Cheese is always "grate." I mean, when you have cheese, it's the sign you're having a "gouda" day, and you could "disa-brie" ... I mean, disagree.

But everything is always "cheddar" — excuse me — better, with cheese.

Okay, okay, a little cheesy, I know.

When it comes to Swiss cheese, it feels like something is missing.

Why does it have holes?

First off, the cheese experts actually call those holes "eyes."

SEE MORE: Why Do We Have An Appendix?

And they're caused by carbon dioxide bubbles that form in the cheese.

Time to put on our scientist cap and put Swiss cheese under the microscope.

Bacterial culture called "propionibacterium"— or "props" for short, are behind the eyes.

This bacteria is in hay, grass and soil and ends up in milk from cows.

That milk makes its way to a cheese factory where it's standardized, pasteurized, and brined.

After that, the cheese sits in a warm room which helps the props form those carbon dioxide bubbles.

Those bubbles are left alone while the cheese ferments, resulting in its eyes.

The holes used to be seen as a deformity, and cheesemakers tried to eliminate them.

But today, they're a distinct part of Swiss cheese.

In fact, the cheese industry even pays the government to rate its cheese.

Grade-A Swiss cheese has eyes that are between three-eights of an inch and thirteen-sixteenths of an inch in diameter.

And with more than 300 million pounds of Swiss cheese produced annually in the U.S. — that's a lot of eyes.

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"If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it." Just about everyone knows the words of Beyoncé. But where did this tradition come from? 

Like a lot of old traditions, the exact history of wedding rings is murky. But one belief dates back to ancient Egypt.

Egyptian pharaohs believed rings symbolized eternity, because of their circular shape, with no beginning and no end. Egyptians also believed in the "Vena Amoris" or the "vein of love." They thought a vein in the fourth finger on the left hand connected directly to the heart. That's why it's still common to wear a wedding ring on that finger. 

When Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, Greeks adopted the tradition of gifting a ring to show devotion. The tradition carried on when the Romans conquered the Greeks.

Some accounts say the Romans viewed the ring as a symbol of a husband's ownership over his bride as opposed to a sign of love. 

As time went on, the types of rings and motifs shifted. Rings became more popular in the West during World War II.

Men going off to fight gave them to their wives-to-be, as a promise to wed when they returned. During this time, more men started wearing rings, too. Men wore them while deployed, to remind them of their spouses back home. 

For many years, rings had different types of stones. In 1947, the diamond company De Beers helped popularize a diamond ring thanks to its famous slogan. 

The marketing strategy popularized diamond rings for wedding and engagement bands. According to a survey from The Knot 86% of engagement rings in the U.S. include a diamond center stone today, and the average ring costs $6,000. 

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How often does your middle name come up? For most of you, middle names aren’t used until it’s time to sign for something or identify ourselves. But what are they really for? 

History says middle names began in ancient Rome — when many Romans had three names. A praenomen was your personal name or what we call first names today.

A nomen is a family name and lives where middle names currently sit. And the cognomen, which identified what branch of the family you were from, similar to what last names do today. It was a practice mostly reserved for men. Women had two names, and slaves had only one. 

Historians said more names during this time earned more respect. But the use of middle names has evolved. Historians say elite European families in Italy revived the Roman tradition in the 13th century. Many honored saints by giving their children a second name after them in hopes it would bring protection.

But as German immigrants came to America in the 18th century, genealogists say they would begin to write a new story — slowly moving away from religious middle names and getting more creative. John Quincy Adams was the first American president with a middle name taken after his great-grandfather. 

Today, Americans are still sifting through family trees to find middle names — just not as much. 

A recent YouGov poll found 43% of Americans are named after family members, while 24% say their parents just liked the way it sounded. Lineage-related names are still a male-dominated practice. 

YouGov found 32% of men say they were named after a family member, compared to 21% of women. And men’s first and middle names are mostly taken after their fathers. 

So, while old traditions seem to be dwindling, it appears that families still aren’t done passing the torch. 

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A loose panel in a Cape Cod home revealed a hidden treasure behind its walls. Anna Prilliman came upon a trove of letters — hand-written seven decades ago, between a young man named Vance and his Betty Sue.  

"I read one of those letters, and it is absolutely a love story," Prilliman said. 

Their delicate cursive reminded Anna of the days people slowly put pen to paper instead of racing over computer keys. 

"There are no 'smh's' or 'omg's' or 'lols' it's full sentences. Grammatically correct sentences. Isn't that funny how that works," Prilliman said.  

For many, these letters are also a reminder of a timeless art form they worry is slipping through the hands of new generations.  

Cursive flourished after the fall of the Roman Empire, with each part of Europe creating different styles of handwriting. By the late 8th century, an English monk, inspired by Roman characters, revolutionized cursive. He designed handwriting that would maximize legibility and feature lowercase letters, word separation, and punctuation.

But when the invention of the printing press threatened to make hand-written texts obsolete, Italians revolted by creating "Italic cursive." And for centuries on, elegant writing proved to be a status symbol associated with different jobs and social ranks. By the 1700s, schools were teaching the first master scribes.  

When the U.S. gained its independence, Congress hired professional penmen to copy the nation’s founding documents.

And we were left with arguably one of the most famous signatures of all time — John Hancock’s. The American penmanship style we know today evolved from the mid-1800s.  

Abolitionist Platt Rogers Spencer created the first cursive system in the U.S., crafting a style still seen on Coca-Cola's iconic logo. 

Other methods of cursive took favor over the years until students were taught to form those loopy letters we still see today — though technology has changed the game. Today, students are instructed to put fingers on keys more often than pen to paper. 

Just 21 states require public schools to teach cursive in their curriculum.   

Cursive is also left out of common core state standards — fully adopted by 35 states since 2010.  Sue Pimental, one of the lead writers of the English standards, told EdWeek that teachers around the country felt cursive instruction took an "enormous" amount of time and welcomed the change. 

A few years after the common core was introduced, a survey found roughly four in 10 elementary school teachers were no longer teaching cursive, though about seven in 10 felt its absence would lead to long-term negative consequences. 

Steve Graham, a writing studies expert and professor at Arizona State University says there is evidence that handwriting is beneficial for cognitive development. He says good handwriting makes it easier for students to get ideas on paper and score higher on writing tests. But that doesn’t mean learning cursive is necessary.

Graham says there isn’t enough evidence to prove teaching cursive is better than print, and it’s only marginally faster to write in cursive — if at all. 

Others say we get more benefits from the writing style, like Virginia Berninger, an emeritus professor at the University of Washington’s College of Education. She’s studied the different ways cursive and print activate our brains and believes cursive helps students better recognize and write letters.

As for Betty Sue and Vance, their love story surrounds their carefully crafted letters, their lives changing from exchanging letters to exchanging vows and a lifelong marriage. The story of their cursive correspondence was told nationwide. And Anna eventually tracked down the couple’s grandson — 3,000 miles away.  

"Human connection matters. The past matters," Prilliman said. 

Newsy is the nation’s only free 24/7 national news network. You can find Newsy using your TV’s digital antenna or stream for free. See all the ways you can watch Newsy here.

We’re in the middle of a chip war, competing on production and policy with countries like China. But why have these tiny, tiny machines created such a global geopolitical footprint? 

The simple answer: as we’ve become more and more reliant on microchips they’ve simultaneously gotten harder to manufacture — creating rising demand for semiconductors for civilian as well as military uses. 

So what are microchips, and why are they so difficult to make? 

Scripps News producer Eli Kintisch goes to the National Institute of Standards and Technology for a better understanding of how these tiny yet essential pieces of technology are made.

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