The mother of meteorites
When something hit Vesta, an enormous hunk of rock in the asteroid belt, it created one of the largest impact craters known, the highest mountain in the Solar System, and many of Earth’s meteorites.
Month: May 2021
Featured category: Military
The shortest war in history, medieval rocket launchers, art in the trenches of World War I, and the US Navy’s love of acronyms.
From the archives: The Sahara
A marathon across the Sahara, an artificial river underneath the Sahara, the ancient green Sahara, and the wall of trees meant to check the desert’s advance.
The Leaning Tower of Suzhou
The Tiger Hill Pagoda in Suzhou, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, leans to one side by several degrees.
Sweat genes are made of this
The human gene ABCC11 determines whether your sweat smells bad or not. It also determines whether your earwax is wet or dry.
Houdini and Lovecraft and the mummies
The escape artist Harry Houdini and the author H. P. Lovecraft collaborated on a “true” Egyptian horror story.
Quantum crossword
Most crosswords have a single correct solution. A quantum crossword has several.
White sausage equator
The white sausage equator (Weißwurstäquator) divides northern and southern Germany. The rösti curtain (Röstigraben) divides German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland.
Featured category: Oceania
The plan to move an entire country, the yacht club in the middle of Australia, the Samoan independence movement, and the kidnapping of half the population of Rapa Nui.
From the archives: Law and the supernatural
The trial of the ghost murderer, ghost marriage, combined werewolf / witch hunts, and the strange case of the New Haven piglets.
Blue lava
The sides of Kawa Ijen, a volcano in Indonesia, are wreathed in blue flame.
Longest note
In 2017 Nigerian musician Femi Kuti set the world record for longest sustained saxophone note: fifty-one minutes and thirty-five seconds.
Kick volleyball
Sepak takraw resembles volleyball, except you can only use your feet, knees, and head. The kicks are amazing, but you should not let the sons of sultans and prime ministers play.
Underwater circumnavigation
The USS Triton was the first submarine to circumnavigate the world completely underwater. It was spotted just once, by a Filipino fisherman.
King vs. monkey
Alexander, the unlucky puppet king of Greece, was killed by a monkey bite and medical incompetence in 1920.
Featured category: Computer science
The hardest problem in computer science, computer chip graffiti, and why programmers sometimes need to give the queen a duck.