Science
The Tumpline Hypothesis
The great houses of Chaco Canyon (New Mexico) were built around 1000 years ago, using the wood of over 200,000 trees. However, the trees were about 70 miles away from the houses. So how did the Chacoans get the wood to the construction site? There's no archaeological evidence the wood was dragged, and the Chacoans had no draft animals or wheels.According to the Tumpline Hypothesis, the Chacoans used tumplines, which are straps that go over the head and can be used to carry heavy weights. From Ars Technica:
Posted By: Alex - Tue Apr 25, 2023 -
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Category: Science, Anthropology, Experiments
A comparison of teflon and plastic
From the Hagley Archive's collection of DuPont Product information photographs.Definite industrial chemist as dominatrix vibe.
An explanation:
A photo of another chemist doing the same thing, but it doesn't have the same vibe to it:
Posted By: Alex - Sun Mar 26, 2023 -
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Category: Mad Scientists, Evil Geniuses, Insane Villains, Photography and Photographers, Science, 1940s
The Family That Walks On All Fours
Full article here.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Mar 03, 2023 -
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Category: Human Marvels, Medicine, Regionalism, Science
Ballads for the Age of Science
The whole playlist is here.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Jan 21, 2023 -
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Category: Education, Science, Vinyl Albums and Other Media Recordings, Children, 1960s
Noses
Read it here.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Jan 20, 2023 -
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Category: Body, Science, Psychology, Self-help Schemes, 1950s
Captain Entropy
The creator's Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Dec 24, 2022 -
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Category: Drugs, Education, Music, Science, Children, Bohemians, Beatniks, Hippies and Slackers, 1970s
The Crocker-Henderson Odor Classification System
In the early twentieth century, odor researchers Ernest Crocker and Lloyd Henderson created a classification scheme that allowed them to number and catalog every smell in the world. Kind of like a Dewey decimal system for smells. Every different odor was assigned a four-digit code.Their system was based on the premise that every smell is a combination of four "primary odors." So the four-digit code was created by judging and listing the relative strength of each primary odor.
The problem was that judging the relative strength of each primary odor in any one smell turned out to be a very subjective process. Other people struggled to replicate the numbers that Crocker and Henderson came up with. So their system was never adopted by other researchers.
More info: NadiaBerenstein.com
Posted By: Alex - Tue Nov 15, 2022 -
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Category: Science, Smells and Odors
The Acoustics of Miniskirts
October 1969: UCLA Professor Vern O. Knudsen assembled ten young women wearing miniskirts in a reverberation chamber and fired a blank cartridge from a pistol. He did this to prove his hypothesis that bare legs revealed by a miniskirt will reflect more sound than legs covered by a long skirt.His hypothesis confirmed, he warned that miniskirt wearers might disturb the carefully engineered balance of sound in concert halls by reflecting more sound. He noted: "We must be acoustically thankful that they don't wear bikinis."
Rock Island Argus - Oct 29, 1969
Orangeburg Times and Democrat - Oct 29, 1969
Oddly enough, this wasn't the first time a scientist had warned of the acoustic danger of short skirts. Back in 1929, Colgate University Professor Donald A. Laird had issued a very similar warning: "He quoted scientific reports to prove that shortening of women's skirts has added to noise by removing some sound deadening surface."
San Bernardino County Sun - July 4, 1929
Related posts: Miniskirts for road safety, Nun in a miniskirt
Posted By: Alex - Thu Nov 03, 2022 -
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Category: Fashion, Science, Experiments, 1960s, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Unlikely Reasons for Murder No. 11
In 1952, a schizophrenic with an eccentric theory of physics murdered a random person.“Have they dropped the electronic theory?” he asked her.
“I don’t know anything about it,” she replied.
Before she could say more, he fired the gun at her.
“I just wanted to kill somebody,” he told police. “I was going to shoot anybody. It was my book. They wouldn't look at my book. They wouldn't even look at it."
Peakes had done the calculus: Shooting people gets you in the papers. And if you shoot physicists because they rejected your theory, your theory gets in the papers.
Full account here.
The initial coverage below.
Article source: The South Bend Tribune (South Bend, Indiana) 15 Jul 1952, Tue Page 1
Posted By: Paul - Wed Nov 02, 2022 -
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Category: Death, Science, Scary Criminals, 1950s, Mental Health and Insanity
One Step Beyond: The Sacred Mushroom
Here is the Wikipedia page for the show, which has a section on this episode.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Oct 04, 2022 -
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Category: Drugs, Psychedelic, Science, Television, 1960s, Natural Wonders
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |