Showing results by author "Lauren Young"

Dr. Alois Pichler was almost always surrounded by books. In 1869, Pichler, originally from Bavaria, became the so-called “extraordinary librarian” of the Imperial Public Library in St. Petersburg, Russia, a prestigious position that gave him a salary three times higher than the average librarian: 3,000rubles. While many librarians have a deep appreciation for books, Pichler was inflicted with a specific irrepressible illness.

James Barry's true identity was a military secret for nearly a century.

In ancient times, tourists and travelers in Greece have gotten into some pretty intense situations. An adventure-seeking traveler would bathe in the river Herkyna, then consume sacrificial meat, wander through a dark cave of Livadeia to seek out the oracle, and emerge “paralyzed with terror and unconscious both of himself and of his surroundings.” And that's just a one-day itinerary.

For some rollercoaster enthusiasts, zooming at high speeds on a looping, twisting track isn’t enough of a thrill. So in recent years, amusement parks have risen to the challenge by adding Virtual Reality into the mix. Now two Six Flags parks in California just upped the ante with an interactive, VR rollercoaster they are calling “Galactic Attack,” reports Steve Dent for Engadget.

Experts tell us what to throw together in case things go seriously wrong.

Jaye Derrick has a special relationship with the television sitcom Friends. Years ago, she began to notice a recurring pattern: whenever she had a fight with her boyfriend she would turn on her television and watch reruns of the popular sitcom. From her sofa in Buffalo, New York, Derrick noticed that Ross, Rachel, Joey, Chandler, Monica and Phoebe were beginning to feel like an extended group of friends.

For a couple years as a Harvard graduate student, Katherine Zink spent a lot of time watching people chew. She would patiently wait while people chomped on crisp vegetables and gummy raw goat meat. Right before they would normally swallow, each person would spit out the food into test tubes for Zink to meticulously splay out for scanning and measuring.

Why scientists during the late 18th and 19th centuries conducted crude experiments with reanimating corpses.

Step one: crush 200 bones into a fine powder.

In the 1920s, the armed robber Celia Cooney unintentionally became a symbol for the women's movement.

Determined and dedicated to the sciences, she dispatched many a vessel to the Arctic.

Thieves employed monkeys to rob the wealthy of their coiffures.

While effective, the invention never quite took off.