The European Union is as suspicious as ever when it comes to food stuffs containing chemicals, unnatural dyes, and meat treated with synthetic growth hormones. Since 1981, the EU has had stringent rules for the importation of food to its markets, and those rules have only gotten stricter with time. In 1989, it banned as…
Author: Eric Malikyte
Archaeology has uncovered many secrets from the ancient world. But the Earth has a bad habit of eroding the past, making it difficult to piece together the stories of our ancestors. In the past couple of centuries, we’ve discovered Roman artifacts in the Americas, found ancient Greek cities in what was once thought to be…
Humans have believed all kinds of strange things throughout our short time on this planet. This is, in part, because humans (and our evolutionary ancestors) love stories. We gather around campfires and invent entire mediums, industries, and technologies to aid in their telling. But on the other hand, humans have always had a deep need…
Through technological advancement and good old-fashioned human stubbornness, much of the Earth has been mapped and human boots have touched down on virtually every continent, island, desert, forest, and icy plane… or have they? It might surprise some people to learn that there are still vast areas of the Earth left uninhabited, explored, or even…
From swashbuckling buccaneers, shrewd British Royal Navy officers, bitter salt pork, to climactic battles and wars for succession and control of the Caribbean, the Age of Sail is full of historically significant events, and so, so much scurvy. It lasted from the year 1571 to 1862 and is sometimes called the Age of Scurvy thanks…
The officers belonging to the New Scotland Yard have tackled some of the world’s most famous murder cases, including Jack the Ripper, the Croydon Poisonings, motiveless murders, brutal mutilations, and so much more. Many of their most famous cases have gone completely unsolved, baffling detectives. Here are 10 of the most famous cases, investigated by…
It saw the birth of Jazz, Prohibition, and a surging economy fueled by mass consumerism. It also redefined arts and culture with the Harlem Renaissance and helped to lay the foundation for the further expansion of women’s rights. But the overconfidence of the American people in their bustling and busy economy in the ’20s would…
The mysteries surrounding Antarctica have captured the imagination of the world. Since sailors spotted it in the early 19th century and its official discovery in 1821, the inhospitable desert of Antarctica has fueled scientific research and collaborative efforts between a multitude of nations. But the continent of Antarctica is home to a host of surprising…
In recent months, new research has come out suggesting that our historical love affair with Mars as a potential second home isn’t going to work out. From technological challenges related to radiation, gravity, water production, and human physiological and psychological problems that might arise due to prolonged isolation, it very much looks like Mars isn’t…
Although Space-X President Elon Musk has big plans for settling the red planet, boasting of big rockets, nuclear explosions, and an expansive system capable of transporting hundreds of thousands of people off-world, he may have to rethink those plans. Key figures at NASA (such as Wernher von Braun) have also championed Mars as a next…
It was once thought that our Solar System was fairly normal. We modeled our planetary accretion disk theory around the idea that gas giants formed on the outer edges of a planetary dust cloud and rocky ones formed closer to the sun. However, exoplanetary systems have completely blown this idea out of the water, and…
Despite what some people may tell you, a scientific theory is an explanation of the natural world which has repeatedly been substantiated by scientific experiments and evidence. They’re incredibly difficult to “disprove.” Gone are the days when humans thought that vermin spontaneously generated atop the surfaces of open food bowls, but every once in a…
A global catastrophic risk is a hypothetical future event which could lead to the destruction of modern civilization, mass extinction, or the destruction of the planet entirely. Earth’s geological record is filled with asteroid impacts, climate shifts, ice ages, super volcanoes, and extinction–lots of extinction; but the greatest risk to life may not come from…
Like Great Cthulhu, who lies dead and dreaming in the sunken city of R’lyeh, or the nuclear chaos–the blind idiot god–Azathoth, in HP Lovecraft’s stories and other cosmic horror stories, the universe is home to planets and celestial objects that defy our expectations and exhibit truly horrific environments–where humankind was surely never meant to voyage.…