How Do Undersea Cables Carry the Internet?
Satellites get the headlines, but roughly 99% of intercontinental data travels through cables no thicker than a garden hose, lying on the ocean floor.
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Everyday Globe is a daily, multi-topic blog by Kirti Kaliraman and Sushant Kataria: tech, travel, food, fashion, health, business, science, history, sports, books, film and law.
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How Did South Africa Abolish the Death Penalty?
On 6 June 1995, South Africa's Constitutional Court unanimously held that capital punishment violated the Interim Constitution. The ruling emptied death row and set a global benchmark for dignity-based constitutional interpretation.
Is Privacy a Fundamental Right in India?
On 24 August 2017, nine judges of India's Supreme Court unanimously ruled that privacy is a fundamental right. Here is what the case decided, why it overturned decades of precedent, and how it shapes data and technology law today.
How Was the Rosetta Stone Decoded?
A broken slab of granodiorite found by French soldiers in 1799 carried the same decree in three scripts. Turning that into the key to ancient Egypt took a race between two rival geniuses and a flash of insight in Paris in 1822.
Who Invented the QR Code and Why?
Designed in 1994 to track components on Toyota-group factory floors, the QR code now pays for chai in Bengaluru and coffee in Shanghai. Its success came down to clever geometry, built-in error correction and one unusual decision about a patent.
Is The Tale of Genji the World's First Novel?
Written by a lady-in-waiting at the Heian court a thousand years ago, The Tale of Genji still sets the standard for psychological fiction — and the debate over whether it is the world's first novel is part of its legend.
Why Does Tennis Score 15, 30, 40?
Love, 15, 30, 40, deuce. Tennis has the oddest scoring in world sport, and it is older than the modern game itself. Here is where the numbers came from, which popular theories fall apart, and how the tiebreak finally tamed the endless set.
Why Does Every Cuisine Have a Dumpling?
From Nepali momos to Polish pierogi and Georgian khinkali, wrapping a filling in dough is one of humanity's most universal kitchen ideas. Here is why.
How Did Nigeria's Nollywood Become So Big?
Born from VHS tapes and street markets in the early 1990s, Nigeria's film industry now releases more titles each year than almost anywhere on Earth, and streaming has carried its stories to a global audience.
How Did Japan's Bullet Train Change Rail Travel?
Since 1964 the Shinkansen has carried billions of passengers with an average delay measured in seconds. Its real legacy is how it changed what countries expect from trains.
Why Is a Marathon 26.2 Miles?
The marathon's oddly precise distance has nothing to do with ancient Greece. It was fixed by a London race route in 1908 and made official in 1921. Here is the full story, from Pheidippides to the sub-two-hour era.
Was the Silk Road Actually a Road?
The name is barely 150 years old, and the reality was a shifting web of caravan trails and sea lanes that carried paper, religions, technologies and plague between China, India, Persia and Europe.
Why Is the Moon Moving Away From Earth?
Every year the Moon moves about 3.8 centimetres farther from Earth. Lasers fired at reflectors left on the lunar surface measure it precisely, and the same process is slowly lengthening our days.