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InterestingFacts: Astronaunts Can Vote Absentee From Space

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  Original photo by Supamotion/ Shutterstock Astronauts can vote absentee from space. As human space exploration has evolved, trips offworld have grown longer and longer. In 1961, Yuri Gagarin  spent less than two hours in orbit ; today, it’s common for astronauts to stay in space for  six months to a year . Because astronauts are spending larger portions of their lives hundreds of miles above us, the voting process has had to adapt. A pivotal moment occurred in September 1996, when NASA astronaut John Blaha went to the Russian space station Mir for a  118-day  stay and completely missed voting in the 1996 presidential election. In response, Texas state Senator  Mike Jackson  proposed legislation to allow astronauts to vote in space. (Notably, many astronauts live in Texas because they train at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.) In 1997, NASA astronaut David Wolf, who was also aboard the Mir, became the first astronaut to successfully vote in space. Wolf told  The Atlantic  in 2016
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InterestingFacts: "Mona Lisa" Is Not the Name of the Paint's Subject

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  Original photo by marc zakian/ Alamy Stock Photo "Mona Lisa" is not the name of the painting's subject. Not entirely, anyway. The subject of this early 16th-century portrait by Leonardo da Vinci, so famous that it resides in its own  bulletproof glass case  at the Louvre Museum in Paris, is believed to have been  Lisa del Giocondo  (née Gherardini), the wife of Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo. As was common with other Renaissance works, the "Mona Lisa"  didn't have a formal title  for many years, instead going by names like "A Certain Florentine Lady" or "A Courtesan in a Gauze Veil." The identity of the subject also became something of a mystery, as Leonardo  failed to provide any confirmation  in his papers or in the painting itself. It was a later Renaissance artist, Giorgio Vasari, who provided the first inkling that the sitter was the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, in his 1550 book  The Lives of the Most Excellent Paint
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HistoryFacts: Leonardi da Vinci Did Most of His Writing Backward

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  F amed Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci left behind thousands of pages of notes and diagrams from his many pursuits in math, anatomy, botany, science, engineering, and art — he created more than 200 illustrations with notes on flight alone. Leonardo had groundbreaking ideas on everything from human anatomy to bridge design, and even the writing itself is impressive: Most of it is written from right to left, in a  mirror image  of ordinary European script. He only wrote left to right when someone else needed to read it. He also used his own form of shorthand. Leonardo never directly explained why he wrote this way, but there are a few prevailing theories. It may have been simply practical: The artist was most likely left-handed, and writing left to right could get messy using a pen and ink. He also may have been trying to keep his ideas secret from potential copycats, or even trying to hide his work from the Roman Catholic Church. While Leonardo’s artwork is rich with religious
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InterestingFacts.com/The Moon can Produce a Lunar Rainbow Known as a “Moonbow.”

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  Original photo by Gergitek Gergi tavan/ Shutterstock The moon can produce a lunar rainbow known as a “moonbow.” The sun is the most reliable way to create the gorgeous light display we call a rainbow, but it’s not the  only  way. After all, the moon illuminates the Earth, too — and rainbows are essentially an  optical illusion  caused when water droplets split light into its ROY G. BIV components. But seeing a “moonbow” isn’t exactly easy. How rare is this nighttime meteorological phenomenon? Well, Aristotle wrote around 350 BCE  in his treatise  Meteorologica  that “it was formerly thought that [rainbows] never appeared by night as a moon rainbow. This opinion was due to the rarity of the occurrence… we have only met with two instances of a moon rainbow in more than fifty years.” So, pretty rare. That’s because for a moonbow to form, you need a  variety of conditions to be Goldilocks-level perfect . First, the moon must be low in the sky, and can’t exceed 42 degrees from the horizon
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InterestingFacts.com/Some Countries have a List of Preapproved Baby Names

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  Original photo by Prostock-studio/ Shutterstock Some countries have a list of preapproved baby names. Although it may sound like something from the handbook of an oppressive regime, there are several  generally tolerant countries  that require parents to pick from a list of government-approved choices for baby names. Iceland, Denmark, Portugal, and Hungary are among these nations, although parents with a strong preference for something unique can apply for exceptions.  Other countries have no such lists, but possess rules about what falls within the boundaries of acceptability. In  New Zealand , for example, the Office of the Registrar-General will reject names that reflect an official title (such as "King") or have nonnumerical or nonalphabetic characters (such as "/").  Germany 's Standesamt will deny attempts to bestow the names of inanimate objects (e.g., "telephone") or common surnames on children.  Saudi Arabia 's interior ministry has bann
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InterestingFacts: The Sky Looks Bluer in the Fall

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  Original photo by Barisev Roman/ Shutterstock The sky looks bluer in the fall Although the sky is blue throughout the year, it’s often  a richer blue in the fall and winter , especially at latitudes farther from the equator. Why? Well, the answer has to do with both electromagnetism and the biology of the human eye. As a refresher: All visible colors are tied to some wavelength along the electromagnetic spectrum. When sunlight enters Earth’s atmosphere, gas and dust particles reflect the shorter wavelengths of visible light (such as blue) more than longer wavelengths (such as red). That — and the sensitivity of the human eye to the color blue — is why the sky appears as a cool sapphire. However, as the seasons progress, one part of this equation changes: the sun’s position. As the sun gets  lower and lower  in the sky during its annual journey back toward the equator (and eventually the Tropic of Capricorn), the angle of the sun’s light hitting the atmosphere causes even  more  blue
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HistoryFacts: Tug-of-War Use to be in the Olympics

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  T oday, we associate tug-of-war with cookouts and schoolyard games, but for a  brief period  in the early 20th century, world-class competitors participated in tug-of-war matches on one of the most prestigious stages in athletics: the Olympic Games. Tug-of-war was an event at  five Summer Games : in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920. The rules of Olympic tug-of-war were essentially a slightly more regulated version of the game commonly played today. Two teams of eight competitors (or five or six competitors in the 1900 and 1904 Games) grabbed hold of either side of a rope, and two lines were drawn in the middle of the field, 6 feet away from each team. The two sides then battled to pull the opposing team 6 feet over the line closest to their side — or to make the other team fall over. If this wasn’t accomplished within a five-minute time limit, the team that had pulled their opponent the greatest distance was declared the winner. However, there were some unusual rules in Olympic tug-o
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