According to the Doomsday Clock, it’s 100 seconds to midnight. Created in 1947, the clock is a symbolic representation of how close humanity is to destroying the world. The furthest it has ever been from midnight was seven minutes, which is where it started when fear of nuclear war was the inspiration behind the project.…
Author: Ian Fortey
Google Maps has changed the way we see the world by literally letting us see the world. You can use your computer to see virtually every corner of the planet displayed in clear photographs. But not every place is open to such scrutiny. A handful of locations have been obscured from view, some potentially for…
It’s never easy to prove a negative, so there’s no way to know exactly how many species in the world have yet to be discovered, simply because they have yet to be discovered. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make guesses and some estimates suggest upwards of 86% of all species on Earth have yet…
War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. And to drive that point home with some stark consistency, these are 10 of the most pointless wars that have ever been waged, 10. The Pastry War Most wars are named in a way that gives you an incline about what they were about or at least…
History has presented us with countless mysteries, some of which plague us to this day. What was Jack the Ripper? What happened to the Ark of the Covenant? Was Atlantis real? But other mysteries have proven easier to crack, in particular ancient codes and ciphers that people devoted years to solving, allowing us to catch…
The modern world has made life pretty easy for most of us. When’s the last time you had to worry about a bear eating you? Or dying of dehydration in a desert? It still happens, sure, but not to most of us. But what if it did happen? Would you know how to survive if…
Status symbols are some of the hardest to understand aspects of any culture or society. What makes any given thing a symbol of importance? Is a rare NFT of a cartoon monkey really indicative of anything? What about a Ferrari? Truth is, status symbols have always been pretty mysterious and weird. Just look at these……
Around 71% of the Earth is covered by the oceans. That works out to around 320.3 million cubic miles of water. That’s a lot of water. So it’s no surprise that the oceans hide countless mysteries and marvels. Some of them are far more amazing than others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUUboG3K40c This is an encore of one of…
History is like science in many ways. It seeks to explain the truth, but must be open to new information. Sometimes what we think we know isn’t true at all, and that’s okay. The result is that we all get to be blown away when we discover that we’ve learned everything wrong and delighted or horrified…
The first use of special effects in film dates all the way back to 1895 with the Execution of Mary Stuart. The director came up with a way to make the character appear to have her head cut off on screen and from that moment on, directors and effects experts have been coming up with…
Few things are more embarrassing than realizing you don’t know the name of a coworker or an acquaintance and have been calling them the wrong thing. It’s an innocent enough mistake, but it makes you feel a little silly when it happens. Turns out it’s a very common mistake people make, and it’s not just…
Actors are a different sort of people once they get to the big leagues of Hollywood. They can make tens of millions playing pretend for a few months. That’s not a lifestyle most of us will ever understand. And it seems to go to the heads of some actors who put some questionable demands on…
The living world is full of weirdness. Just look at goblin sharks and platypuses. Biology can account for a whole lot of why things are the way they are, but every once in a while something happens that leaves biologists shrugging their shoulders. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5r024wLIgE This is an encore of one of our previous lists, as…
The human body is a weird and wonderful thing. Sometimes we seem soft and malleable compared to all the other creatures in the world. We’re not well designed for life in the wild, and our young can’t take care of themselves for years, compared to some animals which can be up and running around within…
Space isn’t just the final frontier, it’s a vast expanse of weirdness. From black holes, to dark matter, to white dwarfs, and brightly colored nebulas that a human couldn’t travel across in 1,000 lifetimes. The full breadth of the infinite beyond is something we will literally never fully know or understand. But what we already…
Celebrity is a powerful force in the world. Whatever it is about an actor, a writer, or a singer that makes them appeal to us can really alter someone’s perception in a strange way. Some fans will be willing to forgive their favorite celebrity of anything, or just believe that they could never do anything…
About a hundred years ago, the technology of the world was decidedly different than it is today. Automobiles for the average citizen were just becoming commonplace, TV had yet to be invented, and the idea of the internet would have sounded like madcap witchcraft to even the most astute scientist. But for all the advances…
Traveling is one of those unique and unusual experiences for a lot of people that mixes pleasure and pain in equal amounts. Everyone likes being on vacation, but few people like the process of getting to a vacation spot. And airports, by and large, are massive stressors. There are huge crowds, deadlines, security, the threat of getting…
Once nuclear power’s potential was clear, ideas were generated in all areas for how it could best be used. Obviously, we ended up with nuclear power and nuclear weapons, but nuclear subs were an early idea as well. They were pitched as far back as 1939. They started working on reactors in the mid-1940s and…
We live in an age in which France is lining up flying taxis to help people navigate the next Olympic games and several world governments have stated plans to land a human on Mars within the next decade or so. It’s no wonder, then, that with this level of technology at our fingertips, people have…
The modern prison system has been criticized all around the world. There are few countries that couldn’t benefit from some kind of prison reform. That said, at the very least most modern prisonsdon’t hold a candle to those of the past. In a bygone era, sometimes one that was only a few years ago, many…
Fire is terrifying and devastating at the best of times. For all the good it’s done mankind, it’s never been all that easy to control, especially when it starts unintentionally or maliciously. We do our best to prepare for fire and we have tools and techniques to stop it quickly, but the road to the…
The unofficial USPS creed has long been “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” It basically means the weather isn’t going to stop the mail. But that was just normal weather they were talking about. Even the best postal delivery person…
Cancel culture is the hottest thing in the world right now. We’re “canceling” stuff left and right, if the internet is to be believed. But it turns out the world has a long history of taking things that are inoffensive and meaningless and then banning them totally and with little to no reason whatsoever. 10.…