Before it unveiled a massive new gallery in 2009, the Art Institute of Chicago was only able to display about 5% of its art collection. _____ the museum is able to display close to 30% of its collection.
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Every chemical compound has a spectroscopic fingerprint, a pattern of reflected light unique to that compound. ______ upon analyzing the light reflected by the bright regions on the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres, Maria Cristina De Sanctis of Rome’s National Institute of Astrophysics was able to determine that the regions contain large amounts of the compound sodium carbonate.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2013 novel Americanah chronicles the divergent experiences of Ifemelu and Obinze, a young Nigerian couple, after high school. Ifemelu moves to the United States to attend a prestigious university. _____ Obinze travels to London, hoping to start a career there. However, frustrated with the lack of opportunities, he soon returns to Nigeria.
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In most deer species, males grow antlers, and females don’t. _____ reindeer are different. They are the only deer species in which the females grow antlers, too.
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In 1891, dancer and choreographer Loie Fuller first performed her celebrated Serpentine Dance, artfully twirling her long, flowing skirt to create striking visual effects. _____ in 1896, cinema pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumière made a groundbreaking short film of Fuller’s dance.
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Originally coined by economist Joan Robinson to refer to markets with multiple sellers of a product but only one buyer, the term “monopsony” can also refer to markets where demand for labor is limited. In a product monopsony, the single buyer can force sellers to lower their prices. _____ in a labor monopsony, employers can force workers to accept lower wages.
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In hindsight, given the ideas about the natural world circulating among British scientists in the 1800s, the theory of natural selection was an obvious next step. It may not have been a coincidence, _____ that Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace arrived at the concept independently. Indeed, contrary to the popular myth of the lone genius, theirs is not the first paradigm-shifting theory to have emerged from multiple scholars working in parallel.
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A firefly uses specialized muscles to draw oxygen into its lower abdomen through narrow tubes, triggering a chemical reaction whereby the oxygen combines with chemicals in the firefly’s abdomen to produce a glow. ______ when the firefly stops drawing in oxygen, the reaction—and the glow—cease.
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Voting members of the 2002 Latin Grammys were impressed by Banda Cuisillos’s album Puras Rancheras Con Cuisillos and its contribution to the banda genre, a form of regional Mexican music featuring large ensembles of wind instruments and drums that first developed in southern and central Mexico in the mid-nineteenth century. _____ they awarded the group the Best Banda Album award.
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Laetitia Ky’s hair is her art. Inspired by hairstyles from various African tribes, the Ivorian artist uses wire and thread to sculpt her hair into all kinds of shapes. ______ she once made her hair into the shape of the continent of Africa—including the island of Madagascar!
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Tyrian purple was a highly prized dye among the Phoenicians (an ancient civilization located in present-day Lebanon). The Phoenicians were famous for using this natural dye to color their clothes a distinctive purple. _____ the name “Phoenicia” itself, some historians claim, may have originally meant “land of purple.”
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In the early 1970s, Albert Popa took up graffiti art, spraying his work onto what was at the time an unconventional surface: concrete. _____ Albert’s son David has chosen an unusual canvas for his new art project, Fractured. In this remarkable work, the artist draws charcoal faces onto fragmented ice floes in Finland, creating the visual effect of a face slowly fracturing.
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Paleontologists once thought that early apes lived in tropical forests, but recent research suggests that they may have actually lived in savannas. Tropical forests are humid and have many trees spaced close together. _____ savannas are drier, and their trees are spaced further apart.
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Iraqi artist Nazik Al-Malaika, celebrated as the first Arabic poet to write in free verse, didn’t reject traditional forms entirely; her poem “Elegy for a Woman of No Importance” consists of two ten-line stanzas and a standard number of syllables. Even in this superficially traditional work, _____ Al-Malaika was breaking new ground by memorializing an anonymous woman rather than a famous man.
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Jhumpa Lahiri’s story collection Interpreter of Maladies features multiple stories about romantic relationships. In “This Blessed House,” newlyweds argue over whether to replace items left by the previous owners of their new home. _____ in “A Temporary Matter,” a husband and wife attempt to rekindle their relationship during a four-night blackout.
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In 2021, a model developed by astrophysicist Catherine Zucker and her research team revealed that the same supernovas responsible for the creation and ongoing expansion of the Local Bubble—a 14-million-year-old cavity in the Milky Way—are likely responsible for the formation of new stars. _____ this model detailed how the bubble’s expansion trapped interstellar clouds of gas and dust that became stars upon their eventual collapse.
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Establishing Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is no easy task. Each month, readings of a single second from atomic clocks around the world are taken and sent to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) in France. _____ BIPM metrologists perform the meticulous work of assembling these minutely disparate readings into a globally shared time standard.
