As with many of man’s great achievements (or is that blunders?), it all began with the wine. In this case, however, it was actually the glasses and their capacity to produce sound. Wet your fingers then rub them over the ridge of the goblet and (after a few minutes of frustration) a high pitched tone will fill the room at a loudness unexpected from such a gentle motion. It’s a surprising sound – a clear pitch with a gentle vibrato that, while emanating from the glass, seems to surround you as the sound bounces off the walls of the room.

The first time that musicians took advantage of the musical properties of glass bowls was in the mid-1700s, when performers created music using a collection of glasses filled with varying levels of liquid to alter pitch. Benjamin Franklin first heard a glass bowl piece while in Europe as an ambassador and loved what he heard. However, he noticed a fundamental problem with the setup – it’s very difficult to play complex music on fifty glass bowls on a table. He decided to make a much more practical method of creating music from glass. Always the inventor, he succeeded in creating a much more elegant instrument: the glass armonica, an instrument of ingenious design that eliminates the need for tuning as well as allowing a musician to easily play melodies and chords. Franklin’s invention took Europe by storm, and the glass armonica was in such high regard that some said it was more popular than the violin.

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This is a classic Damn Interesting article, originally published on 22 December 2005

Popular culture makes gratuitous use of powerful lie-repelling agents known as Truth Serums. They are usually depicted as injected drugs which strongly inhibit a subject’s ability to lie, causing him or her to mechanically recite the truth to an interviewer upon questioning.

Such drugs have been utilized by some of the three-letter government agencies in the not-so-distant past (CIA, FBI, DOD, KGB, etc.), particularly during the rampant paranoia of the Cold War. And in the aftermath of 9/11, there was some discussion on the idea of bringing them back into use for interrogation. But are these truth serums effective? Do they produce any useful results?

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The Ford Nucleon concept carDuring the 1950s, much of the world was quivering with anticipation over the exciting prospects of nuclear power. Atomic energy promised to churn out clean, safe electricity that would be “too cheap to meter.” It seemed that there was no energy problem too large or too small for the mighty atom to tackle during the glorious and modern Atomic Age.

It was during this honeymoon with nuclear energy– in 1957– that the Ford Motor Company unveiled the most ambitious project in their history: a concept vehicle which had a sleek futuristic look, emitted no harmful vapors, and offered incredible fuel mileage far beyond that of the most efficient cars ever built. This automobile-of-the-future was called the Ford Nucleon, named for its highly unique design feature… a pint-size atomic fission reactor in the trunk.

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This article was written by Zack Jordan, one of our shiny new Damn Interesting writers.

The Atlantic Cable – The Eighth Wonder of the WorldIn the grand old year of 1492, Christopher Columbus set out from Spain with a fleet of three tiny ships. His journey began in August of that year, but it was March of the next before the Old World heard from Columbus again. Time taken: nearly eight months.

Over a century later, in September of 1620, the Mayflower departed England on its historic voyage to the New World. In May of 1621, it returned, bearing news of a (relatively) successful mission. Total time taken: more than nine months.

Over two centuries after the Mayflower, in 1850, the western world was in a state of dynamic change. The Industrial Revolution was in full swing, and the world was optimistic. The first railroads had been operating profitably for over a decade, steamships plied the rivers and coasts of America and Europe, and a network of telegraph wires had spread across territory on both sides of the Atlantic. Where once it had taken weeks to transmit news across hundreds of miles of land, it now took minutes. The world, it seemed, had shrunk. And between the two continents, where once it had taken months to deliver news, it now took… months. Nineteenth-century communications had hit a brick wall; the fastest way to get a message across the Atlantic was still floating and steam-powered, and it looked like things were going to stay that way unless someone was willing to take some huge risks.

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The Bullet Nebula in Visible and X-Ray LightFor all that mankind has learned through science, the Universe has so far managed to keep most of its secrets. For instance, we don’t know where the Universe came from, what its fate will be, or even its most basic composition.

But over the last few decades, tantalizing clues and some very intelligent guesswork led astronomers to an astounding hypothesis: the ordinary matter that stiffens our bones and fuels our suns plays only a bit part in the grand epic of existence. Astronomers now believe that for every kilogram of normal matter like atoms, electrons, and quarks there are five kilograms of dark matter.

Very recently, astronomers announced what many had thought impossible, the direct observation of the existence of dark matter. Billions of years ago, two galactic superclusters collided. The collision occurred at a relative velocity of over a million miles per hour. Not since the Big Bang itself has the known universe experienced so violent an event. The aftermath of this collision offered what may be a once-in-Creation opportunity to finally “see” dark matter itself.

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At the height of the Cold War, the US Central Intelligence Agency was willing to try just about anything to gain an advantage over the dreaded Communists. The agency considered using exploding cigars or seashells to remove Cuban leader Fidel Castro; they employed psychics to attempt “remote viewing” of Russian military secrets; and the CIA even put the Soviets on the business ends of clairvoyant minds to attempt mind-control.

One of the CIA’s most bizarre Cold War efforts was Operation Acoustic Kitty. In declassified documents from the CIA’s super-secret Science and Technology Directorate, it was revealed that some Cold-War-era cats were surgically altered to become sophisticated bugging devices. The idea was that the cats would eavesdrop on Soviet conversations from park benches, windowsills and garbage containers. The cat was meant to just stroll up to the sensitive conversations, completely unnoticed. The clandestine cat’s electrical internals would then capture and relay the audio to awaiting agents.

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Black Hole in M81To many it seems unlikely that a universe could spring into being from chaos, and achieve a level of organization advanced enough to allow for life—let alone intelligence. After all, if an electron were only twice the size that it is, chemistry as we know it couldn’t exist. If the Strong and Weak nuclear forces were out of proportion, stars mayn’t work. Over the centuries a number of theories have cropped up to try to explain life, the universe, and everything, but almost none propose to explain how it all came together. As with many problems that are too grandiose to grapple, however, sometimes it’s best to start on a smaller scale.

Evolutionists and naturalists have long observed Earth’s “natural selection” where most creatures create offspring with slightly different characteristics than their own. Those with characteristics better suited to the environment will thrive, procreate, and pass on their heritage; whereas offspring less suited will wither, reproduce less, and their traits will fade and vanish.

Theoretical physicist Lee Smolin looked at the simple, functional elegance found in the the theory of natural selection, and thought that maybe such a concept could be applied on a universal scale. Thus the theory of Cosmological Natural Selection was born.

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This is a classic Damn Interesting article which was originally published on 30 September 2005.

A few years ago, researchers at NASA fried up several chunks of vat-grown fish meat in a little olive oil, garlic, lemon and pepper, and remarked on it’s striking to similarity to real fish (without going so far as tasting it). These scientists had successfully coaxed a few small chunks of fish muscle to grow inside a vat of nutrient-rich liquid, marking a scientific first.

Their aim was to develop a means for astronauts to produce edible meat for use on long voyages, such as a trip to Mars. Vat-grown meat offers a good source of protein, and would be a welcome change from the usual freeze-dried fare. But it isn’t very appetizing, particularly considering that meat developed in this way is essentially a cultured muscle tumor.

More recent efforts at the University of Maryland have led to some new methods which may prove useful on the road to Meatville, with the intent to bring “in vitro” meat to the masses. And they think they may be able to improve on nature’s recipe while they’re at it.

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