“In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue” in an effort to prove to European naysayers that the world was round, right? Not at all. In fact, Italian explorer Cristoforo Colombo (his real name), his European contemporaries, and basically all educated humans dating back to the ancient Greeks knew the Earth was a sphere. Famous mathematician Pythagoras of Samos (of a2 + b2 = c2 fame) figured out as much around 500 BCE, and 260 years later, another Greek mathematician named Eratosthenes accurately measured the Earth’s circumference. But defying the status quo and risking a deathly plunge into the vacuum of space certainly adds some dramatic tension, which is probably why Washington Irving invented this fictional flourishfor his 1828 biography The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. Although he was known for his inventive works of fiction, such as Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Irving’s creative history of Colombo became one of the most persistent myths of the Age of Exploration.

Charles Dickens is known for a good ghost story. Some of his most famous works, including the 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, revolve almost entirely around the supernatural. The English author’s interest in spirits even extended beyond the written word: He was an original member of the Ghost Club in London, an exclusive group interested in dissecting all things otherworldly.

The Ghost Club claims to be the oldest society of its kind. It was formally founded in 1862, although its history dates back to informal gatherings of Cambridge University academics in the mid-1850s. Along with Dickens, the group has counted such literary luminaries as W.B. Yeats, Siegfried Sassoon, and Arthur Conan Doyle among its members. Spiritualism was a hot topic in Victorian-era England, and the curiosity and discussion around it was widespread: Physicists, philosophers, biologists, and more were found among the early Ghost Club members. The club kept minimal records, and little is known about specific investigations at the time of Dickens’ membership, but research suggests that ghostly encounters, clairvoyance, and exposing frauds working as mediums were all on the table.

Dickens, for all his obvious spiritual inclinations — including dabbling in hypnosis — was also healthily skeptical. “All such narratives must be received with the greatest circumspection, and sifted with the utmost care,” he wrote in an 1853 article about haunted houses. “Nothing in them must be taken for granted, and every detail proved by direct and clear evidence, before it can be received.” Dickens died in 1870 and the Ghost Club later disbanded, although not for long. It was revived in 1882, and despite fluctuations in activity, the club endured, and remains an active organization today.

Personally I do the same things I have always done, wash my hand, cover my mouth when I cough or sneeze. I worked in health care for years so having the courtesy to wear a mask when I am not feeling well was and is not an issue. All the pandemic did was alert me to the number of people who are not safe and really don’t care about the health and safety of others.

Dinosaurs probably didn’t roar.

If asked what a dinosaur sounded like, many people would likely recall the roaring T. rex of Jurassic Park. However, that earth-shaking bellow seems to be a case of Hollywood exercising some creative liberty. While we don’t know what these reptiles really sounded like, since they mostly died out some 66 million years ago, scientists at least have some reasonable ideas based on the anatomical structures of well-preserved fossils, combined with studies of the dinosaurs and their close relatives that exist today.

Yes, dinosaurs do still exist, in the form of birds, which branched off from non-avian dinosaurs around 160 million years ago. Although birds mainly produce noises via a soft-tissue organ called the syrinx, which has yet to be uncovered from a non-avian dinosaur fossil, many of our feathered friends also engage in closed-mouth vocalization, in which sounds are pushed out from a pouch in the neck area. Another modern animal that utilizes closed-mouth vocalization is the crocodile, which just so happens to share a common ancestor with dinosaurs. Given the family ties, it’s logical to conclude that some dinosaurs emitted something resembling the cooing of a dove, the booming of an ostrich, or the rumbling of a croc. Since larger animals with longer vocal cords produce lower frequency sounds, it’s also likely that enormous sauropods like Brachiosaurus delivered noises that, to our ears, would dip into an octave of infrasound — felt and not heard. On the other hand, the ear structures of the dinosaur-crocodile predecessor indicate a sensitivity to high-pitched noises, possibly the chirping of babies.

The field continues to evolve as new information comes to light; the recent discovery of the first known fossilized dinosaur larynx, from an ankylosaur, suggests these creatures were able to modify noises in a bird-like way despite the lack of a syrinx. And none of this even touches on the sound capabilities of hadrosaurs like Parasaurolophus, which almost certainly delivered a distinct call from the air passages that funneled through a conspicuous head crest. All in all, while a roar from a Jurassic-bred beast may have been the work of a Hollywood studio, there’s no movie magic needed to recognize that Earth’s prehistoric hills were alive with all sorts of reptilian sounds of music.

Ring around the rosie
A pocket full of posies
Ashes, ashes
We all fall down

You may have heard the popular Black Plagueorigin story for this rhyme, with the titular “ring” representing the red rings that would appear on the skin of people with the disease. However, there are other variations of the rhyme, such as 1883’s “Ring a ring a rosie/A bottle full of posie/All the girls in our town/Ring for little Josie,” that present different theories.

When he analyzed this version, folklorist Philip Hiscock offered a less deadly translation. Religious bans on dancing in Britain and North America in the 19th century led to “play parties,” with ring games that were similar to square dancing but without music, so the events quietly flew under the radar.

“The rings referred to in the rhymes are literally the rings formed by the playing children,” explains Hiscock. “‘Ashes, ashes’ probably comes from something like ‘Husha, husha,’ another common variant which refers to stopping the ring and falling silent. And the falling down refers to the jumble of bodies in that ring when they let go of each other and throw themselves into the circle.”