Time zone tripoints
At several points around the world, three time zones meet.
Month: March 2021
Monorail elephant
In 1950 Tuffi the elephant fell 12 metres out of a suspended monorail into a river. She survived.
Eight years on the Suez Canal
In 1967, fifteen ships and their crews were trapped on the Suez Canal because of the Six-Day War. The ships would remain there for the next eight years.
Uncombable hair
People suffering from Uncombable Hair Syndrome have silvery hair that resists all attempts to comb, brush, or otherwise groom it.
The sentinels and the missionary
In 2018 an American missionary travelled to North Sentinel Island in an attempt to bring Christianity to one of the last uncontacted peoples in the world. He did not return.
Salt men
Most accidental mummies are preserved by heat, cold, or peat bogs. But in the Chehrabad mines in Iran, the bodies of ancient miners were buried in salt.
Bridges of the Euro
The bridges depicted on the Euro banknotes were fictional… until the Dutch city Spijkenisse built them all.
Turnip-mustard-cabbage triangle
Turnips, black mustard, and cabbage together form a triangle of multi-chromosome hybrids: it’s where we get Indian mustard, Ethiopian mustard, and canola.
The shadow of the volcano
What do the bicycle, Marmite, Mormonism, and Frankenstein have in common? A volcano in Indonesia.
Meaningful sounds (Part 2)
Why do monolingual Japanese speakers have difficulty distinguishing “l” and “r” sounds? And why do monolingual English speakers have difficulty distinguishing “t” and “th” sounds? [2 of 2]
Meaningful sounds (Part 1)
In English, what we think of as the letter “t” is actually a collection of many different sounds – but most of the time we do not notice the difference. [1 of 2]
The mysterious letters of the Quran
Twenty-nine chapters of the Quran begin with short sequences of Arabic letters. We’re not actually certain what these “mysterious letters” mean.
Log guns
Take a log, paint it black, and make sure your enemy can see it. The “quaker guns” were a key piece of strategic deception in the American Revolutionary and Civil Wars.
Glowing snails
Just one species of land snail and a few species of freshwater snail glow in the dark.
Fire Diamond 4-4-4
The Fire Diamond categorises hazardous substances according to flammability, instability, and danger to human health. One material ranks the maximum on all three scales.
Darwin crosses a line
On 17 February 1832 – at the bidding of Neptune, god of the sea – Charles Darwin was blindfolded, his face covered in paint and pitch, and he was dunked into a water bath. He had crossed the line for the first time.
The Generalist Academy 