Biosphere 2: The $150 Million Glass World That Unraveled
Picture eight people sealing themselves inside a $150 million, three-acre glass terrarium meant to be a perfect backup for Earth. Within months the trees collapse for lack of wind, cockroaches take ov...
27 Kesä 24min
The Library of Alexandria: The Myth of the Great Fire
The fiery destruction of the Library of Alexandria, setting human progress back a thousand years in a single blaze, is one of history's most cinematic tragedies. It is also largely a lie. The real sto...
27 Kesä 21min
Galloping Gertie: Why the Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapsed
In November 1940, the third-longest suspension bridge in the world tore itself apart in a 42-mph wind, twisting like a ribbon before plunging into Puget Sound. The disaster involves economic desperati...
27 Kesä 18min
The Defenestrations of Prague: Murder, Windows, and War
Surviving a 70-foot plunge from a castle window, an argument over a single letter, and an act of mob violence that triggered a catastrophic 30-year continental war. It sounds like a fantasy novel, but...
27 Kesä 21min
The Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic: Mass Hysteria Explained
It started with three schoolgirls in a classroom in 1962 and spread until it forced 14 schools to close and incapacitated over a thousand people. But this was not joyful laughter. The victims suffered...
27 Kesä 22min
Tardigrades: The Tiny Water Bears That Survive Anything
Picture an animal that has survived all five mass extinctions, shrugs off temperatures near absolute zero, withstands being shot from a gun, and keeps going after a trip into the freezing vacuum of ou...
27 Kesä 24min
The Mummy's Curse: How a Canary, a Mosquito and the Media Built a Myth
You disturb a pharaoh's sealed tomb and trigger an ancient supernatural defense mechanism. It's one of history's most famous booby traps, but what if the curse isn't ancient Egyptian at all? What if i...
27 Kesä 18min
Bhopal: Anatomy of the World's Worst Industrial Disaster
Just past midnight on December 3, 1984, workers at a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India return from a tea break. Within five minutes a concrete slab cracks open and 40 tons of deadly gas, heavier than a...
27 Kesä 24min
