Even the Peruvian Amazon isn’t safe from politics during an election cycle. Earlier this fall, while on a jungle excursion, nature shutterbug Jeff Cremer photographed a furry yellow critter perched on a tree branch. Scientists call it the Megalopyge opercularis, or the flannel moth caterpillar—but since the insect’s gravity-defying neon hair bears a striking resemblance to Donald Trump’s notorious coif, Cremer re-christened it the Donald Trump caterpillar.

In some ways, the Amazon jungle and the Washington, D.C. political scene are a lot alike. But unlike politicians, animals typically don’t want to attract attention, since they want to avoid predators. In the video below, PBS “It’s Okay to Be Smart” host Jon Hanson explains how the Trump caterpillar’s garish fuzz actually scares other critters away—and why other organisms have evolved to mimic its appearance.

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Here’s a riddle. Ten band members have had their musical instruments placed randomly in boxes. Each band member gets five shots at opening boxes, trying to find their own instrument. (Thus, a 50% chance of each individual finding the desired instrument.) They’re not allowed to communicate about what they find. If the entire band fails to find their instruments, they’re all fired…and the odds of them all finding their instruments via random guessing is 1 in 1,024. But the drummer has an idea that will radically increase their odds of success. What’s the big idea?

This puzzle is based on the 100 Prisoners Problem, though it has been simplified just a bit, and lightened up to be about a band (in the original 100 Prisoners Problem scenario, the punishment is death rather than loss of a job). Here’s what the TED-Ed video gives us as the rules:

1. Instruments have been randomly placed in 10 boxes.

2. The pictures on the boxes don’t necessarily correspond to the instruments inside.

3. Each musician can open up to 5 boxes. They have to close all of the boxes they open.

4. All 10 musicians must find their own instruments.

5. The musicians can’t in any way communicate to each other what they find.

Given all this, it seems rather hopeless. But think on it. What could you do if you talked it through beforehand, as this puzzle allows? Watch this video for the setup, and then pause it when it tells you to, in order to have a good long think. I’d like to think I could come up with a solution like this, were my band (or band of prisoners) in a similar situation. Enjoy:

For more on the original 100 Prisoners Problem, check out this nice writeup. There’s also more info from TED-Ed (check the “Dig Deeper” bit for useful links).

While you’re probably familiar with upcoming presidential debate co-anchor Anderson Cooper, you may not know as much about his October 9 broadcast partner, Martha Raddatz, an ABC News veteran who seems eager to press both candidates on issues that went unexplored during their first face-off in September.

Before the fireworks start, we’ve unpacked some facts about Raddatz, from her seat on a bombing mission to being mortified at a very un-presidential ringtone going off in the White House briefing room.

1. SHE WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH ROSEANNE BARR.

Born in Idaho Falls, Idaho in 1953, Martha Raddatz attended East Lake High in Salt Lake City, Utah and attended class with Roseanne Barr. While Raddatz earned her diploma in 1971, Barr opted out of further education to pursue a career in comedy.

2. SHE’S A COLLEGE DROPOUT.

(Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) Raddatz attended the University of Utah near her childhood home in Salt Lake without much of an idea of what she wanted to do for a living. When a job position opened up at nearby television affiliate KTVX, Raddatz opted to drop out of college during her senior year. While she later described the decision as “stupid,” Raddatz was able to move up from menial tasks to shooting her own stories, eventually becoming an on-camera presence by the age of 24.

3. SHE’S BEEN TO IRAQ MORE THAN 20 TIMES.

Raddatz worked her way up to positions at an ABC affiliate in Boston and at National Public Radio before becoming ABC’s chief White House correspondent in 2005. Uncomfortable remaining in the press corps in Washington, Raddatz insisted on traveling to Iraq multiple times in order to gain a better understanding of how the war was affecting the area. Military officials cited her determination to return to those troubled hot spots as one reason they respected her reporting; Raddatz later compiled some of her experiences in Iraq into a book, The Long Road Home.

4. SHE TOOK PART IN A BOMB-DROPPING MISSION.

Eager to experience the rigors of combat firsthand, Raddatz spent years trying to convince the U.S. military to allow her to fly along on a bombing raid. She finally got her wish: Raddatz was inside an F-15E when it was loaded with explosive devices weighing more than 500 pounds each.

