Most seafaring cultures have sea monster myths or folktales. They are preserved in manuscripts, in the margins of old maps, on the walls of Hindu temples and in the rock carvings of American Indians. Tales tell of monstrous sea gods and their fearsome servants as well as other assorted briny beasts. But is there a drop of truth to any of these tall tales? And how might we find out? Join me as I explore…
The 1894 kinetoscope of Fred Ott sneezing after inhaling a pinch of snuff, taken by Thomas Edison’s laboratory, was one of the first human acts ever committed to film. If you believe the internet rumors concerning the relationship between sneezing and sex, it might also have been the first movie orgasm.
No wonder nasal snuff was so popular for hundreds of years – and small wonder, too, that Pope Urban VIII threatened to excommunicate Catholics who took snuff in church….
Anyone can make a bucket list, but why stop with stuff you want to accomplish while you’re alive? Death offers all kinds of opportunities that life simply cannot match: You can be transformed into a diamond, launched in fireworks, propelled in ammunition, or installed as a permanent part of a coral reef community — none of which I would recommend doing while still drawing breath.
Finally, for those who prefer their final resting place out on the final frontier, there’s the ultimate infrequent flyer plan ….
How Space Burial Works
To Star-stuff We Return: The Space Burial Quiz
Some say the world will end in fire; some say ice. Others prefer to trot out obscure scientific theories. Strange as it might seem, the pole shift hypothesis, in which the Earth’s crust and mantle (or outermost layers) move as one piece, did not spring from the fevered imaginations of the sandwich-board set, but from scientific circles, and it’s rooted solidly in physics.
Of course, that doesn’t mean Hollywood got it right …
Blaise Pascal was the quintessential Renaissance man. After all, how many people have a computer language, a religious argument, a triangle, a mathematical theorem, a law of physics and a unit of pressure named after them? Here was a man who could not only pose a philosophical wager, but also invent the system for calculating its odds and a digital calculator with which to tally the results.
It is unusual for a prodigy to stray so widely and successfully from their first area of excellence, but, as Pascal put it, “The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of.”