No one can say when people first started throwing knives, but I’m willing to bet that it was the result of boredom, desperation or an ill-thought-out dare. How we got from there to the Wheel of Death involves a journey from Africa, through the Wild West shows and circuses of the 1800s, and finally to our own backyards.
Knives hardly sail through the air like arrows, but throwing them is not a difficult as it might seem. So grab your weapon of choice and join me as I explain …
Medical research over the past 70 years has shown how the careful chilling of patients can aid resuscitation, save lives and protect neurological function. Most recently, doctors have begun exploring how therapeutic hypothermia can improve patient outcomes in cases ranging from stroke to heart attacks, respiratory problems and injuries to the brain and spinal cord.
By staving off the destructive chain of events that begins when blood and oxygen stop flowing, this treatment also pushes back the customary timeline of brain death. As new, more radical procedures promise to push it back further still, we have to wonder …
The eruption of Krakatau in 1883 is synonymous with cataclysm, and with good reason. Its eruptive power equated to several thousand atom bombs, and it killed around 36,000 people. But compared to the supervolcanoes that nearly wiped out humanity, or that may yet spell global catastrophe, it was a wet squib.
Find out about the magma doom machine buried under America’s oldest national park as I take you on a tour of …
We love dinosaurs, but we never shared the planet with them. Such was not the case with woolly mammoths, which we once hunted, chowed down on, and used for tools and building materials. You don’t see T-Rexes on cave walls, but some of the earliest sculpture and art by human hands depicts these elephantine throw rugs.
Today, their well-preserved remains contain muscle, blood, teeth, bone, tusk and even brain. We’ve recovered and sequenced mammoth DNA, something we’ll never be able to do with dinosaurs. But if all you know about these majestic creatures comes from old Flintstones episodes, then join me as I explore …
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has to walk a fine line. Saving people from the nastiest infectious diseases and bioterror attacks requires that they study those same viruses and bacteria. But even in one of the most carefully controlled and well-equipped facilities on Earth, items are occasionally mishandled or misplaced.
What’s the worst that could happen? It’s not a rhetorical question when we take a tour of …