5. BUT THAT WASN’T THE MOST DANGEROUS THING.

Crossing a river in Jalalabad near Afghanistan, Raddatz hitched a ride on a makeshift inflatable raft steered by an eight-year-old local. It was the only path that would get her near an area that was once home to Osama bin Laden.

6. SHE TOLD HER SON ONE OF HISTORY’S BIGGEST SECRETS.

Raddatz’s globetrotting has had one undesirable side effect: it has proven worrisome to her kids, including her son Jake, who grew concerned for her mother’s safety whenever she was about to travel. In 2011, Raddatz was headed for Kabul when she received word that the U.S. government had located and killed Osama bin Laden. Calling Jake to tell him she wouldn’t be making the trip, she then had to tell him why: he was sworn to secrecy until the president announced it on television later that day.

7. SHE USED CHAMILLIONAIRE’S “RIDIN’ DIRTY” AS A RINGTONE.

During her time as a White House correspondent, Raddatz often had trouble hearing incoming calls or messages on her cell phone—press gatherings are frequently busy, crowded, and noisy. To allow her to acknowledge important incoming calls, she asked Jake to program a loud ringtone into her cell. He chose Chamillionaire’s “Ridin’ Dirty.” In a 2007 White House briefing, it went off in her purse, and she had to scramble to turn it off.

When Chamillionaire heard the story, he was pleased, “Can’t lie,” he tweeted. “That just made my night. Appreciate it. @MarthaRaddatz Keep it gangsta.”

From Sacramento to Los Angeles, Spain’s colonial fingerprints are plain to see throughout present-day California. But did you know that in the 18th century, Tsarist Russia carved out her own slice of this future state?

Grigory Shelikhov (1747-1795) has been ignored by countless history textbooks. In 1784, this adventurous fur merchant established the Three Saints Bay Colony, Russia’s first permanent North American settlement, on Kodiak Island in Alaska. Back then, Russia held high hopes for eastward expansion, seeing Three Saints Bay Colony as the first step towards converting the Pacific Ocean into their empire’s personal “Inland Sea.” With this spirit in mind, the powerful Russian-American Company was established 15 years later and rapidly began asserting a monopoly over Alaskan trade. The Russian-American Company wouldn’t relinquish this authority until Alaska was purchased by the U.S. in 1867.

Otter pelts were easily the area’s most profitable commodity. However, after a few decades’ worth of over-hunting by the Russian-American Company, the animals began to grow scarce. At the same time, Russian settlers had difficulty adapting their traditional farming practices to Alaska’s unforgiving terrain and shortened growing season. As a result, it became difficult to supply the colonists with enough food. Something had to be done.

That’s when Russia set her sights on California. At first, the Alaskan colonies were merely interested in acquiring more food by trading with their Cali-based Spanish counterparts. But California’s abundance proved tantalizing. Soon enough, the Russians started making plans to stake their own claim on its sunny, otter-rich coastline.

Located 60 miles north of modern-day San Francisco, Fort Ross is the largest lingering trace of this effort. A historical landmark today, this wooden settlement was formally founded on February 2, 1812, after it was acquired from the local Native Americans for “three blankets, three pairs of breeches, two axes, three hoes, and some beads.”

Ross, which got its name from a phonetic abbreviation for “Russia,” housed occupants from the motherland for the next 29 years. Unfortunately, despite the settlers’ best efforts, this Californian experiment could neither adequately solve Alaska’s food crisis nor produce enough otter furs to become profitable. Also, Russia’s presence there wasn’t exactly met with warmth by the Spanish (more on that below). Finally, in 1841, the Fort Ross territory was sold to an American pioneer named John Sutter (1803-1880), this time for the agreed-upon sum of $30,000, which he never actually paid. 

