Posts Tagged: ‘fire’
A New Theory of Human Evolution: Come and Get It
by Josh Clark | December 28, 2009
Who exactly was the first person to realize that one could pluck an unfertilized egg from beneath a hen, crack it and spill its contents into a hot pan and eat it? What was the context where the event took place? It wouldn’t appear to be starvation, as one might imagine the person would have just eaten the chicken, unless of course it was a starving person with such tremendous foresight as to first test his curiosity before proceeding with the chicken slaughter.
Fire Starts in 1962, Never Burns Out
by Amanda Arnold | October 13, 2009
Sometimes in this blog, we’ll tell you about places you should visit. And sometimes we’ll tell you about places where you might get swallowed by a pit of fire.
Today, we’ll do the latter. Welcome to Centralia, a mostly abandoned town in east-central Pennsylvania. In 1962, a coal mine caught fire, and the flames spread through the mine shafts and tunnels beneath the town. Efforts to extinguish the fire failed — forevermore. The fire still rages today and is expected to rage for another 250 years.
For two decades, people remained in the town, ignoring the burning inferno beneath. But in February 1981, a scary thing happened. A kid who was playing in his backyard noticed a hole opening in the ground, walked toward it and then tumbled into it. Fortunately, he grabbed onto a tree root and his cousin pulled him to safety. Otherwise, he would have fallen into a hot pit of poisonous carbon monoxide.
As winter approaches the humidity drops, and this makes static shocks more likely. In your house a shock when you touch a door knob is harmless, but static discharge takes on a whole new meaning at the gas station, as demonstrated below: This video shows exactly what can happen. The woman gets out of her [...]
When you put a fresh piece of wood on a hot fire, volatile organic carbons in the wood evaporate, creating smoke. Learn more about smoke in this Brainstuff podcast.
PhosCheck is a long-term fire retardant that firefighters deploy from planes when combating forest fires. Learn more about PhosCheck in this HowStuffWorks podcast.
Recent Postings by Category
BrainStuff
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The Coolest Stuff on the Planet
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Keep Asking
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- What happens to our sun once it runs out of fuel?
- How do we know the age of the universe?
Stuff Mom Never Told You
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- How the Kinsey Report Fueled Whiskey Sales
- How to Get Your Wedding Announcement into The New York Times
Stuff to Blow Your Mind
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Stuff You Should Know
- Stuff You Should Know at SXSW
- The Southern Death Cult, the Maya and Georgia
- Deformed Baby Spider Brains
The Stuff of Genius
CarStuff
- Listener Mail: What’s the world’s largest engine?
- Listener Mail: What makes a “classic car” classic?
- Was Chrysler’s “It’s Halftime in America” Super Bowl commercial a little too political?
How-to Stuff
- How to Enjoy the Fruits of Your Labor
- How to Travel the World in 4 Days
- How to Smell Like Someone at HowStuffWorks
PopStuff
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 69: Perfume: The Culture of Scent
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 68: Astrology: What’s PopStuff’s Sign?
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 67: Collecting: PopStuff’s Cabinet of Curiosities
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
- Good News from the Oldest Mayan Calendar
- One Year Later: Colony Collapse Disorder
- Who Killed Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Stuff to Change the World
- Who will own the Arctic?
- Obesity: The New Global Crisis
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Stuff You Missed in History Class
- Butch Cassidy: Should we read between the lines?
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