Hyperbolic crochet
In 1997, professor of mathematics and crochet enthusiast Daina Taimiņa found a way to join those two passions in order to craft durable sections of hyperbolic surfaces.
Category: Sciences
Fewest chromosomes and fatherless ants
The jack jumper ant of south-eastern Australia has a nasty sting, can jump five times its own body length, and has the fewest chromosomes of any living thing.
Eclipse cycle
The saros is a measurement of time equal to 6585 days (plus one third of a day). It is the time between identical eclipses.
Gut parka
Up near the Arctic Circle, the best waterproof parkas are made out of guts.
Sparrow smashing
In 1958 Mao Zedong declared war on sparrows. Although he won that battle, China lost the war.
Pilot out the window
In 1990 a British Airways plane heading to Spain had a windscreen malfunction mid-flight. The captain was sucked out of the gap, but a flight attendant caught his belt and the plane landed safely with the captain stuck halfway outside.
Dancing corpse
George Forster was executed for murder in 1803. Later that same day his corpse was dancing, thanks to Luigi Galvani’s nephew.
Coffee crisis
Vietnam is the second-largest producer of coffee in the world because of a crisis in 1970s East Germany.
Natural nuclear power
Enrico Fermi switched on the first human-made nuclear reactor in 1942, but the first natural nuclear reactor on Earth occurred 1.7 billion years earlier.
Igbo-Ukwu bronzes
In the 9th century CE, a town in what is now Nigeria produced the most masterful bronze artefacts in the world.
The universal antidote
For more than 1700 years, mithridate and theriac were Europe’s ultimate medicines. A concoction of up to sixty-four ingredients – including cinnamon, turpentine, and poppy – they were supposed to neutralise any poison or plague.
The death of Tycho Brahe
The body of famed astronomer Tycho Brahe was dug up twice (in 1901 and 2010) to find out what killed him. The conclusion: he died of excessive politeness.
Dinosaur ant
In 1931 Australia, Amy Crocker discovered two worker ants from a new and strange species: Nothomyrmecia macrops. Despite extensive searches, more were not found for another forty-six years.
Lunar garbage collection
The second mission to land on the Moon had garbage collection duty: they picked up the remains of a probe that had crashed there two years earlier.
The false positive paradox
Consider a medical test for a disease suffered by 1% of the population, which has a 5% “false positive” error rate. If you test positive, what are the chances that you are actually ill? In fact, it’s less than 17%.
The rise and fall and rise of British canals
The national canal network of Britain powered its Industrial Revolution, then fell into disuse, and then rose again in the late 20th century.
The Generalist Academy 