On a semi-related note, Colonial Russia can be partially credited with prompting the creation of one of America’s most famous documents: the Monroe Doctrine. In 1821, Tsar Alexander I, whose subjects now reigned supreme over everything from Alaska to Oregon (not to mention that tiny slice of California real estate), released an imperial edict which forbade foreign vessels from coming within 100 miles of “his” Pacific Northwest. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams swiftly informed Russia’s ambassadors that the U.S. government would “contest the right of Russia to any territorial establishment on this continent, and that we should assume distinctly the principle that the American continents are no longer subjects for any new colonial establishments.” Two years later, this argument would be echoed in President James Monroe’s anti-colonialist manifesto.

Additionally, San Francisco owes its existence to Russia’s North American presence. On October 28, 1776—the day Yankee and British forces collided in the Battle of White Plains over 2500 miles away—San Francisco was established by the Spanish, who hoped this new settlement would discourage incoming Tsarist fur traders from moving further southward.

More evidence of Russia’s impact on California is found in the naming of San Francisco’s “Russian Hill” neighborhood. During California’s gold rush, a handful of Cyrillic-labeled tombstones (which probably belonged to visiting Russian merchants) were discovered there, providing yet another trace of the Golden State’s deeply-rooted connection to this long-gone empire.  

It’s not often that I’d describe a spider as “cute,” but this male jumping spider is an adorable little arachnid. He doesn’t spin webs, but he does spin on the dance floor. He even makes a form of music, audible only to spiders, to augment his dance. Deep Look writes (emphasis added):

… If she likes what she sees, the female may allow him to mate. But things can also go terribly wrong for these eight-legged suitors. She might decide to attack him, or even eat him for lunch. Cannibalism is the result about seven percent of the time. …

In this 4K Ultra-HD video, we get to look at jumping spiders getting into the groove. Enjoy:

For more on these spiders (and the studies that inspired this video), check out KQED Science’s blog post on the topic.

Foxes live on every continent except Antarctica and thrive in cities, towns, and rural settings. But despite being all around us, they’re a bit of a mystery. Here’s more about this elusive animal.

1. Foxes Are Solitary.

Foxes are part of the Canidae family, which means they’re related to wolves, jackals, and dogs. They’re medium-sized, between 7 and 15 pounds, with pointy faces, lithe frames, and bushy tails. But unlike their relatives, foxes are not pack animals. When raising their young, they live in small families—called a “leash of foxes” or a “skulk of foxes”—in underground burrows. Otherwise, they hunt and sleep alone.

2. Foxes Have A Lot In Common With Cats.

Like the cat, the fox is most active after the sun goes down. In fact, it has vertically oriented pupils that allow it to see in dim light. It even hunts in a similar manner to a cat, by stalking and pouncing on its prey.

And that’s just the beginning of the similarities. Like the cat, the fox has sensitive whiskers and spines on its tongue. It walks on its toes, which accounts for its elegant, cat-like tread. And—get this—many foxes have retractable claws that allow them to climb rooftops or trees. Some foxes even sleep in trees—just like cats.

3. The Red Fox Is The Most Common Fox.

The red fox has the widest geographical range of any animal in the order Carnivora. While its natural habitat is a mixed landscape of scrub and woodland, its flexible diet allows it to adapt to many environments. As a result, its range is the entire Northern Hemisphere, from the Arctic Circle to North Africa to Central America to the Asiatic steppes. It’s also in Australia, where it’s considered an invasive species.

4. Foxes Use The Earth’s Magnetic Field.

Like a guided missile, the fox harnesses the earth’s magnetic field to hunt. Other animals, like birds, sharks, and turtles, have this “magnetic sense,” but the fox is the first one we’ve discovered that uses it to catch prey.

According to New Scientist, the fox can see the earth’s magnetic field as a “ring of shadow” on its eyes that darkens as it heads towards magnetic north. When the shadow and the sound the prey is making line up, it’s time to pounce. Here’s the fox in action:

5. Foxes Are Good Parents.

Foxes reproduce once a year. Litters range from one to 11 pups (the average is six), which are born blind and don’t open their eyes until nine days after birth. During that time, they stay with the vixen (female) in the den while the dog (male) brings them food. They live with their parents until they’re seven months old. The vixen protects her pups with surprising loyalty. Recently, a fox pup was caught in a trap in England for two weeks, but survived because its mother brought it food every day.

