Chronostasis To the younger readers out there, the following statement may shock you: in the Dark Ages, clocks were not on phones and their faces contained things other than numbers. Timepieces were, bizarrely, not digital at all. For the vast majority of the existence of clocks, they were mechanical creations of analog wonder. Clocks […]
Sand Batteries Renewable energies – mainly solar and wind – are the future. They undoubtedly make sense, too. Not only will they arrive on an unlimited time scale, but they are safe to harness and free, beyond the initial infrastructure and sporadic upkeep. With current technology and usage, a solar panel the size of Nevada
The Apple II Houses in Doom Town [This article contains very minor spoilers from Season 4, Part I, of Stranger Things. If you haven’t watched it yet and want a completely spoiler-free viewing experience, put this issue aside and come back later. If you’ve already watched the show, read on. If you don’t care about that
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The Shape of Sound The air on our planet is (mostly) transparent. Sound is a mechanical phenomenon. A sound is caused by the pressure changing in a medium, as particles of the medium bump into other particles of the medium. Here on Earth, since that medium is air, it’s kind of hard to see a sound wave. Barring
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How Long Can You Hold Your Breath? Give it a shot. We’ll wait. According to the National Library of Medicine, the average human can hold their breath for 30 to 90 seconds. In the realm of survival skills, the ubiquitous maxim is the Rule of Threes. One can survive three weeks without food, three days
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Miracle Fruit In 1725, French explorer, cartographer, navigator, and slave-ship captain, Chevalier des Marchais noticed something incredible as he journeyed through West Africa. In addition to charting the continent, des Marchais also took a keen interest in the native flora of the region. He noticed the Indigenous people rummaging through forest undergrowth for a particular
Worms in the Rain As temperatures rise, leaves start to peek out of buds, and the critters begin to reclaim the land. April brings precipitation to many spots in North America and warmer, rainy days solicit one creature, in particular: the earthworm. Amble outside during a shower in the spring and you will likely encounter
Chicxulub Geologists recognize five major extinction events since life emerged on our planet. Each of these catastrophic periods wiped organisms from Earth, usually to the tune of more than 75% of all living species at the time. One such occasion, the Permian–Triassic extinction event, eliminated between 90-96% of species from existence! The one most people
Third Man Factor Who is the third who walks always beside you?When I count, there are only you and I togetherBut when I look ahead up the white roadThere is always another one walking beside youGliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hoodedI do not know whether a man or a woman—But who is that
Lunar Lasers Before 13 September 1959, no human-made object had ever touched an extraterrestrial body. On that date, Luna 2, the Second Soviet Cosmic Rocket, impacted the moon. Since then, numerous other spacecraft and various humans have visited our satellite. All told, nearly 500,000 pounds of Earth stuff adorns the surface of the Moon.