If someone grilled you about the history of humans eating chicken, you might offer up some stock answers that would leave egg on your face. The best way to explain the meteoric rise of this food staple by way of the age-old question: Why did the chicken cross the road? The answer: It was probably due to a clerical error, one that has been largely ignored by humans, but one that lives in infamy among chickens—especially on Super Bowl weekend. Vox: How a shipping error 100 years ago launched the $30 billion chicken industry. “Some archaeologists believe that when future civilizations sort through the debris of our modern era, we won’t be defined by the skyscraper, the iPhone, or the automobile, but rather something humbler: the chicken bone. The reason? We eat so many chickens. So, so many. In 2020 alone, people around the world consumed over 70 billion of them, up from 8 billion in 1965. Just this Sunday, Americans will likely eat a record-breaking 1.45 billion chicken wings as they watch the Eagles take on the Chiefs at Super Bowl LVII.”

+ AP’s Ted Anthony on How the ‘boneless wing’ became a tasty culinary lie (and why it matters). “They’re delicious, they’re convenient. So why poke into things that pair so perfectly with beer and make the sports-watching world a better place? Here’s one possible reason: Could they be a microcosm of the national willingness to accept things that aren’t what they purport to be? And isn’t that something that this country struggles with mightily, particularly in the misinformation- and disinformation-saturated years since the ‘boneless wing’ entered our world?”