In August 2011, a can of Great Value peas joined the nonperishables in my pantry, one of several panic purchases as Hurricane Irene barreled toward my home on the northeast U.S. coast.

Compliance to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations has come a long way in the past 30 years. Here are the main changes. Have they affected your business?

We tied up last year in a neat little bow, talking about how stories define ourselves and our work; waste is waste, no matter your political leanings; and putting numbers from the news in context.

When graduate student Atis Degro got an email about a George Mason University course in resilience last year, he had to look up what that meant.

Since their invention more than 100 years ago, airplanes have been moved through the air by the spinning surfaces of propellers or turbines.

A giant engine in a factory fails. Concerned, the factory owners call in technicians, who arrive with bulging toolkits. None of them can work out what the problem is. The issue persists.

The ability to program computers is crucial to almost all modern scientific experiments, which often involve extremely complex calculations and massive amounts of data.

To most of us, the phrase “work that matters” infers job satisfaction. The outcome is lower stress, lower turnover, and higher productivity—in business, a win-win for employees, customers, and shareholders. The logic is infallible.

To ask a good question requires two things: insight and gumption. The root of all worthy questions is a desire to fill in a gap in your understanding of something.

This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.