Beatrix Potter is perhaps best known for writing and illustrating children’s books such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), but she also dedicated herself to mycology, the study of ______blank more than 350 paintings of the fungal species she observed in nature and submitting her research on spore germination to the Linnean Society of London.

After a spate of illnesses as a child, Wilma Rudolph was told she might never walk again. Defying all odds, Rudolph didn’t just walk, she ______blank the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, she won both the 100- and 200-meter dashes and clinched first place for her team in the 4x100-meter relay, becoming the first US woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympics.

In a 2016 study, Eastern Washington University psychologist Amani El-Alayli found that, among the study participants who experienced frisson (a physiological response akin to goosebumps or getting the chills) while listening to music, there was one personality trait that they scored particularly ______blank openness to experience.

In addition to advocating for South America’s independence in two political treatises, the Cartagena Manifesto and the Letter from Jamaica, Simón Bolívar personally led armies against the Spanish, liberating three South American territories—New Granada (present-day Colombia and Panama), Venezuela, and Quito (present-day ______blank from colonial rule.

In 1637, the price of tulips skyrocketed in Amsterdam, with single bulbs of rare varieties selling for up to the equivalent of $200,000 in today’s US dollars. Some historians ______blank that this “tulip mania” was the first historical instance of an asset bubble, which occurs when investors drive prices to highs not supported by actual demand.

When external forces are applied to common glass made from silicates, energy builds up around minuscule defects in the material, resulting in fractures. Recently, engineer Erkka Frankberg of Tampere University in Finland used the chemical ______blank to make a glassy solid that can withstand higher strain than silicate glass can before fracturing.

Human-made (synthetic) fibers used in clothes and many other consumer products are more durable than most natural plant ______blank the manufacture of synthetic fibers requires toxic chemical solvents that can pollute air and water.

Formed in 1967 to foster political and economic stability within the Asia-Pacific region, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was originally made up of five members: Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. By the end of the 1990s, the organization ______blank its initial membership.

The artistic talents of Barbara Chase-Riboud, most known for her 1979 historical novel Sally Hemings and the conversation it inspired, ______blank limited to the realm of prose: she first excelled in sculpture, where her affinity for bronze—a material she described as “timeless” due to its use across eras and cultures—became part of her artistic identity.

Professional American football player Fred Cox invented one of the world’s most popular toys. In the 1970s, he came up with the idea for the Nerf football, which ______blank of the harder and heavier regulation football.

When they were first discovered in Australia in 1798, duck-billed, beaver-tailed platypuses so defied categorization that one scientist assigned them the name Ornithorhynchus paradoxus: “paradoxical bird-snout.” The animal, which lays eggs but also nurses ______blank young with milk, has since been classified as belonging to the monotremes group.

A subseasonal weather forecast attempts to predict weather conditions three to four weeks in ______blank its predictions are therefore more short-term than those of the seasonal forecast, which attempts to predict the weather more than a month in advance.

In 2008, two years after the death of science fiction writer Octavia Butler, the Huntington Library in ______blank received a collection of more than 8,000 items, including Butler’s private notes, research materials, manuscripts, photos, and drawings. Today, the Octavia E. Butler Collection is one of the most researched archives at the library.

Despite being cheap, versatile, and easy to produce, ______blank they are made from nonrenewable petroleum, and most do not biodegrade in landfills.

Over twenty years ago, in a landmark experiment in the psychology of choice, professor Sheena Iyengar set up a jam-tasting booth at a grocery store. The number of jams available for tasting ______blank some shoppers had twenty-four different options, others only six. Interestingly, the shoppers with fewer jams to choose from purchased more jam.