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Economist Elinor Ostrom’s studies of communities around the world have empirically demonstrated that common pool resources, such as grazing lands, can be sustainably managed by the people who use them (rather than through private entities or centralized governments). _____ Ostrom’s work is a repudiation of the “tragedy of the commons,” the view that individuals will inevitably overexploit a finite shared resource if given unfettered access to it.
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My interest in old public libraries has led me to seek them out whenever I visit a new part of the United States. _____ I could visit every state in the US and still not find the oldest public library in the Western Hemisphere. That library, the Biblioteca Palafoxiana, is located in Puebla, Mexico.
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Spanish surrealist Oscar Dominguez, like many of his contemporaries, wanted to incorporate elements of chance and randomness in his artistic process. _____ he employed techniques that produced random, unpredictable results, such as decalcomania, which involved pressing a blank canvas onto a paint-covered surface to generate abstract patterns.
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When using sumac for dyeing cloth, textile artists first soak it in water to release its color. Then, they add the cloth to the dyebath and simmer it for hours, perhaps even days. _____ they will remove the cloth, at which point it will have turned a vibrant red color.
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Niger ratified the Outer Space Treaty, an international agreement with over 100 signing nations that acts as the foundation for the laws of space, on February 1, 1967. Jordan, ______ has yet to officially ratify the treaty; it only signed it.
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Although those who migrated to California in 1849 dreamed of finding gold nuggets in streambeds, the state’s richest deposits were buried deeply in rock, beyond the reach of individual prospectors. _____ by 1852, many had given up their fortune-hunting dreams and gone to work for one of the large companies capable of managing California’s complex mining operations.
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Ballet dancer Misty Copeland has accomplished a lot. She has appeared on Broadway, toured with Prince, and even served on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition. ______ according to Copeland, nothing in her career matches the honor of being the first African American woman named principal dancer at the prestigious American Ballet Theatre.
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Guard cells are specialized cells that are part of a plant’s pores. These cells help regulate the amount of carbon dioxide a plant takes in. _____ they help regulate a plant’s water loss.
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In November 1934, Amrita Sher-Gil was living in what must have seemed like the ideal city for a young artist: Paris. She was studying firsthand the color-saturated style of France’s modernist masters and beginning to make a name for herself as a painter. _____ Sher-Gil longed to return to her childhood home of India; only there, she believed, could her art truly flourish.
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In 1885, Chinese-born California resident Mary Tape became a hero of the Asian American civil rights movement. In January of that year, she won an antidiscrimination case in the California Supreme Court. ______ in April, she wrote an open letter criticizing her local board of education for discrimination. Both actions are remembered today as historic stands against racism.
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To discover which fruit varieties were grown in Italy’s Umbria region before the introduction of industrial farming, botanist Isabella Dalla Ragione often turns to centuries-old lists of cooking ingredients. ______ she analyzes Renaissance paintings of Umbria, as they can provide accurate representations of fruits that were grown there long ago.
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Historically, most conductors of major orchestras and opera companies have been European men, but a new, more diverse generation of artists is stepping up to the podium. Mexico’s Alondra de la Parra took over as conductor for the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in 2017, _____ and Colombia’s Lina Gonzalez-Granados did the same for the Los Angeles Opera in 2022.
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Alexander Lawrence Posey (1873–1908) varied his focus and tone depending on the genre in which he was writing. In his poetry, he used heartfelt language to evoke the beauty and peacefulness of his natural surroundings; in his journalism, _____ he employed humor and satire to comment on political issues affecting his Muskogee Creek community.
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Earth’s auroras—colorful displays of light seen above the northern and southern poles—result, broadly speaking, from the Sun’s activity. _____ the Sun releases charged particles that are captured by Earth’s magnetic field and channeled toward the poles. These particles then collide with atoms in the atmosphere, causing the atoms to emit auroral light.
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In a 2022 analysis of 200 terms, researchers found a broad pattern of valence-dependent mutation for which negative words saw a faster rate of cognate replacement—____ the rate at which a word will be replaced over time with a noncognate form. Adjectives (e.g., “afraid”) saw the largest effect; nouns (e.g., “attack”), meanwhile, saw the smallest.
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“Wishcycling”—putting nonrecyclable items into recycling bins under the mistaken belief that those items can be recycled—ultimately does more harm than good. Nonrecyclable items, such as greasy pizza boxes, can contaminate recyclable materials, rendering entire batches unusable. _____ nonrecyclable products can damage recycling plants’ machinery.
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Mountain climbing routes that incorporate metal rungs and cables are known as via ferratas, from the Italian phrase for “iron path.” As climbing these routes has shifted from a mode of travel to a sporting activity, modern via ferratas are rarely designed to simply reach a summit. _____ new routes favor recreation over utility, aiming to provide a challenging climb or showcase dramatic scenery.