6. The Smallest Fox Weighs Under 3 Pounds.

Roughly the size of a kitten, the fennec fox has elongated ears and a creamy coat. It lives in the Sahara Desert, where it sleeps during the day to protect it from the searing heat. Its ears not only allow it to hear prey, they also radiate body heat, which keeps the fox cool. Its paws are covered with fur so that the fox can walk on hot sand, like it’s wearing snowshoes.

7. Foxes Are Playful.

Foxes are known to be friendly and curious. They play among themselves as well as with other animals like cats and dogs. They love balls, which they frequently steal from golf courses.

Although foxes are wild animals, their relationship with humans goes way back. In 2011, researchers opened a grave in a 16,500-year-old cemetery in Jordan to find the remains of a man and his pet fox. This was 4000 years before the first-known human and dog were buried together.

8. You Can Buy A Pet Fox.

In the 1960s, a Soviet geneticist named Dmitry Belyaev bred thousands of foxes before achieving a domesticated fox. Unlike a tame fox, which has learned to tolerate humans, a domesticated fox is docile toward people from birth. Today, you can buy a pet fox for $9000, according to Fast Company. They’re reportedly curious and sweet-tempered, although inclined to dig in your furniture.

9. Arctic Foxes Don’t Shiver Until –70 degrees Celsius.

The arctic fox, which lives in the northernmost areas of the hemisphere, can handle cold better than most animals on earth. It doesn’t even get cold until –70 degrees Celsius. Its white coat also camouflages it against predators. As the seasons change, the coat changes too, turning brown or gray so the fox can blend in with the rocks and dirt of the tundra.

10. Fox Hunting Continues To Be Controversial.

Perhaps because of the fox’s ability to decimate a chicken coop, in the 16th century, fox hunting became a popular activity in Britain. In the 19th century, the upper classes turned fox hunting into a formalized sport where a pack of hounds and men on horseback chase a fox until it is killed. Today, whether to ban fox hunting continues to be a controversial subject in the UK. Currently, fox hunting with dogs is not allowed.

11. The Fox Appears Throughout Folklore.

Examples include: the nine-tail fox from various Asian cultures; the Reynard tales from medieval Europe; the sly trickster fox from Native American lore; and Aesop’s “The Fox and the Crow.” The Finnish believed a fox made the Northern Lights by running in the snow so that its tail swept sparks into the sky. From this, we get the phrase “fox fires.”

12. Bat-eared Foxes Listen For Insects.

The bat-eared fox is aptly named, not just because of its 5-inch ears, but because of what it uses those ears for—like the bat, it listens for insects. On a typical night, the fox walks along the African Savannah, listening, until it hears the scuttle of prey. Although the fox eats a variety of insects and lizards, most of its diet is made up of termites. In fact, the bat-eared fox often makes its home in termite mounds, which it usually cleans out of inhabitants before moving in.

13. Darwin Discovered A Fox Species.

During his voyage on the Beagle, Charles Darwin collected a fox that today is unimaginatively called Darwin’s Fox. This small gray fox is critically endangered and lives in just two spots in the world: One population is on Island of Chiloé in Chile, and the second is in a Chilean national park. The fox’s greatest threats are unleashed domestic dogs that carry diseases like rabies.

14. Foxes Sound Like This.

Foxes make 40 different sounds, some of which you can listen to here. The most startling is the scream:

Pleasant dreams!

All images courtesy of iStock unless otherwise stated.

Just days after renewing his near-exclusive deal with CNN, Anderson Cooper is set to moderate the second presidential debate between candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on Sunday, October 9. For his part, the 49-year-old Cooper has indicated he’s likely to step back and let the candidates engage in their political pugilism without much interference.

While he preps for the showdown, we’ve got a cheat sheet on the co-host himself. Check out some revealing information about Cooper’s modeling past, his run-ins with Charlie Chaplin, and how he nearly wound up with the CIA.

1. HE PARTIED WITH CHARLIE CHAPLIN.

Born in New York in 1967 to actor Wyatt Cooper and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, Cooper was exposed from an early age to a very unique social circle. His parents held parties where they invited the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Lillian Gish, and George Plimpton. Cooper’s father once said that everyone treated Anderson and his older brother, Carter, like adults. “No child should ever be called little,” Wyatt told New York Magazine in 2005. “They were always treated like potential adults.”

