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The Byford Dolphin accident was a notorious 1983 disaster in the North Sea that killed four oil rig divers and an attending technician instantly. Explosive decompression was the cause of death for all five crewman, but the factors leading up to the accident are less understood than its gruesome aftermath.
Today, it may be commonly associated with the concept of finding joy in one’s work, but—from ancient Greek medicine to Ottoman Turkish dictionaries, from the stars of Ursa Major to Slavic folk poetry—the word meraki has had a rich and varied history. For one, it originally meant “spleen.”
Long theorized, but never observed, the white hole is a hypothetical counterpart to the black hole that expels matter instead of sucking it in. Could such objects exist far out in space, or in the distant future?
Between AD 1300 and the 18th century, Northern Europe was heavily affected and reshaped by the centuries long drop in global temperatures known as the Little Ice Age. The world felt the effects of the Little Ice Age as well, and the lessons learned by humanity then could help us with our own climate change today.
In the 1950s, gay men in Britain used a secret language called Polari to communicate with each other and avoid the harsh gaze of the law. Due to shifting elements of the culture in Britain, the secret language was almost lost, but today, Polari has experienced a resurgence in use that’s keeping it alive.
You might have already heard of Japan’s Rabbit Island. To some, it may sound like paradise on Earth, the epitome of Kawaii, but what might look cute and cuddly from the outside actually harbors a dark history and an uncertain future.
The Dark Forest Theory is a thought experiment about the behavior of extraterrestrial intelligence. It posits that alien civilizations really are out there, hidden throughout the galaxy—and if they ever learn of our existence, they will do everything they can to kill us, driven solely by the grim logic of self-preservation.
In 1974, a team of researchers used the world’s largest radio telescope to send a greeting to extraterrestrial life, broadcasting a powerful signal towards a star cluster 25,000 light-years away. This is the story of the Arecibo message.
For 72 seconds on August 15, 1977, a radio telescope in Ohio detected what may have been a signal from extraterrestrial intelligence. It was a narrow-band burst of radio waves, matching no known natural phenomenon, and it stood out like a sore thumb from the ordinary background noise of the cosmos.
NASA’s Voyager Golden Record, launched in 1977 aboard Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, is a time capsule of human civilization, designed to convey Earth’s essence to extraterrestrial beings. Featuring 115 images, greetings in 55 languages, natural sounds, and 90 minutes of diverse music, the Golden Record represents humanity’s first foray beyond our solar system. Though unlikely to be discovered, the record preserves a snapshot of our existence for the distant future.
Taste the past, shape the future. In an effort to spark conversation about the future of food and sustainable meat alternatives, an Australian startup has showcased a meatball made from lab-grown cultured meat using genetic material from the long-extinct woolly mammoth.
It’s obvious to any stargazer on a clear night that we live in a universe vast beyond imagining, glittering with worlds besides our own—and yet, as far as we know, Earth is the only planet to have developed living creatures of any kind. Intelligent life is an unrepeated experiment, with a sample size of one. Could we really be alone?
Hannah Ocuish was 12 years old when she was hanged by the state of Connecticut in 1786 for the murder of Eunice Bolles, marking her the youngest person to have ever been executed in the United States. The story of her conviction and death leaves room for serious doubt about whether it should have happened at all.
Fordlandia, Henry Ford’s attempt at building an industrialized utopia in the Amazon rainforest, is a story of hubris and failure on an impressive scale. The titan of American manufacturing thought he could create a picture-perfect, self-sustaining city that would produce rubber for Ford tires, but it never did.
When the Billy Doll hit the shops in 1997, it was widely touted as “the first ‘out and proud’ gay doll;” older generations were right to meet the claim with skepticism—they remembered Gay Bob, the original gay doll.
On September 7, 1978, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was waiting at a bus stop in London’s Strand when he felt a sharp jab in his leg. Little did he know that he had just become the victim of a sophisticated assassination involving an iconic Cold War weapon: the umbrella gun.
Discover the museum filled with more oddities and absurdities than any other. This exhibit hosts intriguing and unique displays, including mosaics made of butterfly wings, a portrait of soviet canine astronauts, and a collection of folk remedies. How did this strange place come to be, and is it worth a visit?
At first glance, Alan Smithee appears to be a prolific, but untalented, director. Despite having over 100 directing credits to his name, Smithee’s name isn’t widely known. Perhaps this is because of the many flops in his repertoire, or perhaps it is simply because Alan Smithee never existed.
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