The Pavlov’s Dog experiment is among the most famous in the history of psychology. As the story goes, in 1901 Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov observed that if a dog was presented with food, it would begin to salivate in anticipation. If, however, that food was repeatedly presented alongside a separate stimulus – like the ringing of a bell – eventually […]
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It is a classic parenting nightmare: you drop your tiny tot off at the grandparents’ or a friend’s birthday party, hoping to get a few hours’ reprieve from tending to their every shrill, snot-nosed demand. But alas, your plan backfires, for when you return to pick them up you discover that their hosts have filled them up with enough sugary […]
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Imagine, for a moment that the unthinkable has happened. Whether due to nuclear war, climate change, an asteroid impact, or one too many classic 80’s movies being remade, society has utterly collapsed, leaving only a handful of survivors clinging to life amid the rubble of civilization. Every day, you and your loyal – if mildly radioactive – dog set forth […]
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One of the crown jewels of the American National Park system, Yellowstone spans nearly 9,000 square kilometres of northwestern Wyoming – an area of breathtakingly beautiful landscapes including mountains, canyons, lakes, rivers, and geothermal springs. Created by the American government in 1872, Yellowstone contains some of the popular and beloved natural attractions in the United States, such as the Grand […]
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The human body is an odd thing, at incredibly fragile yet at the same time surprisingly resilient. On the one hand, even the most seemingly minor injuries can result in an untimely death. For example, in October 1911, Jack Daniel, founder of the famous Tennessee distillery, entered his office and attempted to open the safe… But the lock proved troublesome, […]
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Agencies like the CIA and MI6 are tasked with collecting and processing data deemed potentially vital to their respective counties’ national interests, and then, in an ideal world, making sure those who need to know this information to inform their decisions and plans know it. In order to do this, they need people on the ground, so to speak. So […]
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Choking the chicken. Shaking out the curtains. Spanking the monkey. Lone Rangering. Polishing the jewel. Shaking hands with the milkman. Celebrating Palm Sunday. Romancing the stone. These are but a few of the colourful euphemisms for what is perhaps humanity’s oldest pastime: masturbation. For much of human history, the act of piloting the Millennium Falcon with Hand Solo has been […]
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More than a century after it struck an iceberg and sank beneath the waves, the Royal Mail Ship Titanic continues to capture the popular imagination. It is a classic fable of ambition, hubris, and the tragic social divisions of the Gilded Age, and has inspired countless books, documentaries, TV programs, and one of the highest-grossing feature films of all time. […]
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On December 14, 1979, a light aircraft of Sabourin Lake Airways disappeared while on an air ambulance flight out of Red Lake, in the Canadian province of Ontario. Aboard were pilot Ken Leishman, nurse Janet Meekus, and patient Eva Harper, an indigenous woman who had broken her hip in a snowmobile accident. So wild and remote was the crash site […]
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When we picture the First World War, we tend to think of the mud and slaughter of the trenches in the fields of Belgium and France. But this is only a very narrow view of the conflict, for true to its name the First World War was very much a world war, with combat taking place as far afield as […]
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Australia is infamous for its abundance of absurdly dangerous wildlife. From highly-venomous brown snakes and funnelweb spiders to giant saltwater crocodiles and great white sharks, nearly everything that slithers, crawls, or swims in the Land Down Under seems perfectly designed to inflict the most horrible death possible. But one Aussie creature stands above the rest, its sting so painful its […]
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At the heart of every nuclear weapon lies the core or pit, a sphere of plutonium the size of a baseball and weighing around 6 kilograms. When a nuclear weapon is triggered, a shell of conventional high-explosive “lenses” wrapped around the core detonates, creating a spherical shock wave that squeezes the core to criticality and sets off the nuclear chain […]
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Over the past 70 years one woman has contributed to countless major medical and biological breakthroughs, advancing our understanding of cancer, haemophilia, and Parkinson’s disease; unlocking the secrets of human ageing; and helping to develop vaccines for polio, measles, mumps, and HPV. She has travelled the globe, rocketed into space, and stood in the path of nuclear bombs – and […]
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If you’ve ever spent any time arguing on the internet, you’ve likely come across a philosophical principle known as ‘Ockham’s Razor.’ Along with ad hominem attacks and comparing people you don’t like to Hitler, Ockham’s Razor is a favourite argument of keyboard warriors everywhere, most often understood as meaning “the simplest argument is most often the correct one.” But where […]
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There are very many things in this world that may kill you – in fact, there is almost nothing that cannot – but can your own senses be a danger to you? Is there a noise loud enough to kill you or can you be so assaulted by a bad smell that you never recover from it? The answer to […]
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Has this ever happened to you? You are presented with something unbearably cute – a baby, perhaps, or a puppy or a kitten – and are suddenly gripped by an overwhelming desire to pinch, squeeze, crush, or even bite the little thing. You clench your hands, grit your teeth, and maybe even let out an audible growl, so overtaken are […]
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The modern sport of classical fencing has come a long way from its origins in the 15th-Century practice of duelling. Over the past 600 years swords became blunted, protective equipment increased, and rules steadily codified to produce a safe, formalized Olympic sport in which serious injuries are rare. But at the same time, another, more brutal form of fencing also […]
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Most of us are familiar with this classic nursery rhyme, while many of us are also aware with its surprisingly dark origins. While on its face “Ring Around the Rosie” may appear to be just a silly song for children, it is, in fact, a chilling description of the Black Death, the outbreak of Bubonic Plague that wiped out nearly […]
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