2. HE WAS A FAMOUS BABY.

Famed photographer Diane Arbus once convinced Vanderbilt to allow her to photograph a sleeping Cooper for a spread in Harper’s Bazaar magazine. After some reluctance, Vanderbilt allowed the photo to be published; it’s since become one of Arbus’s most recognizable photographs and has been displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

3. AS A CHILD, HE THOUGHT PEOPLE COULD TURN TO STONE.

As is the case with many children, young Cooper could take information and process it literally. When his father showed him a statue that was erected in honor of ancestor Cornelius Vanderbilt, Cooper admitted he thought dying meant that your body would turn to stone.

4. HE BECAME A MODEL AT AGE 10.

After Cooper’s father passed away during heart surgery at the age of 50, 10-year-old Cooper decided that he should begin to think about providing for himself. Eager to have a source of income, he signed with the Ford Modeling Agency and began modeling clothes for Ralph Lauren and Macy’s, among others. (The gigs lasted until age 13 when, according to Cooper, a photographer made some inappropriate comments, which led him to quit.)

5. HE ONCE CONTRACTED MALARIA.

As a teenager, Cooper began to feel restless and decided to take several international excursions by himself to prove he could adapt to different situations. In addition to trekking the Rockies and kayaking in Mexico, at 17 he decided to backpack through Central Africa. While there, he contracted malaria and spent time at a hospital in Kenya.

6. HE INTERNED AT THE CIA.

After enrolling at Yale University, Cooper noticed a flyer hanging in the school’s career counseling office inviting students to explore their options with the CIA. He decided to spend his summers interning at the headquarters of the agency in Langley, Virginia. Cooper later called the work “pretty bureaucratic” and “mundane” and decided not to pursue intelligence work as a profession.

7. HE FAKED HIS PRESS PASSES.

Following both his brother’s suicide and his graduation from Yale, a distraught Cooper decided to once again head overseas to try and distract himself from emotional upheaval. Without an “official” job with a news outlet, Cooper made his own press passes, bought a video camera, and did freelance work from such war-torn areas as Burma and Somalia to cover famines and unrest. Back home, he was able to sell the footage to Channel One, a classroom-based closed-circuit news network. The channel later made him an official correspondent; in 1995, Cooper wound up at ABC.

8. HE HOSTED A REALITY SHOW.

At ABC, Cooper was charged with anchoring the overnight news series World News Tonight and later hosting a reality television series called The Mole. Perceiving the latter as a serious blow to his credibility, ABC executives said he would never again work in broadcast news. 

9. HE WAS NOT AN IMMEDIATE HIT AT CNN.

Suspecting ABC executives were correct, Cooper backed away from Mole duties and migrated to CNN in 2002. The network slotted him on Paula Zahn’s a.m. show American Morning, where Cooper failed to impress critics who may still have been doubting his credentials from the reality television stint. The Los Angeles Times called him the “chuckling Anderson Cooper,” who looked as though “he rode over on a skateboard.” Cooper later described his performance on the show as “nervous” and “uncomfortable.” But by taking on other network assignments no one wanted, he was later able to earn himself an opportunity as anchor of Anderson Cooper 360.

10. HE ONCE DRESSED AS PHIL DONAHUE FOR HALLOWEEN. (HE REALLY LIKES PHIL DONAHUE.) 

During his short-lived daytime talk show, Anderson Live, Cooper invited legendary broadcaster Phil Donahue for an interview. To commemorate the occasion—and Halloween—he dressed up as the silver-haired, microphone-wielding talk traffic cop. Cooper said he grew up watching Donahue and wanted to “pay homage” to him.

11. HIS MOTHER ISN’T LEAVING HIM A CENT.

Despite her family’s considerable wealth, Gloria Vanderbilt has no intention of leaving Cooper any cash when she exits the planet. “My mom made it clear to me there’s no trust fund, there’s none of that,” he told Howard Stern, calling inheritances an “initiative sucker.”

