Author: Ed Hatchet

Nowadays we take colors for granted, but historically they’ve been hard to come by. Pigment-makers have long gone to great lengths to find new hues, and many paints have pretty weird origins. Even today we’re looking to broaden our palette. Meanwhile, we’re exploring entirely new approaches to paint-making that don’t involve pigment at all. From…

Speculation as to what the government might be hiding from us is an easy way to bring a conversation to an end. But very often the truth is stranger than fiction. Here are ten declassified secrets—things our governments actually did then went out of their way to cover up–that make many conspiracy theories look tame.…

You’re no doubt used to sensationalist headlines, especially when it comes to bad science. But you might want to take a deep breath. Because… 10. There’s a “zombie apocalypse” waiting to happen In 1986, British beef was found to be infected with BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) after cattle were fed cows and powdered sheep. Against…

We were going to put together a list of “things the government could be hiding from you,” as a kind of sober take on some of the more plausible conspiracy theories. But, having already done a list of things they actually hid from us, it would have been an underwhelming follow-up. And for no good…

It’s easy, even comforting, to think of history’s tyrants as one-dimensional bad guys. That they may have had emotions and frailties as complex as our own threatens to muddy the narrative. But humanizing the inhuman can really drive home the terrifying reality of their despotic regimes, not to mention their sociopathic capacity for compartmentalization. To…

The English language is replete with curious ancient phrases, many of which have bizarrely unexpected derivations. Others retain their literal meaning while their origins have been obscured, often by erroneous (but entertaining) folk etymologies. The following 10 words and phrases have nothing much in common–except that each falls into one of those categories. 10. Dead…

For many of us Mars represents hope. From scientific discoveries (e.g. living organisms against all the odds) to the promise of colonization, the Red Planet may be key to our survival. Certainly as life on Earth grows steadily more precarious, our second closest neighbor seems to present a viable alternative—even if some think that’s crazy.…

Speculation as to what the government might be hiding from us is an easy way to bring a conversation to an end. But very often the truth is stranger than fiction. Here are ten declassified secrets—things our governments actually did then went out of their way to cover up–that make many conspiracy theories look tame.…

You’ve probably heard of the Philadelphia Experiment. You may also be familiar with the extended Montauk mythos that surrounds it. Both have, after all, spawned several pop cultural adaptations—from The Philadelphia Experiment (1983) to Stranger Things (2016-present). But what you might have missed are the details. From 1931, as the story goes, Nikola Tesla and…

Contrary to popular (and typically arrogant) belief, many animals see the world at least as well as–and very often better than–us humans. Of course, “reality” is always subjective; but as far as sensory input goes, our image of the world is actually far “less complete” than many animals we see as subordinate. Below are 10…

Dolphins may be thought of as “a kind of alien intelligence sharing our planet” and “the closest we’ll come to encountering ET.” Although all species on Earth descend from a common ancestor, humans and dolphins have been on different evolutionary paths for aeons, resulting in the massive differences we see today. As with any animal,…

There are several types of godawful dinner party host–the drunk and domineering, the flustered and fastidious, and of course the plain old terrible cooks, to name just a few. But most guests don’t fear for their lives. History, on the other hand, is replete with examples of a more deliberately sadistic kind–powerful rulers or groups…

On the whole, humans like to eat animals that have suffered—be it “humanely,” in state-of-the-art slaughterhouses, or more “traditionally” in sadistic culinary rites. Examples of the latter abound on every continent, but perhaps none more so than Asia—especially in the vicinity of China. Here are 10 of the worst. (Note: if you’re squeamish, you may want…

Paranoia is more or less mainstream these days, and not without justification. Thankfully, though, a great many fears remain baseless. Paranoid delusions like “someone has stolen my face,” or “everyone knows what I’m doing” are for the most part demonstrably false. They exist at the margins of clinical psychology, affecting only a small handful of…

A word of warning: You’ll need a great deal of time, luck, or perseverance (or all three) for most of these—and for some a kind of callous disregard for the environment (or the law, or both). But it may be heartening to see that, even with most of the natural world portioned off to the…

Humans aren’t the only species to suffer from mental maladies. Although schizophrenia appears to be unique to mankind (perhaps as a social construction), non-human animals exhibit plenty of other psychiatric conditions. And why shouldn’t they? They all suffer to some extent from the consequences of human activity, and many face genocide daily. But what you…

Robin Hood is known the world over as one of England’s best-loved heroes. His legend has been adapted for the screen, both big and small, at least once in every decade (and often multiple times) since the silent era. Yet most people know relatively little about the actual story and historical context, and what they…

For most web users, Google isn’t so much a ‘website’ as the gateway to the internet itself. So let’s get it out of the way: 40,000 search queries per second, 3.5 billion searches per day, and 1.2 trillion searches per year. The most popular searches tend to be for websites on this list, representing some…

0. You shouldn’t call them “gypsies” If you read the title of this list without raising an eyebrow, a political correctness fairy just died—and that’s not necessarily a good thing. For instance, try replacing the word “gypsies” with pretty much any other common racial slur and see if it still looks okay. Yeah… not so…

Highwaymen lived fast and (usually) died young. But they weren’t just any old bandits. While not all of them gave to the poor, they only ever stole from the rich and thus tended to see their crimes (as a lot of the public did too) as essentially morally righteous—or at least no worse than their…

Many of us have grown accustomed to buffoons in positions of power, but historically the jester was a job title. Plucked out of obscurity for making people laugh (whether they actually intended to or not), they held a special place in royal courts and were given “comic dispensation” to say whatever they wished—even, or especially,…

Most of us are probably familiar with Dr. Strangelove, the Terminator series, and (spoiler alert) Planet of the Apes. But as nuclear war movies go, not one of them is genuinely disturbing. Dr. Strangelove, for all its razor-sharp political satire, is still just a comedy, and Terminator and Planet of the Apes are both science…

Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero made headlines recently for claiming he has the ability, right now, to transplant a live human head onto a corpse and successfully reanimate both. Of course, experts dismiss him as a quack (giving a TED talk doesn’t necessarily make you reliable), but few seriously doubt that what he says is theoretically…

Founded in 1611 by Pope Paul V, the Vatican Secret Archives are an ultra-secure repository for the Church’s oldest, most valuable documents. Access has always been limited; even today, only Vatican officials and qualified academics are allowed inside, and only then with a letter of recommendation. And since browsing isn’t permitted, they also need to…