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What is The History of Tattoos?

20 Mar 2017

On a fall day in 1991, two Germans hiking in the Alps near the Italian- Austrian border stumbled across what they initially believed to be a modern corpse frozen in the ice. Once the body was...

Flying High with Aluminum

20 Mar 2017

The date was July 2nd, 1982.

What causes a geyser to erupt?

20 Mar 2017

The science of geyser eruptions was worked out by none other than Robert Bunsen-聽of burner fame. Actually Bunsen did not invent the burner but did improve upon existing equipment by showing that...

Time for the Flu Shot!

20 Mar 2017

Influenza is a nasty illness. It isn鈥檛 just a bad cold. This viral infection kills up to half a million people in the world every year. And that鈥檚 in a good year. In a bad year, like 1968, the Hong...

Why do you never see a baby housefly?

20 Mar 2017

Because baby houseflies don鈥檛 exist. A little backgrounder on the flies鈥 reproductive cycle can clear up this seeming conundrum. Within a week of mating, a doggie-style activity lasting from a few...

The Strange Friendship Between Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

20 Mar 2017

Doyle had become interested in spiritualism in the late 1800s and joined the British Society for Psychical Research (SPR). In 1894 he was one of the members of a committee sent to investigate a...

Welch's Grape Juice

20 Feb 2017

Woodrow Wilson鈥檚 secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan, was ridiculed in 1913 for serving Welch鈥檚 grape juice instead of wine at a dinner honoring the British ambassador. This proved to be...

Chemistry lesson for The Food Babe鈥 and everyone else #17: The Carnation Tragedy of the '30s

17 Feb 2017

Back in the 1930s a flower merchant with a greenhouse full of carnations got worried when the weather forecast called for extremely cold temperatures. So he placed a kerosene burner in the...

Carmine Dye and the Cochineal Insect

15 Feb 2017

At least in a manner of speaking.聽When Hernan Cortez came to America in 1518 he was intrigued by the beautifully coloured Aztec fabrics, particularly the stunning reds.聽He asked the natives about...

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