On the island nation of Malta, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, sit the ruins of a 17th century chapel. It was originally erected by a knight named Fra Giorgio Nibbia in 1619, and might’ve been largely forgotten to this day were it not for its macabre subterranean contents.

You see, Nibbia Chapel was built near a cemetery where the dead from the nearby Sacra Infermeria hospital were laid to rest. In 1852, a crypt was constructed below the chapel (which had been rebuilt in 1731 in the Baroque style by architect Romano Carapecchia) and bones from the cemetery were used to adorn the space. The decorating choice earned it the nickname the “Chapel of Bones,” though it was also commonly referred to as Taz-Zuntier, a old Maltese word meaning “cemetery.”

By the early 20th century, the Nibbia Chapel was somewhat well-known as a tourist attraction, and even had postcards and other souvenirs featuring the unique interior, but aerial bombardments during World War II nearly leveled the Roman Catholic structure. Whatever was left was later demolished in the 1970s, and today, overgrown foundations are all that remain. Aboveground, anyway.

It’s believed that Nibbia’s elaborate, 19th century subsurface crypt is still intact underneath the world of modern Malta. The exact location is unknown, but it’s believed to be close to the ruins, near a recently constructed building. Despite being classified as a Class B national monument, the ruins are somewhat neglected. Currently, there don’t seem to be any initiatives to further preserve the area, or to explore the historical site beneath it, which includes the sarcophagus of Nibbia himself.

Inside the long-sealed ossuary, there’s reportedly a Latin inscription on the altar that bemoans the ephemerality of life and petitions for prayers for the dead. There among the mosaic of human remains, the space presumably manages to stay safeguarded and intact indefinitely.

[h/t howtomalta.com]

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For book lovers, there’s no more magical place than the local bookstore. Endless shelves of stories and characters, all at your eager fingertips. And while most of us have probably spent a significant amount of time wandering the aisles, few of us know what goes on behind the scenes. Here, some insights into the life of a bookstore, gleaned from the people who keep the shelves stocked. 

1. Employees want you to ask them for recommendations.

“A person will say, ‘I have a really strange question, I’m sorry, but can you recommend a book?’” says Phyllis Cohen, owner of Berkeley Books in Paris. “That is the most normal question. It is my favorite question in the world! Give me some clues. I’ll ask them some pointed questions and then I make a pile for them. When they discover it they’re over the moon—it’s like they have a personal shopper in the bookshop.”

 2. But booksellers are not mindreaders.

They want to help you find your book, but they can’t if you don’t know the book’s name, author, or what it was about. This happens all the time, and it drives them crazy. “Customers will say ‘I don’t remember the name or what it was about but it has a blue cover. I think it had this word in the title,’” explains Katie Orphan, manager at The Last Bookstore in Los Angeles. Sometimes the questions are so vague that no amount of Googling will help, and then the customer leaves unhappy. 

Even a botched title is better than no hints at all. “One funny thing that happens with customers is they get the titles totally wrong,” says Marissa Rodriguez, who has worked in a bookstore for two years. “High school kids will say ‘I’m looking for ‘How To Kill a Mockingbird’ or ‘Angry Grapes.’”

3. They can spot the bookworms from a mile away.

Just browsing? Bookstore workers can tell. “Cookbooks is one of the sections where that happens the most,” says Orphan. “Art books and cookbooks. The people who are going to buy books, I can tell by the way they look at them, touch them, start carrying them around in a stack. I can always tell when people come up who is going to buy a book and who isn’t.” 

4. They know when you’re “showrooming.”

In recent years, some brick-and-mortar stores have fallen victim to online outlets like Amazon which often offer the same books for a lower price. Some customers will browse for books they like, only to buy it later online, and they’re not very sly about it. “They’ll come in and use their phone to take a picture of the cover and barcode and just use the bookstore as the Amazon showroom,” says Keith Edmunds, a former bookstore owner. “It was awful. Seeing people do that was the height of ignorance.” 

5. And when you’re playing the system.

“Some regulars would buy books one or two at a time and then within the two-week return window bring them back and be like, ‘I bought the wrong book,’” said Kat Chin, who worked at The World’s Biggest Bookstore in Toronto for five years. “You’d know they read them because you could see the book was a little bit worn or the spine was cracked.” 

