La Pascualita, The Corpse Bride
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 16, 2017
Peering out from behind the glass window of a small bridal shop in Chihuahua, Mexico, stands a tall, slender figure dressed in bridal costum...
The Second Life of Wind Turbine Blades
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 12, 2017
As the world pushes towards renewable energy, the wind energy industry comes to the forefront as a clean and a genuinely green energy. And l...
The Frankincense Trees of Wadi Dawkah
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 11, 2017
For more than 5,000 years, the Arabs have traded two highly prized fragrances —frankincense and myrrh— obtained from trees that grow exclusi...
Semaphore: The World’s First Telegraph
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 11, 2017
Smoke signals and beacons have been used to relay messages over short distances since ancient times, but the only reliable way to send messa...
Rosalia Lombardo: The Mummy That Blinks
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 10, 2017
Rosalia Lombardo was only two years old when she died from pneumonia in 1920. Her premature death left her father so heartbroken that he app...
The Museum of Bad Art
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 7, 2017
On rare occasions, a thrift store or a pawnshop can yield items of extreme value, but these are hardly the places you can expect to bump int...
London Necropolis Railway: The Train For The Dead
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 6, 2017
It was a difficult time to be alive in 1848 London, and worse still to be dead. A cholera epidemic had just swept through the city killing n...
The Anti-Communist Dwarves of Wroclaw
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 4, 2017
Scattered throughout the city of Wroclaw, Poland, are hundreds of small bronze statues of dwarves. They began appearing in the streets in 20...
Casey: The Small Town of Big Things
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 3, 2017
At just over two square miles and with less than 3,000 inhabitants, the town of Casey in Illinois might be among the smaller towns of the Un...
The World's Smallest Monuments
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 3, 2017
The Russian city of Tomsk is home to the smallest public monument in the world —a tiny bronze frog, sitting on top of a smooth rock. The scu...
Venice Minus Water
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 2, 2017
For the second year in a row, low tides in Venice have sunk to such record levels that it has left the city almost entirely without water. V...
The Swing of Casa Del Arbol, Ecuador
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 2, 2017
For the past few years, Carlos Sanchez, a volunteer with the Military Geographical Institute, has been assisting a group of a volcanologists...
A Blast From The Past: Episode 31
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 31, 2016
This will be the last post for 2016. Happy New Year to everyone. See you next year. From the archives of Amusing Planet. Kiribati, The Tru...
Jet d'Eau: The Lake Geneva Fountain
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 30, 2016
Since 1891, a gigantic jet of water has been Geneva’s most important landmark. This narrow column of water shooting straight up to a stagger...
The Island in a Lake on an Island in a Lake on an Island
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 30, 2016
Lake Taal on the island of Luzon, in the northern end of the Philippines archipelago, holds a special distinction. It’s one of only two lake...
The Electronic Ears That Listen to Secret Nuclear Tests
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 29, 2016
Twenty years ago, the world's first Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) of 1996, that prohibits nations from conducting any kin...
The Giant Concrete Arrows Across The US
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 28, 2016
In the early 1900s, the fastest way to deliver mail was by rail, but there was a machine that could travel faster than trains, and that was,...
Witley Park’s Underwater Ballroom
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 28, 2016
Between Godalming and Haslemere, in Surrey, near the English village of Witley, once stood one of the most lavish private residences in the ...
Operation Christmas Drop
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 23, 2016
For the last sixty four years the US army has been playing Santa Claus to some 20,000 people inhabiting dozens of tiny Micronesian islands s...
Gävle Goat: The Christmas Goat That Vandals Can’t Keep Their Hands Off
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 23, 2016
Every year for Advent, about a month before Christmas, the town of Gavle, in Sweden, builds a giant Christmas goat out of straw. And every y...
