Michelle Konstantinovsky is a San Francisco-based journalist who's written on everything from the Beagle Brigade and border walls to cricket farms and TV scheduling for HowStuffWorks. She earned her master's degree from U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism and she's written on health and wellness topics for outlets including Cosmopolitan, O: The Oprah Magazine, Marie Claire, Teen Vogue and more. Michelle loves music, manatees and terrible teen movies from the early 2000s.
Recent Contributions
Prime god Ra died every night and was reborn every morning. The goddess Neith defied gender norms and stereotypes as a great warrior. These are just two of the fascinating stories from the pantheon of Egyptian gods and goddesses.
Discover the history and symbolism of the ouroboros, an ancient emblem depicting a serpent consuming its own tail, representing concepts like eternity and renewal.
With two sides to his personality, Dionysus represents joy, ecstasy and merriment, but also brutal and blinding rage, representing the dual effects of overindulgence.
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In our modern vernacular, the phrase "that's just semantics" has somehow become shorthand to insinuate the speaker has argued something trivial or unimportant. But what does it really mean?
It's an odorless gas that's present in a variety of home products, cosmetics, car exhaust and even humans. But is it bad for us?
These majestic trees send their roots down in pillars from branch to ground, can form a canopy over 80 feet high and can live to be 250 years old.
The colorful superstars of backyard water gardens are actually ornamental varietals of domesticated carp.
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Primary colors are the blocks from which all other colors are built. But there's a lot more to know about them than the basic red, yellow and blue we learned about in kindergarten.
Persephone, the wife of Hades, lived one-third of the year in the Underworld with him and the other two-thirds of the year on Earth with her mother, Demeter. Pomegranate seed, anyone?
These colorful snakes are found all over the world and are highly venomous, so the best strategy is to avoid them.
Yep, total power move, swallowing the wife. As king of the gods, Zeus could also, from his commanding position in the sky, blast any human or monster with his lightning bolt.
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Jacques-Yves Cousteau inspired an entire generation to take an interest in the deep sea and was one of the first to warn of the peril of its destruction.
Henna tattoos seem to be everywhere and all the rage, but the rich tradition behind this beautiful form of body art began as a wedding staple in ancient India.
You probably know that Aphrodite was the ancient Greek goddess of love. Here are seven other facts you may not know about this enduring symbol of passion.
Chameleons change color whenever they feel agitated, exhilarated, threatened or excited. OK, but how?
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Lots of U.S. states have nicknames, but Missouri's flinty moniker arguably is one of the best.
White elephant. Mean Santa. Yankee swap. These are the holiday parties we live for. But if it feels like yours is getting a bit tired, we've got 10 rules to liven it up this year.
June is Pride Month, when the LGBTQ community comes together to celebrate their struggles and to raise awareness of issues they still face.
Today Americans mostly celebrate it as the start of summer. But the annual May holiday has a significant history that's worthy of acknowledgment.
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Some bodily phenomena make sense. An ice cream headache, for example - you know what you did to get there, you know you deserved it, and you have absolutely no regrets. Others are a bit of a mystery, like when you stand up quickly and see a dizzying array of stars.
The St. Louis Arch was so spectacularly designed that, when construction kicked off in 1961, many predicted an epic failure.
You've probably heard of the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer, but do you know the difference?
You've probably heard of the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, but do you know the difference?
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Cultures all over the world have treasured turquoise for its color and rarity for thousands of years - from Native American jewelry and Aztec and Mesoamerican art to King Tutankhamun's death mask.
Back in the 1930s, folks realized they needed a better way to cross the Golden Gate Strait between San Francisco and the Marin Headlands than by boat. Over eighty years later, the Golden Gate Bridge is the city's most prominent landmark.