Damn Interesting

Author: Alan Bellows • Page 20/34

Alan Bellows is the founder/designer/head writer/managing editor of Damn Interesting.
Article:

Phineas Gage’s Brain Injury

In 1848, a twenty-five-year-old construction foreman named Phineas Gage won nationwide fame by way of a hole in his h...
Written by Alan Bellows • 16 Jan 2006 • Read →
Retired:

Handheld Device Detects Movement Through Walls

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) had developed a new handheld device which can detect movem...
Written by Alan Bellows • 14 Jan 2006 • Read →
Article:

The Most Powerful Bomb Ever Constructed

On 30 October 1961, over the island of Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Sea, Soviet scientists detonated the most powerful...
Written by Alan Bellows • 13 Jan 2006 • Read →
Article:

Prepare for Ludicrous Speed

In 1957, German theoretical physicist Burkhard Heim publicly outlined a new idea for spacecraft propulsion. It was ba...
Written by Alan Bellows • 11 Jan 2006 • Read →
Curio/Podcast:

Nuclear Landmines

In 1950s-era Germany, the British forces which had been stationed there after World War 2 were understandably nervous...
Written by Alan Bellows • 10 Jan 2006 • Read/Listen →
Article:

Amputation Fetishism

In the early 20th century, there was a sharp increase in the number of people openly seeking to have one or more of t...
Written by Alan Bellows • 08 Jan 2006 • Read →
Retired:

The Doomsday Clock

There is a clock at the University of Chicago called the Doomsday Clock whose time perpetually lingers just shy of mi...
Written by Alan Bellows • 07 Jan 2006 • Read →
Article:

The Physics of Quicksand

Next time you're traipsing around in a wet, sandy, unfamiliar area, you had best be on your guard for the exotic mate...
Written by Alan Bellows • 05 Jan 2006 • Read →
Curio:

The Intrepid, Ill-Fated Parachutist

On February 4th 1912, an Austrian tailor named Franz Reichelt was at the Eiffel Tower in Paris in order to test his n...
Written by Alan Bellows • 04 Jan 2006 • Read →
Article:

The “Wow!” Signal

It's no rare occurrence in science fiction: The introverted researcher working the graveyard shift at a SETI radio ob...
Written by Alan Bellows • 03 Jan 2006 • Read →
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