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What mysteries rest at the bottom of the sea? Which embody nature’s vast diversity and which tell the tale of humanity’s darker tendencies?
In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Julie and I look to the thousands of vessels lost beneath the waves and the things that linger in their rusting hearts: lost seamen, forgotten oil and radioactive payloads that threaten the surrounding ecosystems.
Wow, so Russian media giant Pravda ran one doozy of a story yesterday, claiming that between 1936 and 1941 the Soviet Union marched 300 young volunteers through a super soldier program that saw gold electrodes implanted in their brains and titanium implants inserted in place of limb bones. In theory, the neural implant shut down the soldier’s pain centers and the titanium limbs protected against various forms of battle damage.
You can’t play this kind of game without impacting the environment. As reported over at New Scientist, a new study reveals how the contrails of WW2 bomber aircraft affected climate. Contrails of course are the white trails left behind by soaring aircraft, and as you might imagine fleets of bombers practically painted the skies over Europe.
Blast from the past – How the B-17 “Flying Fortress” Worked
by Marshall Brain | March 1, 2011
The B-17 “Flying Fortress”. It is a classic bomber from the World War II era. It was able to carry 4,500 to 8,000 pounds of bombs depending on the distance to the target. Here is a nice introduction: Top Ten Bombers- B-17 Flying Fortress Each B-17 flew with 10 crewmen who worked together as a [...]
Blast from the Past – The M3 Grease Gun vs. the M1A1 Tommy gun
by Marshall Brain | February 17, 2011
If you’ve watched gangster films, you’ve seen a “Tommy gun”. A Tommy gun is officially known as the M1A1 Thompson submachine gun. It is called a submachine gun because it fires pistol cartridges rather than rifle cartridges. In most cases, a Tommy gun fired .45 caliber bullets, but could also handle 9mm bullets by changing [...]
World War II ended in 1945 — 65 years ago. But even by today’s standards, the technology displayed in the war was breathtaking. We have talked about several pieces of individual technology from that war, for example: – The V-1 Buzz Bomb – How Bombsights Work Here is a fascinating collection of infographics that will [...]
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