When you imagine a researcher who’s gone too deep…
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According to the World Health Organisation, one in four people will suffer from some form of mental or neurological disorder in their lifetime. Michel Siffre was another man who almost lost his mind due to research, as in 1972 he spent six months living alone in an underground Texas cave, but his work may one day help us get to Mars.
How many secrets are kept from you on a daily basis?
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If you were to take a crime count of every illegal act performed by James Bond, Fox Mulder and whatever that broad from Alias was called, I’ll bet these secret agents would have a pretty bad rap sheet. But this is just fiction, right? As genetic testing becomes ever more accessible, it can be tempting to take a peek inside their genetic code to see what’s in there. If you’re chowing down on a truck-stop burrito and you find a few cat’s eggs in there, I doubt you’ll be all that surprised. But did you know that there are certain levels of mouse poo, mould and insect larvae which are acceptable in every single food item? The saddest part of any movie is when a dog gets shot. No arguments, it’s a fact.
Human beings have a limited time here on Earth…..
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In almost every religion and every myth with creation at its heart, there exist one or more supreme beings, and whether they’re immortal hammer gods or sexy water goddesses, they all have one thing in common – they are better than you. And with afterlife myths this goes even further, because not only did they build you and create all that you know, but they also get to decide on where you go when you die.
God was a pretty heavy topic to open with, so let’s take a look at something simpler – fire. The idea of burning for all eternity in a world of fiery pits is commonly attributed to the Christian idea of Hell, but for some reason fire seems to play a role in many different after life myths, despite it being somewhat essential for cultured human beings to exist. We use fire to cook toast, to heat our homes, to light our reefers, but if you see flames after you’ve died, you’re almost certainly in a really bad place.
Another bizarre similarity between many different myths and religions is the idea that the good afterlife is located somewhere high up in the sky, whereas the bad people are sent deep underground to somewhere dark and terrible. Obviously this may have something to do with the fact that underground caves are dark and occasionally terrible, and clouds are super-duper pretty, but is this enough to explain the sheer number of religions who have adopted this idea?
The Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism believe that humans are judged based on their actions during life, after which they’ll be sent to an afterlife which represents their moral purity. If you’ve kept your wiener clean, wore a hat on Thursdays or done whatever other crazy business your god asked of you, you’ll go to the good kind of afterlife. And if not you’ll go somewhere bad, forever.
In both Aztec and Norse religions, the dead move on to either a world of endless war or paradise, depending on the whims of their god or whether they died in battle. Vikings believed that half of those killed in combat would continue to fight alongside Odin after death, whereas the others get to sit in a field and get drunk with the goddess Freyja; but there’s no indication that Norse mythology used morals to determine which afterlife you got. And what’s even more bizarre is that anyone who died from boring stuff like sickness or old age would head off to Hel – that’s Hel with one L – for an eternity of dreariness and drudgery.
Why have all these treasures gone missing throughout the world?
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The religious order of the Knight’s Templar was a powerful group of 12th Century warriors whose wealth enabled them to form the foundations of our modern banking system. They’ve been linked to all sorts of conspiracy theories from the protection of Christ’s bloodline through to the stonemasons and illuminati, but whether or not the Templar’s more fantastical tales are true, what we know for sure is that these guys took home some serious fat stacks.
The Concert by Johannes Vermeer is considered to be the most valuable stolen painting in the world, with an estimated worth of over two hundred million dollars. And with a paltry five million dollars offered as a reward for information regarding its whereabouts, it’s understandable why this painting has been missing for nearly three decades.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were an incredibly significant find when they were discovered in a cave in the mid-20th Century, with these ancient manuscripts being the second-oldest surviving document mentioned in the Bible. However, while the scrolls are of utmost importance to religious folks and historians, the rest of us are more likely to be interested by their mentioning of treasure.
The modern Crown Jewels sported by the always on-fleek Queen Elizabeth the Second are approximately 350 years old, but there have been many different collections known as the Crown Jewels, and the ones we’re referring to actually went missing in the 13th Century. Or did they?
This next entry is certainly an important piece of historical documentation, but it is probably one of the least treasured treasures you’ll ever hear about. The National Archives of America hoards millions of significant papers, and among them were a set of maps drafted by the Army Air Corps.
Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, a.k.a. the grass cutting sword, is the name of a Japanese sword whose legend dates back almost a millennium. There is much folklore surrounding the sword’s origin and what special properties it has, but its most important historical role was its ceremonial use to legitimise the rule of a new Japanese Emperor.
Peking Man was a member of the Homo erectus species who lived between 680,000 and 780,000 years ago. His remains were found in China between 1929 and 1937, and this discovery was of huge significance to human history, as it finally confirmed the existence of the Homo erectus. Before this discovery, the remains of other Homo erectus’ were thought to be nothing more than deformed apes, but this proved otherwise.
The Patiala Necklace was designed by Cartier in 1928, and it comprised of the world’s seventh largest diamond, the DeBeers Diamond, along with 2,930 other less-fancy rocks. This necklace belonged to the Indian Maharaja Sir Bhupinder Singh, who was one of the ritziest and kinkiest royals ever. He used a fleet of Rolls Royces to transport and sweep away garbage in the streets, fathered 88 kids, appeared naked in front of his subjects, took part in orgies and even had his concubines surgically altered to please him.
Universe, space, planets, stars. Is there a limit to our reality?
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Planets, stars, galaxies, clusters, space. The universe as we know it is made up of many different things, much of which we may never be able to understand or even see. But is there a limit to our reality? How far does the universe go? Does it even have an end? And if so, could anything exist outside of that?
As we’re about to find out, the answer to this question isn’t straightforward at all, but let’s give it our best shot in our video which seeks to answer, what lies beyond the edge of the universe.
Imagine if you were to somehow reach the very edge of the known universe. That’s an epic journey of immense proportions for a start, but if you could somehow survive the trip, what would you see? Darkness? Light? Or something else?
One recently developed idea seeks to take us back to the beginning of the universe itself to find an answer. The theory, proposed by Dr Julian Barbour, Dr Tim Koslowski and Dr Flavio Mercati claims that when the big bang created our universe, we were not an only child. Our universe has a twin, and a rather bizarre one at that.
When scientists are attempting to find black holes they don’t do so by looking for them directly, as since they emit no light this would be impossible. Instead, they detect them by observing their effects on surrounding objects such as planets and stars. Black holes are so incredibly powerful that they cause hugely noticeable effects on the light we receive from stars light years away, and the reason this is relevant is because we can also use this method to examine the edges of our own universe.
Let’s scale back from these grandiose theories and explore a theory that’s based on things we know for certain, the things we’ve seen and measured – i.e. the size of the observable universe. We could start this entry by throwing a huge number at you, but that wouldn’t mean much without context. So let’s build up nice and gently. Humans, you are on average 1.6 to 1.7 metres tall. Your typical tree is around ten times that, and the tallest tree in the world is the redwood at over 100 metres high. The tallest man-made object on Earth is the Burj Khalifa at 828 metres, and currently under construction is Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Tower, with this building set to be the world’s first to go beyond a kilometre in height. But that’s nothing compared to Mount Everest, which reaches 8.8 kilometres at its peak.