What is crossing a picket line?

A picket line is a boundary created by workers on strike

Traditionally, a picket line is a physical line outside a workplace, but today, it can also be digital (think: boycotting a company’s website).

Explaining why animals don't cross this invisible line in Indonesia

Although the distance separating the two regions is small, East and West Indonesia have starkly different species, puzzling scientists for decades. Biogeographers use the theory of plate tectonics to explain the phenomenon, arguing the two regions...

How starting a union works

Starting a union within a workplace is a long, complicated process. There are many steps to take depending on how management reacts to each decision workers make during the proceedings. If you’re interested in helping your workplace unionize—or curious about what the journey to unionization looks like—this video can help.

Why did four Black servicewomen go on strike during WWII?

On March 9, 1945, dozens of Black women stationed at Fort Devens went on strike to protest against their treatment and working conditions. Under pressure, many abandoned the strike, though four women pushed through despite the possibility of their strike being considered mutiny, a crime whose punishment could mean death. Read this article to learn why Privates Mary Green, Anna Morrison, Johnnie Murphy, and Alice Young pushed back.

Policies related to the coronavirus pandemic inadvertently increased illegal border crossings

A pandemic-era public health measure called Title 42—intended to seal the border by expelling migrants immediately—backfired. Because expulsions carried no legal consequences, migrants simply tried again, driving illegal crossings to a peak of over 370,000 people in December 2023.

Wildfire containment requires trenches, natural barriers, or burned land

Containment refers to creating a perimeter around a fire that it is unlikely to spread beyond. However, full containment does not mean the fire is extinguished. Strong winds can cause fires to jump containment lines, including 10- to 12-foot-wide trenches or thin rivers.

A detailed timeline of cross-strait relations

The contentious history between China and Taiwan is neatly detailed in this BBC News timeline. Stretching back over 300 years, see important historical periods and points that stand out in Taiwan's and the region's background. From its original annexation by China during the Qing Dynasty to the present day, get a better grip on Taiwan's identity and history.

The traffic lines leaving Burning Man

The traffic lines leaving Burning Man have become an annual gawking event among the press, as the festival known for its radical "leave no trace" principles nonetheless contributes its share of carbon emissions. See photos of the dramatic departure from the desert playa here.

Crowds used a thumb gesture to decide whether a gladiator lived or died

This explainer unpacks pollice verso, the hand signal spectators used to call for a gladiator’s execution. Ancient sources never specify the direction; evidence suggests that the thumb was likely turned up or thrust toward the throat, not down.

Insider trading is the practice of trading a company's securities based on material, nonpublic information

"Material, nonpublic" information is essentially any undisclosed information that could have a substantial impact on an investor's decision to trade a security. While the practice is strictly prohibited on the stock market, it's now being discussed regarding less-regulated but increasingly popular prediction markets.

The Civil War turned the Continental Divide into an American symbol of identity

Historians argue that the boundary only became a celebrated American symbol in the 1860s, when Civil War-era leaders promoted a west-east geographic divide to replace the devastating north-south political divide, and that the term's use spiked after the transcontinental railroad crossed it in 1868.

The Standing Rock Sioux led a nationwide protest movement against an oil pipeline crossing their land

Beginning in 2016, thousands gathered at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation to block a crude oil pipeline that would run beneath Lake Oahe, the tribe's source of drinking water, and through a Sioux burial ground. The Obama administration halted construction, but Trump revived it weeks after taking office.

Read Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience'

The essay—originally delivered as a lecture and inspired by a night in jail for failing to pay a poll tax—argued that citizens should nonviolently resist unjust government policies, including slavery. Read the entirety of the essay for free.

Limited courts is a source of tension between pickleball and tennis players

Municipalities have rushed to accommodate the explosion of pickleball games, but sometimes they can't keep up. That's frustrated tennis players, whose courts are now often filled with people playing the sport.

What it means to call a bracket 'chalk'

If the tournament is rather boring, you might hear a curious word getting thrown around: "chalk." In short, it means that the favorites have been winning. The word's origins go back to horse racing and its sportsbooks, where bookies would post odds on chalkboards. Over time, the bookies came to be known as "chalk" and, years later, tournaments (and their brackets) that seemed to favor those bookies earned the name, too.

The career risk of being a people-pleaser

While people-pleasers tend to be kind and thoughtful, researchers say they are at risk of burnout at work because they are unable to set boundaries and disregard their own feelings when asked to complete a task. Read this brief, helpful article on the signs of people-pleasing and how to overcome the tendency.

A trade war is an economic conflict where nations impose tariffs or other trade barriers on each other in retaliation for similar actions

The US-China trade war is one example. While they aim to protect domestic industries, they can lead to higher prices for consumers and strained international relations.

Making sense of the parts of a check

Though individuals use checks sparingly if at all, half of businesses rely heavily on check-writing to pay suppliers and contractors. Get to know the parts of a check with this visual guide.

Read about 'skiplagging,' a money-saving travel hack

A consumer loophole known as "skiplagging" is a travel hack where travelers purchase a cheaper flight with a layover in their destination city. The hack works when flights to other cities with layovers at your destination are cheaper than direct flights to your destination. Airlines don't like the practice, but there's no specific law forbidding it.

Modern Ukraine—caught between Europe and Russia

"Ukraine" has been translated by some scholars as meaning "borderlands". Indeed the country lies perfectly between Europe and Russia, while hosting a diverse collection of people of differing languages, cultures, and ethnicities, feeling affinity for those on the other sides of the country's borders. This article explores how this affects the actions and reactions of Ukrainians during the current conflict.

Boston police told Stravinsky he had ‘tampered’ with ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’

There’s no national standard for arranging the national anthem, though it can be a different story on the state level. Conductor Igor Stravinsky learned that in 1944, when the Boston police commissioner visited his dressing room to warn him about a Massachusetts law against “tampering” with national property.

Performance art, explained

Performance art defies traditional boundaries, existing as a dynamic, live medium where the artist's actions—and sometimes the audience's—become the work itself. Emerging in the early 20th century with movements like Dadaism, performance art has continually evolved to provoke reflection and challenge cultural norms.

Learn how governments around the world restrict internet access for their citizens

Various countries around the world, including China, Russia, and Iran, control their local DNS infrastructure, allowing them to block access to online content by preventing the internet "phone book" from finding the IP addresses for specific URLs. Government-controlled internet service providers can also cut off access entirely or throttle specific traffic.

TikTok is changing the building trades

Plumbers, welders, and general contractors are meeting their customers on TikTok. This article delves into the growing group of tradespeople documenting their work (and advertising their services) on the popular app. The profiled workers are convinced this is the new way to sustain a life in the trades.

The Clash's breakthrough hit wasn't listed on ‘London Calling’

“Train in Vain” was a hit in the US, something that hadn’t yet happened for other first-wave punk acts. But the song was added to “London Calling” at the last minute, after the record jackets were already printed, making it one of the more popular “hidden tracks” in popular music.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

Firework or sparkler burns, even if they cover a relatively small area of skin, can significantly affect our range of motion.

Explore what it's like inside a patient isolation unit, used in situations such as treating a patient or suspected patient with Ebola.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in terms of casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

Brandi Chastain, the star of the 1999 US victory over China in the 1999 Women's World Cup, was a last-second choice to take the penalty kick that sealed the victory.

Pure water does not conduct electricity because this flow of energy requires the movement of charged particles, and water is a neutral molecule.

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

Some researchers have labeled nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, as 'the phobia of the 21st century.'

While El Niño moves warm Pacific Ocean waters east along the equator, La Niña moves them west, shifting where rainfall will become more common for months.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.