To play, type your response into the field below the question. If you need a hint, click to reveal. Next, click 'Submit' to have your response checked. You'll see the answer, a bit about the corresponding article, and the button to proceed. And by the way, did you know that at one location, the United States and Russia are only 2.4 miles of water apart' Smack in the center of the Bering Strait are the Diomede Islands. Little Diomede belongs to the U.S., and Big Diomede is Russia's; the ice bridge that forms between the two in winter is, as far as I can tell, unclaimed. The gap is just big enough for the international date line to squeeze through, putting the Diomedes 21 hours apart for most of the year. The little one is nicknamed Yesterday Island, and the big one Tomorrow Island....

If you put any stock in the ability of IQ tests to assess intelligence, we humans have spent the past century steadily getting smarter. (And if you don't put any stock in them, well, we humans have steadily gotten better at IQ tests.) Because IQ is a standardized measure, humankind's average score still sits at 100'but this isn't your granddaddy's 100. IQ tests are regularly recalibrated, and over the past many decades, when new subjects have taken an old test, they have almost always outscored their predecessors' average; Grandpa's generation might have hovered around 100, but the kids are scoring 115 ' which then becomes the new 100. This phenomenon is called the Flynn effect, and researchers still aren't sure what causes it. Perhaps it's due to more efficient education or better nutrition. The reason could be that modern environments contain more interesting stimuli or that modern gasoline no longer contains lead. I haven't seen anyone propose that trivia is to thank, but the growing popularity of quizzing tracks with the IQ trend line pretty well too. I think I speak for all of science when I say we shouldn't rule it out quite yet....

Now, a study co-authored by MIT economists sheds new light on these dynamics, examining the role that geography has played in the crisis. The results show how state-level policies inadvertently contributed to the rise of opioid addiction, and how addiction itself is a central driver of the long-term problem. The research analyzes data about people who moved within the U.S., as a way of addressing a leading question about the crisis: How much of the problem is attributable to local factors, and to what extent do people have individual characteristics making them prone to opioid problems' 'We find a very large role for place-based factors, but that doesn't mean there aren't person-based factors as well,' says MIT economist Amy Finkelstein, co-author of a new paper detailing the study's findings. 'As is usual, it's rare to find an extreme answer, either one or the other.' In scrutinizing the role of geography, the scholars developed new insights about the spread of the crisis in relation to the dynamics of addiction. The study concludes that laws restricting pain clinics, or 'pill mills,' where opioids were often prescribed, reduced risky opioid use by 5 percent over the 2006-2019 study period. Due to the path of addiction, enacting those laws near the onset of the crisis, in the 1990s, could have reduced risky use by 30 percent over that same time....

About one in four 11th-graders in Colorado exercised their right to skip the state's official science test each year between 2016 and 2019. More specifically, between 23 percent and 27 percent of 11th-graders did not participate in the science exam during those years. That's what we found in a study published in AERA Open. Our study was based on a geographical analysis of state data that revealed how many students decided to skip the test during the years in question. Opting out of tests is part of a recent national educational movement across the United States. The opt-out movement garnered national attention in 2015 and 2016 after growing dissatisfaction with high-stakes testing, both as a tool to evaluate teacher performance and assess student learning. Many students and parents do not believe in the importance of standardized tests as a measure of academic achievement. Much of the opt-out movement was led by parents who chose to keep their children home from school on the test day. They often acted in coordination with national groups such as United Opt Out. Colorado is a unique case, though, because high school students were actively involved in the opt-out movement and were protesting the use of standardized tests....