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To perform a quad axel, a figure skater must leap into the air and complete four and a half rotations before landing, an extreme feat. _____ in 2022, when 17-year-old Ilia Malinin landed the first quad axel—considered the most difficult quad jump—in a high-level competition, the audience was left awestruck.
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When sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was designing the Statue of Liberty, he sought the advice of engineer Gustave Eiffel. Eiffel suggested that he make the statue’s arm thick and position it straight above the figure’s head. _____ Bartholdi decided to slim the arm and tilt it out at an angle.
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In June, female loggerhead sea turtles will swim back to the sandy beaches where they were born to lay eggs of their own. First, the turtle will dig her nest in the sand. _____ she will lay up to 100 eggs in the nest. Finally, she will cover it all with sand, before returning to the ocean.
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A turtle shell appears external to the animal, protecting its body like armor. _____ the shell is often incorrectly assumed to be an exoskeleton, a rigid outer casing like that of a crustacean or an insect, when in fact it is an endoskeleton, a part of the turtle’s internal bone structure, more akin to a spine or a pair of ribs.
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Celebrated Tewa potter Maria Martinez (1887–1980) made her signature all-black ceramic vessels using a heating technique called reduction firing. This technique involves smothering the flame surrounding the clay vessel. ______ the vessel takes on a shiny, black hue.
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In the 1880s, inventor Lewis Latimer improved upon Thomas Edison’s design for the electric light bulb. ______ Latimer made the light bulb more durable by placing cardboard around its carbon filament. With this innovation, Latimer became the first Black inventor to contribute to the electrification of the world.
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Roughly once an hour, a torrent of boiling water shoots up 100 feet or more from Yellowstone’s Old Faithful geyser before plunging back to the surface—a cycle seemingly inhospitable to life. _____ as microbiologist Eric Boyd attests, “the geyser is…almost like a cradle for biodiversity,” home to numerous bacteria species that thrive in its sulfurous waters.
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When, in the 1800s, geologists first realized that much of Earth had once been covered by great sheets of ice, some theorized that the phenomenon was cyclical, occurring at regular intervals. Each Ice Age is so destructive, though, that it largely erases the geological evidence of its predecessor. _____ geologists were unable to confirm the theory of cyclical Ice Ages until the 1960s.
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For years, biologists have experimented with using grime-eating bacteria rather than harsh chemicals to clean artworks, and results have been impressive overall. ______ these bacterial strains—which can metabolize centuries’ worth of oil, glue, dirt, and other surface impurities without creating harmful byproducts—have proven more effective than traditional chemical cleaning methods.
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There are three basic steps you should follow when planning a scientific inquiry. First, thoroughly research the question you wish to answer. _____ come up with a prediction (also called a hypothesis) about the answer to your question. Third, develop an experiment that can test the accuracy of your hypothesis.
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Famous for its four-degree tilt, the leaning Garisenda Tower is a popular attraction in Bologna’s city center. However, measurements taken in 2023 showed that the tower was rotating in a concerning way. ______ city officials closed the area around the tower so experts could explore solutions to stabilize the historical twelfth-century structure.
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Upon first approaching artist Kurt Wenner’s Dies Irae, a colorful scene painted on the surface of a cobblestone street in Mantua, Italy, one might assume a deep hole filled with life-sized, classically styled sculptures had opened up in the street. _____ by expertly applying the principles of perspective, Wenner created merely the illusion of depth.
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A blend of gabardine and wool, the material for Elvis Presley’s Gold Vine jumpsuit was flexible enough to allow the singer to perform his signature dance moves. _____ the added weight of the suit’s swirling vines made of gold rhinestones likely limited Elvis’s mobility to some degree.
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In the late twentieth century, scholars directed much discussion toward issues of spatiality. Adherents to quantitative analytical approaches delineated space with the use of GIS spatial technologies; _____ cultural geographer Doreen Massey defined space as the product of “an ever-shifting social geometry of power and signification,” focusing instead on socio-political forces.
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A potter choosing which type of clay to use for a piece considers two key factors: the desired look of the piece and its intended use. _____ earthenware clay is often used for decorative pieces because of its rustic look. This type of clay is not often used in industrial settings, though, because it is less durable than other clays.
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Before California’s 1911 election to approve a proposition granting women the right to vote, activists across the state sold tea to promote the cause of suffrage. In San Francisco, the Woman’s Suffrage Party sold Equality Tea at local fairs. ______ in Los Angeles, activist Nancy Tuttle Craig, who ran one of California’s largest grocery store firms, distributed Votes for Women Tea.
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Historians agree that the jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton was exaggerating when he claimed to have invented jazz music. No one can deny, ______ that Morton’s innovative compositions and remarkable improvisational skills helped shape jazz as a genre during its early years.
