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Visual guideThe sow who pointed game
The anthology reports that a gamekeeper trained a young sow to search for game and point it, like a hunting dog. 🐖 As the book tells it, she followed the scent, then dropped to her knees to point when she was sure of it. 🐖 The…
Research reportThéâtre des Champs-Élysées: an early Art Deco landmark
Théâtre des Champs-Élysées: an early Art Deco landmark The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées is a Paris building dating from 1911–1913, commonly described as an early Art Deco landmark. The architectural archive gives its address as 15…
The dugong story—and its caveat
Loudon names Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles’s memoir as her source for the report that a dugong mother is said to follow her young “even through a crowd of people”. Raffles himself calls the idea “as poetical as the fable of the sir…
Inside the ISS: Cupola views, zero-g lifting, and zero-gravity flights
[00:13] Looking Down at Earth From the Space Station Cupola [03:51] How Astronauts Lift Weights in Zero Gravity [04:54] Floating Headfirst Into the Space Station Storage Module
Everyday life inside the International Space Station
[00:46] How Astronauts Actually Sleep in Space [03:05] Brushing Teeth in Zero Gravity [04:55] How the Space Station Toilet Works [07:15] What Astronauts Eat on the Space Station
Cold War survival tactics from the iconic 1951 safety film
[00:06] Meet Bert the Turtle and the Original Duck and Cover Song [02:14] What Happens When an Atomic Bomb Explodes [03:08] Classroom Atomic Bomb Drill in the 1950s [06:03] What to Do If an A-Bomb Drops While Walking Outside [07:…
Astronaut reveals what working and living inside the ISS is really like
[01:19] Why Exercise Equipment Floats on the ISS [03:23] Why a Spacesuit Is Actually a Personal Spacecraft [04:30] How Astronaut Helmet Visors and Sunglasses Work
Groundbreaking 1930 musical spectacles and visual tricks
[10:03] Hypnotic 1930 Seated Chorus Line Routine [19:38] The Most Massive Bridal Veil in Cinema History [34:48] The Office Scandal Twist You Wont See Coming [38:10] Dramatic War Melodrama Turns into Wild Musical Slapstick [52:56]…
How 1950s scientists tested nuclear blasts on everyday life
[00:10] A-Bombs vs H-Bombs: Scaling the Destruction [03:47] Could a Reinforced Bathroom Save You From a Nuclear Blast? [04:30] What Happens to the Power Grid During an Atomic Blast [07:23] The Eerie Mannequin Families of Operatio…
Moments from Duke Ellington's historic 1929 jazz film
[00:31] Duke Ellington's 1929 Studio Jam Session [03:34] Saving the Piano with a Bottle of Gin [05:08] A Dangerous Decision for the Love of Music [11:38] Fredi Washington Collapses Mid-Performance [12:49] The Show Must Go On Afte…
Social PostEarth built nuclear reactors before humans
Around 2 billion years ago, uranium deposits at Oklo, in what is now Gabon, sustained natural fission reactions, long before humans existed. Concentrated uranium, the right rock and groundwater came together naturally; the water…
Social PostA tiny wooden device that buries seeds
Carnegie Mellon researchers fashioned experimental seed carriers from wood veneer. With no motor or battery, moisture makes the wood twist, helping each carrier work its way into soil. The design takes inspiration from Erodium pl…
Social PostTrousers more than 3,000 years old
Found at Yanghai in western China, these trousers are more than 3,000 years old and among the oldest known surviving trousers. Their patterned knees look familiar. The wearer was buried with horse equipment and weapons associated…
Social PostDinner from a cookbook written in clay
Nearly 4,000 years ago, Babylonians recorded recipes in cuneiform on clay. One surviving tablet contains 25 stew recipes. A Yale–Harvard team translated and tested recipes from the tablets. Their reconstructions included lamb wit…
Social PostNight clouds seeded by meteors
Some clouds begin with dust from meteors. Noctilucent clouds, electric-blue clouds, form when tiny ice crystals grow around particles left high in the atmosphere, roughly 80 kilometres above Earth, far higher than ordinary weathe…
Social PostA keyboard that plays a cave
In Virginia’s Luray Caverns, the stalactites themselves make the music. Each keyboard key triggers an electric mallet with a rubber tip, which gently taps a selected, tuned stalactite and sends a note through the cavern. Leland S…
Social PostWater droplets that travel uphill
Water droplets can travel uphill on a heated track with tiny asymmetric ridges: heat and texture propel them. On metal hot enough, a droplet rides on a cushion of its own vapour. This is the Leidenfrost effect, also seen when dro…
Social PostFlowers made of glass—even the rotten fruit
Leaves and petals were shaped from glass, with veins, colours and delicate forms carefully recreated by hand. Between 1886 and 1936, father and son Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka made thousands of botanical glass models for Harvard.…