Soda Locomotives
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 29, 2019
An interesting type of locomotive engine that found very brief and limited use in Europe, as well as in America, was the soda locomotive. ...
The Submarine Sunk By Her Own Torpedo
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 28, 2019
The U.S. Navy submarine USS Tang off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, December 1943. Photo credit: U.S. Navy Throughout the Second W...
The Crinkle-Crankle Walls of Suffolk
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 28, 2019
A crinkle-crankle wall is an unusual type of garden wall found in the East Anglia region of east England, but popular mostly in the county...
Reindeer’s Eyes Change Color With Seasons
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 25, 2019
All animals, including humans, can adapt their eyes to the changing level of light. In dark conditions, muscles in the irises contract to di...
The White Volcanoes of Harrat Khaybar
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 25, 2019
Of the millions of pilgrims that visit the holy city of Medina, in Saudi Arabia, every year to pray in the Prophet’s Mosque, few people are ...
The Goiânia Radiological Accident
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 24, 2019
A radiation therapy unit in a hospital. Photo credit: Thomas Hecker/Shutterstock.com Radioactive isotopes have a very niche use in medicin...
Rotary Jails
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 23, 2019
Some problems require ingenious solutions. The rotary jail was not one of them. Designed by two American engineers, William H. Brown and Be...
Carl Wilhelm Scheele: The Unlucky Chemist
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 22, 2019
You know Bad Luck Brian. Now let me tell you about Hard-Luck Scheele. Carl Wilhelm Scheele was born in 1742 in Stralsund, in present day Ge...
The Cavern of Lost Souls
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 22, 2019
Just how difficult can it be to tow an old car to the junkyard to be dismantled, crushed and recycled? Too much, if you ask the council of C...
Bayan Obo: The Chinese Mine That Makes All Gadgets Possible
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 19, 2019
In the image above , captured by NASA’s Terra satellite in June 2006, we see some deep scars in the desert—the result of nearly sixty years...
A Natural Land Bridge on The Moon
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 17, 2019
On the morning of July 29, 1953, John J. O'Neill, science editor of the New York Herald Tribune turned his telescope, a 4-inch refracto...
The World’s First Skyscraper
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 15, 2019
The word “skyscraper” was used to describe a tall building for the first time during the construction boom that rippled across many America ...
Port Arthur And The Convict Tramway
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 15, 2019
In the middle of the 19th century, Tasman Peninsula, on the southeast coast of Tasmania, became home to one of Australia's most dreaded ...
Disposable Ships
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 12, 2019
Before the Industrial Revolution, the British shipbuilding industry was completely dependent on the countries around the Baltic Sea for timb...
The Spiral Hives of Sugarbag Bees
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 10, 2019
Not all bees sting. There are about five hundred bee species out of twenty thousand that have lost that ability, but they do exhibit other d...
Chinese Medicine Dolls
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 10, 2019
For hundreds of years until the early 20th century, getting medical help for a Chinese woman was tricky. In those times the Chinese placed e...
Bouvet Island: The Uninhabited Island With Its Own Top-Level Internet Domain
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 8, 2019
As far as islands go, Bouvet is pretty insignificant—a speck of rock located in the South Atlantic Ocean over 1,600 kilometers off the coast...
An Incredible Move: The Indiana Bell Telephone Building
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 7, 2019
The relocation of the headquarters building of Indiana Bell Telephone Company in Indianapolis remains one of the most fascinating moves in t...
Shadwell Forgeries: How Two Illiterates Fooled Victorian Archeologists
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 5, 2019
During the middle of the 19th century, London’s antiquarian market was flooded by the sudden arrival of a large number of supposedly mediaev...
Megapode Egg Fields
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 2, 2019
Most birds incubate their eggs with body heat, but not megapodes, a chicken-sized bird with heavy body, short rounded wings and large, stron...
