumental Trees, a website where people all over the world can submit their tree photos that you can filter by species and country. I still haven’t discovered all this site has to offer, but for now just looking at the photos satiates my curiosity! — CD

Tim Urban of the explainer site Wait By Why asked his Twitter followers “What’s your favorite mindblowing fact?” Sample replies:

• The moon and the sun are exactly the same size as seen from Earth

• Reno, Nevada is west of Los Angeles

• Neutrinos, subatomic particles created in the sun, are so neutral and small and that a wall of lead a light-year thick has 50/50 chance of stopping one. About 100 trillion of them pass through your body every second.

• There’s a giant volcano underneath Yellowstone National Park that would wipe out most life in North America if it were to explode (which it has done at least 3 times in the past that we know of).

• Every tool that exists today, from hammers to particle accelerators, has been constructed with others tools, and those with other tools, and so on, and eventually all tools where fabricated with rocks.

— MF

It’s been more than three years since I deleted my Facebook account and lately, I find myself using Instagram and Twitter less and less. This list of 8 Ways Social Media Distorts Reality by the Center for Humane Technology reminded me why I have a 5-minute time limit on my Instagram and Twitter phone apps. I’m especially sensitive to “information flooding” and the algorithms are great at tricking me into thinking that everyone is talking about this one thing. As much as I do appreciate a community, I have to remind myself that Twitter and Instagram are not reality. The whole list is worth reading and understanding. — CD

The inventor Tim Hunkin released another season of his fantastic video tutorials introducing The Secret Life of Components, as in the motors, linkages, sensors and other parts you might use to build things. His hands-on knowledge is vast, and his BBC-perfected presentation skills are perfect for walking you through the plus and minuses of any part you ever might use. As fundamental as this information is, it is very hard to find, even on YouTube. — KK

Samples from a monster-length Twitter thread of hard-to-believe facts:

“One of the favourite shades of paint used by Pre-Raphaelite painters, Mummy Brown, was made by adding ground up remains of Egyptian mummies.”

“Hippos were almost released in Louisiana as a way to control invasive plants and as a food source for people”

“There are about 150 million starlings in North America. They are all descended from 60 birds released in Central Park, by a guy whose motivation was to introduce them to America because they had been mentioned in Shakespeare.”

“The last guillotining in France occurred the year Star Wars first premiered.”

— MF

My best friend called recently to ask what it meant to dream her teeth were falling out. I told her that was the most common dream scenario across the board and then asked her more questions about her recent career change, because it was obvious she was nervous about it. Today I came across this infograph showing the most common dreams by country and realized I was partially right — the most googled dream in the world is about snakes, and the second being teeth falling out. I loved learning the other dream meanings being googled in other countries. In Bhutan, they dream of rainbows often. — CD

The February 20, 2021 issue of Roger’s Bacon newsletter has an entertaining list of laws of the Internet. Many have been around for decades and are as valid as ever. Here are few:

• Badger’s Law – “any website with the word ‘Truth’ in the URL has none in the posted content.”

• The Wadsworth Constant – “the first 30% of any video can be skipped because it contains no worthwhile or interesting information.”

• The Law of Fakery – “Anything fake which attracts enough attention will have some people vehemently proclaiming it’s real. Anything real which attracts enough attention will have some people vehemently proclaiming it’s fake. Corollary: If the creator confesses that it was fake, some people will still claim it’s real and call the confession a fake.”

— MF

Here are a few of my favorites from this GitHub repository of Dwmkerr’s Hacker Laws and Principles:

• Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

• Amara’s Law: We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate in the long run

• Putt’s Law: Technology is dominated by two types of people, those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand.

— MF

Isaac Asimov’s 768-page Understanding Physics clearly explains the principles of motion, sound, heat, light, magnetism, and electricity in a historical context. It gave me a better understanding of physics than four years of mechanical engineering school, and was actually fun to read. — MF

“The number of people born in Antarctica (11) is fewer than the number of people who have walked on the Moon (12).” That’s just one of 52 surprising things blogger Jason Kottke included in his year-end post. Here’s another: “Cannabis delivery isn’t legal in Maine, so this enterprising online shop employs ‘psychics’ to ‘find a wide selection of your lost weed and drop it off at your home.’” — MF

Everything you could ever want to know about clouds is available at the International Cloud Atlas hosted by the World Meteorological Organization. You can learn the basics of observing and identifying clouds. See photo descriptions of clouds. Search their image gallery. Compare two images. And if you go deep enough you might find unlisted YouTube links to time lapse videos like this one. — CD

Africa has over 50 countries. Test your geography knowledge with a quiz, You Don’t Know Africa, that presents you with a blank map of Africa. It then displays a country name, and you have to click on the right country to increase your score by one. You can also test your knowledge of the flags of Africa. — MF