republished
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The Typo That Destroyed A NASA Rocket
On 22 July 1962, at 9.20pm, the Mariner I sat idly on its platform, ready to make history. After investing years of construction, calculation, and funding, NASA had high hopes that its rocket would successfully conduct a flyby survey of Venus, thus shifting the Space Race’s momentum back to the home front. In every way,…
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11 Machines That Exercise For You, From The Victorian Era To Today
Time was, humans didn’t have to worry much about getting exercise. When we had to kill, gather, grow, or herd our own food, working out happened naturally. Of course, as soon as we figured out how to avoid those laborious chores, we did. Not long after, we had to come up with new ways of…
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That Time A Commercial Aircraft Ran Out Of Fuel Mid-Flight
On July 23, 1983, in the small town of Gimli, Manitoba, Captain Robert Pearson and Co-Pilot Maurice Quintal expertly glided a Boeing 767 carrying 69 people to a safe landing without engines, air brakes or flaps, and minimal control of the aircraft.
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Why Life Before Anaesthesia Made Doctors More Caring
In 1812, the English novelist Frances Burney described her mounting terror as she prepared to undergo a mastectomy without any anaesthetic. Having two hours to wait until the dreaded event (her ‘execution’, as she put it), she wandered into the room where the operation was going to take place and ‘recoiled’. In an effort to…