Infoplease Editors' Blog

As you can imagine, Infoplease is inundated with questions from its readers, and we do our best to track down as many answers as we can. There are only two types of readers we categorically ignore: the very small percentage who are high-handed and rude (as you can tell by our name, we respond to civility), and the rather large percentage of students asking us to do their homework for them ("Dear Infoplease: Discuss three reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire. Be sure to support your answers with detailed examples. I need this by 7:30 tomorrow morning at the latest.").

See our Ask the Editors Archive for answers to questions ranging from "what percentage of our brain do we use?" to "how do I get rid of lady bugs from inside my house?"

And here is a sampling of questions we've particularly enjoyed answering:

• How much television does the average American watch in a month?
• Just how many words do the Inuit have for snow?
• Why do people yell freebird at concerts?
• What is the very poisonous fish that Japanese like to eat? And why do they bother?
• What does the name "Hoosier" mean?
• Why are women's buttons on the opposite side from men's?
• Do people actually speak Esperanto?
• What exactly is the President Pro-Tempore of the United States Senate?
• Why is "mayday" used as a distress signal? What does "SOS" stand for?