Jesse Singer articles

You probably learned all 50 state names in school. But probably not these names. Go back far enough, and some familiar places turn up under names you’d barely recognize. How many did you know about?

Business travel is hardly disappearing in 2026. The Global Business Travel Association forecasts worldwide business travel spending of $1.71 trillion this year, while the number of trips is expected to reach roughly 1.84 billion. Yet there is an important gap hidden inside those numbers: spending is forecast to rise 7.2 percent, while trip volume is expected to grow only 1.3 percent. In other words, companies are spending considerably more without sending employees on considerably more trips.

Yup, all of these places were welcoming visitors during the 80s, but the odds are you weren’t one of them. Honestly, how many of these spots did you actually visit?

Humans love to tell ourselves the same story: bigger brains made us smarter, smarter made us dominant, and dominance made us the ultimate human species. There is just one problem...

Evolution sounds simple enough: tiny changes build up over countless generations, and eventually you get something very different. But when scientists looked closely at certain fossils, the story wasn’t so simple...

Yellowstone looks almost peaceful from above. Tourists crowd the boardwalks. Old Faithful keeps performing. But scientists have spent decades watching what is happening beneath their feet. Then they asked the question most people would rather not think about: What if Yellowstone erupted tomorrow? The deeper they followed that scenario, the more frightening it became.

Fifty states, more than two centuries of presidents, and somehow fewer than half the states have been the birthplace of a future president. So, can you name 8...at least?

Is meeting a client worth a flight, a hotel stay, and a day away from everything else you need to do? When you can discuss a proposal over video without leaving your desk, it is a fair question. Some research even suggests that meeting face-to-face could be worth considerably more money and lead to more closed deals. But before anyone starts approving every travel request, those attention-grabbing numbers need a closer look.

Some were uncovered by construction crews. Others were found beneath lakes, inside caves or right under modern cities. A few inspired wild legends that archaeology has since dismantled. But every state has produced at least one discovery that left researchers with questions they still cannot completely answer. How many were you aware of?