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When one looks at the dark craggy vistas in Hitoshi Fugo’s evocative photo series, one’s mind might wander off to the cratered surfaces of faraway planets. ______ it’s the series’ title, Flying Frying Pan, that brings one back to Earth, reminding the viewer that each photo is actually a close-up view of a familiar household object: a frying pan.
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In 1933, the Twentieth Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified. The amendment mandates that presidential inaugurations be held on January 20, approximately ten weeks after the November election. ______ this amendment requires newly elected US senators and representatives to be sworn into their respective offices on January 3.
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As a young historian in the 1950s, Alixa Naff began interviewing fellow Arab American immigrants about their experiences straddling two cultures. Over the next few decades, Naff conducted more than 450 such interviews, also known as oral histories. _____ she collected photographs and other artifacts that represented her subjects’ experiences.
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Okot p’Bitek’s poem Song of Lawino (1966) explores postcolonial Ugandan life through the eyes of a woman living in a rural village. With its vibrant imagery, bitingly satiric tone, and dexterous use of traditional Acholi song and phraseology, the poem inspired a generation of East African writers. _____ those who adopted its style are often referred to as Okot School poets.
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In her poetry collection Thomas and Beulah, Rita Dove interweaves the titular characters’ personal stories with broader historical narratives. She places Thomas’s journey from the American South to the Midwest in the early 1900s within the larger context of the Great Migration. _____ Dove sets events from Beulah’s personal life against the backdrop of the US Civil Rights Movement.
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The Coastal Futures Conservatory in Virginia is known for creating aural representations of ecological data. One such effort combines underwater audio recorded in seagrass beds with data that track rising carbon levels in the seagrass. As carbon levels increase, the audio is correspondingly distorted; ______ listeners can “hear” the changes in the carbon levels.
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In Asiya Wadud’s 2022 poem “Shorn, Treaded Red,” the poet contemplates a painting that has inspired her: Etel Adnan’s 2020 work Satellites 27. The painting, which features overlapping geometric shapes, fuels the poem’s exploration of temporality and identity. _____ in responding to Adnan’s artwork, Wadud’s poem reflects on the relationship between poetry and other art forms.
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Award-winning travel writer Linda Watanabe McFerrin considers the background research she conducts on destinations featured in her travel books to be its own reward. _____ McFerrin admits to finding the research phase of her work just as fascinating and engaging as exploring a location in person.
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Working together with the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources, Dr. Lani Tsinnajinnie analyzed data about snowpack levels in the Chuska Mountains. She found that the snowpack (the amount of snow on the ground) was deepest in early March at lower elevations. At higher elevations, _____ the snowpack was deepest in mid-March.
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The 435 state districts in the US House of Representatives are designed to be roughly equal in population. These districts average around 760,000 people in size. However, only about 730,000 people live in the state of Alaska. _____ Alaska has just one House district, encompassing the entire state.
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Neuroscientist Karen Konkoly wanted to determine whether individuals can understand and respond to questions during REM sleep. She first taught volunteers eye movements they would use to respond to basic math problems while asleep (a single left-right eye movement indicated the number one). _____ she attached electrodes to the volunteers’ faces to record their eye movements during sleep.
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In retrospect, one of the lessons of the 2003 Human Genome Project is that a gene is affected by many factors, not the least of which is its interactions with the protein products of other genes. _____ rather than just focusing on the human genome, efforts to better understand gene mutations related to disease have begun to consider the human proteome, the complete set of proteins expressed by human genes.
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As biologist Terrie Williams has documented, deep dives present a challenge for seals and other marine mammals. A seal must exert enough energy to propel itself hundreds of meters downward, while keeping its heart rate low enough that it doesn’t run out of oxygen while underwater. ______ a seal moves its flippers as little as possible on a deep dive, gliding to conserve energy.
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In Gothic architecture, flying buttresses are large arches that help support a building’s exterior walls. Before the Gothic era, cathedrals’ heavy ceilings had to be supported by thick, short walls, but the invention of flying buttresses eliminated this need. ______ Gothic cathedrals could be built with thinner, higher walls.
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The Alaska Native Language Archive (ANLA) is known for its impressive audio collection. _____ the ANLA has more than 5,000 audio recordings of Native Alaskan languages dating as far back as 1943.
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At two weeks old, the time their critical socialization period begins, wolves can smell but cannot yet see or hear. Domesticated dogs, ______ can see, hear, and smell by the end of two weeks. This relative lack of sensory input may help explain why wolves behave so differently around humans than dogs do: from a very young age, wolves are more wary and less exploratory.
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The envelope-shaped paper bags common in the US 150 years ago were impractical for carrying goods. ______ because they were the only paper bags that could be mass-produced, these bags dominated the market. That all changed in the 1870s, when industrial designer Margaret Knight patented a machine to make flat-bottomed, foldable paper bags.
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