Underwater unknown
A strange honeycomb pattern appears on sea ridges around the world. We think that it is created by living creatures, but no-one has ever seen one. Oh, and there are fossils of the patterns going back 500 million years.
Category: Sciences
Glacier death
The glacier Okjökull in Iceland died in 2014.
Plastic-eating bacteria
In 2016, Japanese scientists discovered a new and unique type of bacteria outside a recycling factory in Sakai. It can eat plastic.
Tractor beaming
The idea of the tractor beam first appeared in fiction in 1931. Since then, scientists have worked to make it a reality… and they’ve actually had some success.
Saltiest ponds
We’ve all heard of the Dead Sea, so salty that people naturally float in it. But the Gaet’ale Pond in Ethiopia is saltier, and the Don Juan Pond in Antarctica is so salty that it doesn’t freeze, even at -50°C.
Oldest winery and shoe
The Areni-1 cave in southern Armenia is the site of the oldest shoe, and also the oldest winery, in the world.
Two-year Mediterranean
Around five million years ago, the Strait of Gibraltar closed and the Mediterranean dried up. When it reopened, the sea refilled in less than two years.
Largest kitchen
Jagannath, the deity from whom we get the word juggernaut, receives offerings of food from the world’s largest kitchen.
Prospecting plants
You can search for gold the easy way, with a pan or a pickaxe. Or you could examine the local Eucalyptus trees. This is geobotanical and biogeochemical prospecting.
Ultimate technobabble
In 1944 a graduate student wrote a parody of technical writing that has entered engineering folklore: the turboencabulator.
Interstellar comet
Two years ago ʻOumuamua was the first interstellar object to be detected passing through our solar system. But the second interstellar object, the comet 2I/Borisov, is passing through right now.
Spacedust buster
The portable vacuum cleaner Dustbuster was built on the back of technology for the moon landings.
Rotten before it is ripe
Chaucer, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Rabelais all wrote about the medlar fruit, which must rot before it is ready to eat.
Ultimate stability
The Gömböc is an object with a very specific trick: no matter how much you push it or tip it over, it will always return to the same position.
Cow opera
Leave it to the Norwegians and Swedes to take a way to call cattle in high mountain pastures and turn it into a genre of music.
Second-fastest animal
Everyone knows that the cheetah is the fastest land animal in the world – but what’s the second-fastest? And why is it so fast?
The Generalist Academy 