On Christmas Eve, 1968, nearly a billion people sat glued to their radios and television sets as the crew of Apollo 8 entered orbit around the moon. For three days the world had followed the pioneering mission three live television broadcasts, and they now waited eagerly to hear the historic words of the first humans… Read More »
Football is undoubtedly the most beloved sport around the world. And for American viewers – who associate football with big shoulder pads and helmets – we mean soccer, where the ball is… a ball and the main medium with which is used to play with it are feet. For more on how soccer got that… Read More »
On the first of September, 1939, nearly 1.5 million troops, 2,750 tanks, and 2,300 aircraft of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich stormed over the border into Poland. That same day, Britain and France, bound by treaty to defend Polish sovereignty, issued an ultimatum calling for the immediate withdrawal of German forces. The ultimatum was ignored, and… Read More »
Paul A. asks: Is there really such a thing as human pheromones? Insects, such as the male silk worm using the pheromone Bombykol have long been known to attract mates through pheromones. Moving over to the one humped camel, also known as the Arabian camel and dromedary, of all their adaptations, the grossest is probably… Read More »
On February 14, 1960, Geraldyn “Jerrie” Cobb arrived at the sprawling Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and prepared to make history. At age 30, Cobb was already one of the world’s most accomplished female pilots, having been the first woman to fly the Paris Air Show and holding three world records for speed, distance,… Read More »
Every morning around 7 o’clock, a small army descends upon the Indian port city of Mumbai. Dressed in distinctive white uniforms and topi or Gandhi caps, they fan out across the city’s sprawling suburbs to collect their wares before regrouping at local train stations and streaming down a network of rail lines into Mumbai’s commercial… Read More »
Ever wonder when a hill becomes a mountain? Well, it turns out that language, like the universe, likes to resist simplicity… So the answer is- it’s complicated. But that’s not very interesting, so let’s dive into it shall we? To begin with, turning to our trusty Merriam-Webster Dictionary we have the following definition of a… Read More »
An army, Napoleon Bonaparte once noted, marches on its stomach. No matter how vast its ranks, advanced its weaponry, or brilliant its commanders, a military force full of hungry, malnourished troops is unlikely to be an effective one. The central role of food in combat effectiveness goes beyond merely supplying calories; there is no quicker… Read More »
Somewhere deep in the Amazon, a monkey leaps nimbly through the rainforest canopy, blissfully unaware that it is being hunted. Down below on the forest floor, the hunter lurks patiently in the shadows, stalking its prey, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. When the moment comes, the hunter raises his long bamboo blowgun, places… Read More »
In late 1961, Drs. Philip Vogel and Joseph Bogen, neurosurgeons at the California College of Medicine in Los Angeles, were preparing to carry out a radical new procedure. The patients under their care suffered from severe epilepsy, which despite their doctors’ best efforts had resisted all attempts at conventional treatment. One such patient, a 48-year-old… Read More »
On April 6, 1945, the Imperial Japan launched Operation Ten-Go, a desperate last-ditch naval attack against the Allied fleet supporting the invasion of Okinawa. Supported by the light cruiser Yahagi and eight destroyers, the charge was led by the pride of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the mighty battleship Yamato. A quarter-kilometre long, displacing 65,000 tons,… Read More »