Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, October 19, 2018)| Word of the Day | |||
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Joining Coordinate AdjectivesWhen we use multiple adjectives to describe the same noun, we may or may not use commas between them, depending on how the adjectives function together. In general, we do use commas between coordinate adjectives. What are coordinate adjectives? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 CloisonnéLikely invented in the Middle East but later perfected by the Chinese, Japanese, and French, cloisonné is an ancient method of decorating metals with enamel. It involves adhering metal wire to a metal object in a specific pattern, filling the resulting compartments with colored enamel paste, and firing the object to fuse the enamel to its surface. The earliest surviving examples of cloisonné are six 13th century BCE Mycenaean rings. Where in Venice's St. Mark's Basilica can one find cloisonné? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Streptomycin Is First Isolated (1943)After coining the word "antibiotic" for bacteria-killing chemicals derived from micro-organisms, American microbiologist Selman A. Waksman, working with Albert Schatz, isolated streptomycin—the fourth antibiotic ever discovered. Waksman won the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery. Streptomycin acts by inhibiting protein synthesis and damaging cell membranes. Produced by soil bacteria, it was the first specific agent effective in the treatment of what disease? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Salimuzzaman Siddiqui (1897)Siddiqui was a leading Pakistani scientist credited with the isolation of unique chemical compounds from various South Asian plants, particularly the neem tree. The extracts of this tree, a broad-leaved evergreen native to India and Myanmar, have been used for centuries in Asia as pesticides, medicines, and health tonics. In the 21st century, knowledge of the neem tree spread to the West, where it has been hailed as a "wonder plant," largely due to the work of Siddiqui, who discovered what else? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 There was no use in trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest notion that she was not free.Edith Wharton (1862-1937) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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heat wave— A period of time in which the weather is unusually and persistently hot. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Bettara-Ichi (2024)The annual Pickle Market, or Sticky-Sticky Fair, is held near the Ebisu Shrine in Tokyo, Japan, to supply people with what they will need to observe the Ebisu Festival on the following day, October 20. People buy wooden images of Ebisu, good-luck tokens, and most importantly, the white, pickled radish known as bettara that is so closely identified with the fair. The Sticky-Sticky Fair was named after the way the pickled radishes were sold. Stall keepers used to dangle them from a rope so the buyer wouldn't get his hands sticky from the malted rice in which the radishes had been pickled. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: towertower - A group of giraffes. More... spire, steeple - A spire is the tall pointed roof of a tower or the tall pointed structure on top of a steeple; a steeple is the tower plus the spire. More... ziggurat - A tower in the form of a terraced pyramid. More... Big Ben - Not the clock in the tower of the Houses of Parliament but the bell itself. More... | |