Endless elevator
Imagine an elevator with no doors that never stops: this is the paternoster lift.
Category: Places
Burning a million pounds
In 1994 the art duo K Foundation burned a million pounds in cash. They did it on purpose.
Shallowest sea
The Sea of Azov, between Ukraine and Russia, is never more than fourteen metres deep. Parts of the sea are shallow enough to wade across.
Boycotting New Zealand
In 1976 most African countries boycotted the Olympics because the games would not ban New Zealand.
The do in do-re-mi
The solfège system teaches Western music scales: do re mi fa sol la ti do. But who is “do”?
Nobody’s land
Bir Tawil is a wedge of land between Egypt and Sudan. Neither wants to claim Bir Tawil: it is one of the only unclaimed territories in the world.
The gannet’s dive
Gannets have evolved some very strange adaptations that make them some of the best divers in the natural world.
The Tristan chord
Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde set the course of 20th century classical music by keeping the audience in suspense for four hours with a single unresolved chord.
Doomsday Glacier
Thwaites Glacier, in West Antarctica, is roughly the size of Florida. This glacier alone contributes four percent of the global rise in sea levels, and if it melted completely oceans would be 65cm higher – hence its alternative name, the Doomsday Glacier.
Death of the pyramid
The pyramid of Amanishakheto stood for nearly two thousand years, until an Italian looter blew it up.
Vegetarian spider
Bagheera kiplingi is unique amongst spiders: it’s a vegetarian.
The Yellowstone loophole
Thanks to a loophole in United States law, it may be possible to murder someone in a small section of Yellowstone National Park and get away with it.
None of the above
In the 2018 mayoral election for Makassar, Indonesia, Munafri Afiruddin was the only candidate, won a quarter of a million votes, and lost.
The sound of hell
An urban legend from the late 1980s claimed that Soviet scientists had drilled so far down they hit hell – and brought back an audio recording of the suffering souls. But it was actually Baron Blood.
Mathematical collective
Since 1939 an author named Nicolas Bourbaki has published a series of volumes on pure mathematics. But Bourbaki does not exist.
Underwater airport
At Barra Airport, in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, you cannot land at high tide.