Kola Superdeep Borehole
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 24, 2018
It’s hard to imagine that under this small metal cap lies the world’s deepest borehole. Now surrounded by ruins, the Kola Superdeep Borehol...
Showing posts from 2018
Atmospheric Railways: The 19th Century Trains That Ran On Air
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 22, 2018
The 19th century ushered in a new form of transport—railways. Journeys that previously took weeks were now completed in days. Distances that...
Devil’s Tramping Ground
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 19, 2018
In the woods just outside of Siler City, North Carolina, lies a bare circle of earth about forty feet across where nothing grows except for ...
Betsiboka: Madagascar’s Red River
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 19, 2018
This image of the Betsiboka River’s estuary in northwest Madagascar provides tantalizing evidence of catastrophic erosion that has been pla...
Nova Scotia’s Christmas Gift to Boston
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 18, 2018
For nearly half a century, the Canadian province of Nova Scotia has been sending a gift to the people of Boston in the form of a Christmas t...
The Biggest Little Railway in the World
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 17, 2018
Last year, a team of British railway enthusiasts got together to engineer the longest miniature railway journey in the world. The tracks tha...
The Sydney Hospital Built By Rum
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 17, 2018
Two hundred years ago, Sydney was little more than a convict camp in desperate need of infrastructure, supplies and a hospital. The long jou...
William Clark’s Expensive Folly
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 14, 2018
In late 19th century New York, on an avenue dubbed the “Millionaire’s Colony”, there stood an insanely ornate house belonging to the wealthy...
Demon Core: How The Third Nuclear Bomb Destined For Japan Killed a Bunch of American Scientists
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 14, 2018
President Harry S. Truman knew that one bomb would not be enough to force Japan to surrender, so he ordered two. What many don’t know is tha...
A Nature Park in an Abandoned Railway Yard in Berlin
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 13, 2018
For more than a century, the Anhalter Bahnhof was the most important railway station in Berlin. Located at the heart of the German capital, ...
John Lethbridge’s Diving Machine
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 12, 2018
This strange apparatus hanging at the Cité de la Mer museum in Cherbourg, France, looks like some kind of a medieval torture device, but is...
The Tale of The Exploding Whale
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 11, 2018
Beached whales sometimes spontaneously explode due to build up of gases, mostly methane, as the carcass decomposes. Occasionally, whale carc...
The True Story Behind ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 11, 2018
The story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin is well known. This dark European folktale with unsettling themes of ingratitude and terrible vengean...
James Nasmyth’s Fake Lunar Photographs From 1874
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 8, 2018
In 1874, an astronomer and an inventor together published one of the most influential books of the time on lunar geology, titled The Moon: C...
Barbarastollen: The Underground Archive Where Germany’s Cultural Heritage Lives
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 7, 2018
On the western edge of Black Forest, deep into the mountains where miners once quarried for silver, lies Germany’s cultural heritage. It’s h...
The World’s Largest Vacuum Chamber
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 6, 2018
At the 6,400-acre Plum Brook Field Station complex near Sandusky, Ohio, stands five large test facilities operated by NASA to test various a...
San Petronio Basilica: The Church That Ticked The Pope Off
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 4, 2018
Dominating the central square in the city of Bologna is one of the world’s largest church with a unique mismatched façade that has been intr...
The Hitachi Tree of Moanalua Gardens
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 1, 2018
About 5 miles northwest of downtown Honolulu, is a 24-acre privately-owned park called Moanalua Gardens, best known for its annual Prince Lo...
Tarpeian Rock: The Cliff Romans Threw Their Traitors From
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 30, 2018
The ancient Romans used a variety of horrific methods to execute those condemned to death for crimes ranging from rape and murder, to adulte...
Hotel Belvédère: The Iconic Swiss Hotel on The Edge of The Rhone Glacier
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 29, 2018
Located in one of the snowiest regions in Switzerland, the Furka Pass, connecting the cantons of Uri and Valais in the country’s south-centr...
Halifax Gibbet: The Infamous Forerunner to The Guillotine
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 27, 2018
Standing inconspicuously in the middle of an empty plot behind some trees, in the small English town of Halifax, in West Yorkshire, is a fea...
The Boot Monument: How America Remembers Its Most Infamous Traitor
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 27, 2018
At the Saratoga National Historical Park in New York is an American Revolutionary War memorial depicting a single boot sculpted in stone. Th...
The Salt Mining Elephants of Mount Elgon
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 26, 2018
Large herbivores such as elephants often seek out natural mineral deposits such as rocks and soil to supplement their dietary intake of sod...
The Collapse of Marib Dam And The Fall of an Empire
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 26, 2018
Near the ancient city of Marib, in Yemen, lies the ruins of a great dam. Considered to be one of the biggest engineering wonders of the anci...
Wrangel Island: The Island of Polar Bears And Wooly Mammoth
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 22, 2018
Wrangel Island, in the Arctic Ocean, is one of the most remote islands in Russia. Straddling the International Date Line—the boundary where ...