6. The goal is to get books in your hands.

One trick to get customers to commit to a book is to physically put the book in their hands and have them flip through it. “You can direct them to a part of the store, but that’s only half of selling a book,” Rodriguez says. “It’s important to get merchandise in people’s hands so they feel there’s already some ownership happening. They say ‘I like the way it looks and feels in my hands and i like the way it smells.’” 

7. You have to hunt for the coffee shop.

Many bookstores, particularly the bigger ones like Barnes & Noble, have incorporated cafes into their layout. Alex Lifschutz, a London-based architect, told the Economist that putting the coffee shop at the back of the store or, if there are multiple stories, on the top floor, “draws shoppers upwards floor-by-floor, which is bound to encourage people to linger longer and spend more.”

8. The kids section is strategically located.

According to Edmunds, the kids books are almost always located at the back of a store. “If the parents want to get a book for the kid they have to go through the whole store,” he says. “They’re hoping the parent will see something they want.” 

9. Someone paid for that prime shelf real estate.

In many big-box stores, publishers pay for good placement on “front tables, end caps and window space, in the same way General Mills and Procter and Gamble buy space for their breakfast cereals and dish detergents in the supermarkets,” Andy Ross, a literary agent, told The Book Deal.

10. Authors, beware the “sociology” section.

No author wants their book tucked away in the “sociology” section, claims veteran publishing insider Alan Rinzler. It’s “a catchall section for ambiguous titles, and the kiss of death for book sales,” he says.

11. Book thieves love the Bible.

At The World’s Biggest Bookstore in Toronto, “the Bible was the number one stolen book of all time,” says Chin.

Other frequently stolen books? Japanese comics (called Manga), expensive medical books, and Kurt Vonnegut’s work. Chin also says Haruki Murakami books were so frequently stolen that her bookstore had to take them off the shelves, only bringing them out when they were specifically requested. 

12. Employees hate when you leave books where they don’t belong.

“Neatening up a bookstore is a daunting process,” says Demi Marshall, a bookseller in Austin, Texas. The next time you pluck a book from its designated shelf slot, put it back when you’re done. Otherwise, “it’s like if you go to a clothing store and unfold all the clothes and then put them back on the shelf but don’t fold them,” Chin says. 

13. And when you treat the store like your library.

“It’s nice to be able to go in and read maybe a chapter to see if you’re gonna like the book,” Chin says. “But then when you sit and read the whole book and put it back on the shelf, it gets grubby.” You’ll know a bookstore is trying to nudge you out the door if multiple employees drop by to ask if you need any help. “We would quietly pester people,” says Caleb Saenz, who used to work at Barnes & Noble. “I was at my peak passive aggressive phase when I was working at a bookstore.” 

14. The Internet has actually been a good thing.

Before the Internet became ubiquitous, the process of looking up a book for a customer was daunting. “We had to look it up in ‘Books In Print’ which is a multi-volume, 4-inch thick, hardcover book,” says Liz Prouty, who owns Second Looks Books in Maryland with her husband, Richard Due. “It was a slow and cumbersome process and if anything was indexed wrong or a customer had the first word of a title wrong, you were out of luck.” 

15. It’s also made us love books more.

Some thought the e-book would surely spell the death of the bookstore. But many independent sellers say digitization has actually made people crave physical books more. “I’ve noticed in the last couple of years, so many people come in waxing rhapsodic about the smell of books, the feel of books,” says Prouty. “And they say it more now because the alternatives exist. People are deeply attached to the old-fashioned books.” 

16. Some booksellers can identify books by their smell.

Especially used booksellers. “These Penguins have their own particular odor,” Cohen says. That odor? Vanilla. Others might smell like almond or coffee. 

17. Booksellers aren’t in it for the money.

In fact, most of them have second jobs or need monetary support from family members. “It is definitely a work of passion for everyone that I know,” Marshall says. “We don’t do it for the money, we don’t do it because we have any power or prestige. It’s genuinely just that we love books and we love getting them into people’s hands.”