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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, ...

  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...

  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 cause...

  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 rul...

  Original photo by Real Window Creative/ Shutterstock Alaska’s coastline is longer than all other states’ combined Alaska is big — in more ways than one. Not only is it the largest U.S. state by a wide margin, but it’s also home to the  10 highest mountain peaks  in the U.S.,  far more volcanoes  than any other state, and more coastline than all the other states combined. Of the United States’ estimated 12,479 miles of coastline, Alaska accounts for some  6,640 miles all on its own , at least based on one account by the Congressional Research Service. (Coastlines can be notoriously difficult to measure, and counts do vary.) Alaska’s coastline  borders three seas  — the Beaufort, Bering, and Chukchi — along with the Pacific and Arctic oceans, and it rests in some of the most extreme climates in the world. The coasts themselves  have been formed over millions of years  by fault tectonics, volcanism, glaciation, fluvial processes, and sea ...

  Original photo by NurPhoto SRL/ Alamy Stock Photo Rosa Parks’ house was relocated to Germany and Italy Civil rights icon Rosa Parks spent more than 40 years living in her home state of Alabama before moving to Detroit, Michigan, in 1957. There, she briefly resided in a  house owned by her brother , located at 2672 S. Deacon Street. While there’s  some debate  over how long Parks lived there, what’s certain is she spent a great deal of time at the house with her family. Despite the house’s historic significance, however, it was set to be demolished by the city until Rhea McCauley — Parks’ niece — purchased the home from city officials in 2014 for $500. McCauley then gifted the home to artist Ryan Mendoza, and thus began its whirlwind adventure around the world. After trying and failing to convince the city of Detroit to preserve the building, Mendoza dismantled the home and relocated it to his art studio in Berlin, Germany, where it was rebuilt. The house returned t...

  T oday, yellow pencils are just normal, generic pencils, but when they were popularized in the late 19th century, they were considered the height of luxury. Before then, lacquered pencils were often a sign of low-quality wood that needed to be covered up, and they were usually finished in darker colors such as black or maroon. A decent pencil, meanwhile, would either be plain or varnished wood. But that all changed with the introduction of luxury pencils made with the finest, purest graphite, which came from a mine on the border of China and Siberia.  The German pencil manufacturer Faber (now Faber-Castell) was the first company to get its hands on graphite from the region, and it allowed for extremely fine-tuned pencil formulas, with 16 different degrees of hardness and softness. This was a big deal in the pencil world, and Faber  boasted  in its catalogs that “Siberian graphite” was “a household word amongst artists, engineers, designers and draftsmen generally.”...

  Photo credit:  KHALED DESOUKI / AFP via Getty Images The First Indoor Cats  It’s been difficult for researchers to pin down the exact origin of the house cat, but it’s believed our furry friends evolved from wildcats  roughly 12,000 years ago , around the time that humans moved to an agricultural lifestyle. In 2004, French archaeologists on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus found what is now the earliest evidence of a pet kitty: a human buried with a cat in a grave that was at least  9,500 years old . Researchers know this pair must have traveled together because wildcats were not native to any other Mediterranean island aside from Sicily. The cat was also buried facing the same way as the human, just 16 inches away, indicating a  close relationship .  Before this discovery, the earliest house cats were thought to have been from either ancient Egypt or China. Archaeologists in  China  found evidence of cats sharing a home with farmers in t...

  Original photo by Vanessa Loring/ Pexels Bananas are Curved Because They Grow Toward the Sun. Considering most fruits have a spherical or ovate shape, the average banana’s long, curved appearance is something of an anomaly. This unique curvature is due to a scientific concept called  negative geotropism , where the stem flexes upward as the plant grows, rather than being pulled straight down by the forces of gravity. While most fruits simply absorb sunlight and grow downward toward or into the earth, bananas begin to curve as they strive to find sufficient sunlight to fuel their growth. This has to do with the unique presence of photosensitive hormones called  auxins , which influence how bananas react to light.  Some bananas grow in lush rainforests with dense canopies, which can obscure the fruit from getting enough light. In these cases, bananas will grow toward the sky to  break through  the light-blocking canopy. But negative geotropism still occurs ...

  Original photo by Venimages/ Alamy Stock Photo Superman Originally Couldn’t Fly Since his 1938 debut in  Action Comics No. 1 , Superman has evolved into an even more powerful superhero than the original character. While he’s always been super strong and super fast, he didn’t initially have his now-famous ability to fly. You’ve probably heard the slogan “able to leap tall buildings in a single bound” — that comes from his ability to  jump an eighth of a mile  at a time, which is originally as close as he came to being able to fly. The first implied instance of Superman taking flight was on an August 1939 cover of the British magazine  Triumph , where the superhero appears to be flying into space. It was also hinted at in the second episode of  The Adventures of Superman  radio program in 1940. Then came artist Leo Nowak, who, assuming the hero had been given the power of flight, mistakenly drew Superman hovering above the ground in 1941’s  Superm...