The 4,000-Year-Old Termite Mounds The Size of Britain
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 21, 2018
In the seasonally dry, deciduous forests of northeastern Brazil, obscured by walls of thorny-scrubs, is a vast landscape made up of tens of ...
A Barrel Post Office, Mysterious Disappearances and Moby Dick: The Strange History of Floreana Island
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 21, 2018
The Galapagos islands in the Pacific Ocean were once natural stopovers for 18-century whalers, who were drawn to the remote islands by fresh...
Schwerer Gustav: The World’s Biggest Gun Ever Built
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 19, 2018
Hitler sure had some grand ideas—from mass murdering Jews and conquering Europe, to rebuilding Berlin and draining the Mediterranean sea . ...
“The Miraculous Journey” By Damien Hirst
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 19, 2018
A series of fourteen monumental bronze sculptures chronicling the gestation of a fetus inside a womb, from conception to birth, is one of th...
Why Iceland Imports Ice From Other Countries
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 17, 2018
The name Iceland is a misnomer. In reality, the country is stunningly green, especially during summer, and only about ten percent of Iceland...
The Korean Exam That Brings The Nation to a Halt
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 17, 2018
Every year in November, more than half a million high school students across South Korea sit for the examination of their life—the infamous ...
A Modern Mosque That’s Angering Iranian Muslims
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 15, 2018
The fate of a beautiful, avant-garde mosque in the Iranian capital Tehran hangs in balance as the city decides what to do with the partially...
The Homeless Jesus Sculpture
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 15, 2018
Since 2013, Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz has been placing a particular sculpture depicting a homeless man sleeping on a bench in citie...
Tiny Fairy Houses of Isle of Man
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 15, 2018
Tiny adorable “fairy houses” are popping all over Isle of Man, a small island sandwiched between Great Britain and Ireland, in the past few ...
The Tay Bridge Disaster And The World’s Worst Poem
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 14, 2018
On the night of 28 December 1879, a violent storm lashed across Scotland collapsing an iron bridge that straddled the Firth of Tay and plung...
Drvengrad: A Traditional Serbian Village That’s Actually A Movie Set
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 14, 2018
Two hundred kilometers southwest of Serbia's capital, Belgrade, on Mokra Gora mountain only a few miles from the border with Bosnia and ...
How Solitary Confinement Saved Ludger Sylbaris From The Deadliest Volcanic Eruption
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 13, 2018
At the northern end of Martinique, a French overseas island in the eastern Caribbean sea, stands Mount Pelée, a volcano that famously erupte...
The Paradox of Prince Rupert's Drop
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 12, 2018
Prince Rupert's drop is a glass artifact that exhibits two properties that are the exact opposite of each other—they are extremely tough...
The Mystery of Lady Dai’s Preserved Mummy
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 10, 2018
Believe it or not, this grotesque figure is considered to be one of the world’s best preserved mummies. While her face looks swollen and de...
Dhanushkodi: The Ghost Town Ravaged By Cyclone
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 9, 2018
In the middle of Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka is a small elongated island called Pamban, and it's connected to the Indian pen...
Dutch Prisons Are Being Converted Into Hotels And Apartments Because of Lack of Prisoners
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 8, 2018
The Netherlands has a problem with prisons and prisoners, just like any other country. But while the rest of the world is struggling with ov...
ATLAS-I: The Cold War-Era Facility That Tested The Effects of EMP on Military Aircraft
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 7, 2018
Flying in and out of Albuquerque, in New Mexico, the United States, one can catch a glimpse of a gigantic wooden trestle standing in the mid...
The Buried Village of Al Madam
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 7, 2018
About two kilometers south-west of Al Madam, a small town along the old Dubai-Hatta road, is a spooky little abandoned settlement. It was on...
Brine Pools: The Underwater Lakes of Despair
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 5, 2018
Just like there are waterfalls underneath oceans , there can be lakes on seabed too. One is kept separate from the surrounding body of wate...
Letters of Utrecht: The Endless Poem
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 3, 2018
In the Dutch city of Utrecht, a poem is growing—one letter at a time, every week, for the past six years. Every Saturday, at around one in...
Killer Wasps And Zombie Cockroaches
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 2, 2018
The emerald jewel wasp is a deadly and venomous insect, like all wasps are. Their sting can be excruciatingly painful for humans. Neverthele...
Beijing’s Underground City
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 1, 2018
One of the entrance to the Underground City in Beijing. Photo credit: Scott Sherrill-Mix/Flickr In the late 1950s, relation between the tw...
India Unveils World’s Tallest Statue
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 31, 2018
The controversial Statue of Unity dedicated to India’s first deputy prime minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, was unveiled today at a remo...
Foucault Pendulum And The Pantheon
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 31, 2018
In the old Latin quarter in Paris, stands a magnificent 18th century building—the temple to all the gods, the Pantheon. Originally construct...
The Disgusting Food Museum
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 30, 2018
A new museum aimed to assault the olfactory senses of visitors and churn their stomach opened yesterday in Sweden’s third largest city, Mal...
