Daily Content Archive
(as of Wednesday, March 6, 2019)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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hoarfrost
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Defining InflectionGrammatical inflection is the way in which a word is changed or altered in form in order to achieve a new, specific meaning. Verbs are the most commonly inflected words, changing form to reflect grammatical tense, as well as mood, voice, aspect, person, and speech. Collectively, this is known as what? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Gamma KnifeThe Gamma Knife is a device used in stereotactic radiosurgery to produce precise lesions in specific areas of pathologic tissue in deep-seated central nervous system structures. The apparatus uses 201 beams of gamma radiation, which are carefully aimed to converge on a specific intracranial target, to kill cancer cells, shrink tumors, and treat vascular anomalies while sparing surrounding healthy tissue. What specialized equipment do patients wear during treatment? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Dmitri Mendeleev Presents First Periodic Table (1869)The periodic table is a tabular display of all known chemical elements arranged according to the periodic law discovered by Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev. The elements are arranged in columns and rows according to increasing atomic number, which is defined as the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom. The table summarizes the major properties of the elements and enables predictions to be made about their behavior. How many elements currently appear on the periodic table? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Gabriel García Márquez (1927?)García Márquez was a Colombian novelist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982 and is widely regarded as one of the world's greatest 20th-century writers. His two masterpieces, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, center on themes of violence, solitude, and the overwhelming human need for love. The former text became a principal vehicle for the surrealist style of magic realism. What career path did García Márquez abandon in order to pursue writing? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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go to wrack and ruin— To fall into severe or total decay, degradation, or ruination, as from disuse or lack of upkeep. ("Wrack," a now-archaic word meaning wreckage or destruction, is also often spelled "rack.") More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Feast of Excited Insects (2022)Known as Gyeongchip in Korea and as Ching Che in China, the Feast of Excited Insects marks the transition from winter to spring. It is the day when the insects are said to come back to life after hibernating all winter. In China, it is the day when "the dragon raises his head," summoning the insects back to life, and people perform various rituals designed to prepare for the onslaught. In Korea, this is one of 24 days in the lunar calendar that marks the beginning of a new season. Farmers prepare their fields and begin planting their barley, cabbage, and other vegetables. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: swordsheath - Seems to have first been a split stick that a sword could be inserted into. More... spades - As a suit in a deck of cards, it has nothing to do with spades as tools, but comes from Spanish espada, "sword." More... spay - A shortening of a French word espeer, meaning "cut with a sword." More... gladiator, gladiate - The main Latin word for sword was gladius, from which came gladiator; gladiate is an adjective meaning sword-shaped. More... | |