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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?
The Little Ice Age, spanning from 1300 AD to the 18th century, triggered global cooling that reshaped Northern Europe and reverberated worldwide. Insight gleaned from this period may hold pivotal lessons for addressing today’s climate change conundrum.
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. Polari was almost lost due to changing cultural elements, yet it has recently gained popularity and is being used more frequently to keep it alive.
You might have already heard of Japan’s Rabbit Island. While some may consider it a Kawaii paradise, the reality is that this seemingly sweet and harmless place has a troubling past and an unsure future.
The Dark Forest Theory is a thought experiment about the behavior of extraterrestrial intelligence. It suggests that alien life exists in the galaxy and if they discover us, they may attempt to kill us to protect themselves.
In 1974, researchers sent a greeting to extraterrestrial life using the world’s largest radio telescope. The signal was directed 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.
The Voyager Golden Record, sent on Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 in 1977 by NASA, is a time capsule that showcases human civilization and aims to communicate the essence of Earth to beings beyond our planet. The Golden Record, which includes 115 pictures, greetings in 55 languages, natural sounds, and 90 minutes of diverse music, marks humanity’s initial attempt to explore beyond our solar system.
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.
Once upon a time, in a rotating chicken-legged hut in the depths of the forest, there lived Baba Yaga, the preeminent witch of Slavic folklore. Don’t let her wrinkled face or bony leg fool you—she is a fierce enchantress, a force to be reckoned with!
While cute garden gnomes are common in modern gardens, in the grand estate gardens of 18th-century England, one might have met their melancholy ancestor: the ornamental hermit, an actual human being hired to live a life of seclusion and contemplation, for the sake of being a picturesque addition to the landscape of the wealthy.
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