Damn Interesting

M
E
N
U

Science, history, psychology, and technology since 2005.

Made by humans.

Original 1948 patent for

A Possible Future

An attempt to secure the future of the site, with an unfortunate quantity of moist metaphors.

  • Damn (1)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (19)

Twenty

The authors, editors, illustrators, and podcasters of Damn Interesting mark the 20th year (so far) of making interesting stuff.

  • Damn (1)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (21)
Aerial photograph of Bellewstown racecourse.

There Once Was a Man Called Curley

A would-be priest's audacious plan to win his money back from the bookmakers.

  • Damn (1)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (34)

Omiword, a Word Game

Introducing Omiword, a free daily word puzzle from the makers of Damn Interesting.

  • Damn (1)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (5)
P.S. 110, ca. 1903.

Much Ado About Adenoids

The largest and strangest riot in New York City’s history.

  • Damn (1)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (12)

A Trail Gone Cold

Against the odds, a tiny Icelandic town speaks of a local Black ancestor. Geneticists and historians combine forces to uncover the man’s eventful life.

  • Damn (1)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (15)

Breaking a Bit

After a rough August, we're taking a much needed break. In the meantime here is a word game we made.

  • Damn (1)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (6)

Giving the Bird the Bird

A Brief Note From an Ex-X User.

  • Damn (1)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (36)

Journey to the Invisible Planet

The tangled history of humanity’s search for the solar system’s uncharted planets.

  • Damn (1)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (6)
A portrait of Chief Joseph.

From Where the Sun Now Stands

When the U.S. Army came for their land in 1877, the Nez Perce tribe complied. But tensions boiled over, and Chief Joseph led as they ran for their lives.

  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (9)
A view of Bali

The Ancient Order of Bali

In 1970s Bali, a sudden rice crisis prompted an unexpectedly far-reaching scientific discovery.

  • Damn (2)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (14)

This is Dang Interesting

To whom it may concern, we now have a (mostly) profanity-free mirror site.

  • Damn (1)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (4)
Young Maurice Wilson in uniform.

Lofty Ambitions

In 1933, British WWI vet Maurice Wilson hatched an unorthodox plan to reach the still-untouched summit of Everest.

  • Damn (1)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (6)
Men in straw boaters.

The Rube’s Dilemma

A great pitcher’s great temptation.

  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (11)
Artur Alves Reis.

Devouring the Heart of Portugal

In 1924 a bankrupt businessman in Portugal launched an audacious international scheme to become one of the wealthiest men in the world.

  • Damn (1)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (7)
Mount St. Helens ca. 1979.

The Mount St. Helens Trespasser

Robert Rogers, a man obsessed with trespassing, sets his sights on Mount St. Helens in the spring of 1980.

  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (8)
Simon Wiesenthal ca. 1963.

Hunting For Kobyla

The true story of a runaway Nazi, a determined sleuth, and a chase around the world.

  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (7)
Artist

The Unceasing Cessna Hacienda

In 1958, one heavily modified airplane flew out of Las Vegas with a single objective: Don’t land.

  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (12)
Du Yuesheng.

The Kingpin of Shanghai

From the depths of poverty, Du Yuesheng rose through Shanghai’s underworld to become one of the most influential, and overlooked, figures in modern China.

  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (10)

To Hell With Facebook

The earliest known version of the idiom "the straw that broke the camel's back" was written by the English philosophe...

  • Damn (1)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss (75)


--
Posted by Alan Bellows
Steam rising from rocky water amid mountains
How sugar from outer space became one of the backbones of life on Earth
🌎️ theconversation.com
  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows

“The stripes and spots on many butterflies’ wings interfere with the way visual systems try to guess the direction and speed of moving things, boosting false motion cues while hiding the butterfly’s true heading.”

European swallowtail butterfly perched on a purple flower,
What butterfly wings have in common with barbershop poles
🌎️ arstechnica.com
(see also)
  • Damn (1)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows

The restaurant serves about 4,000 guests a day. Then there are another 1,600 or so takeout and delivery orders — a total of about half a million per year, according to Aga’s, which says its annual revenue stretches well into eight figures.

A group of people stand around a counter filled with many white plastic bags. Several individuals are reaching for and handling the bags.
Is This Houston Strip-Mall Joint the World’s Busiest Restaurant?
🌎️ nytimes.com
  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
We're attempting our first-ever annual fundraiser so we can improve our publication rate. We only need $18,804 more! Click for more info.
--
Posted by Alan Bellows

A newly discovered feathered dinosaur named Norellraptor barsboldi had sharply curved teeth and claws, as well as four wings, and it adds evidence to the idea that flight evolved several times in different dinosaur groups.

An illustration of a large, four-winged dinosaur against a dark background.
Remarkably preserved feathered dinosaur discovered in China reveals new secrets of flying predator evolution
🌎️ livescience.com
  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows
An AI data centre in the UK. Annual global spending on AI infrastructure may reach as much as $1.5 trillion by 2031, Bain says. Reuters
Report: AI needs $6 trillion in annual revenue to justify data center boom
🌎️ thenationalnews.com
  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows • Suggested by J. A. Macfarlane
Tang court ladies in a fresco painting at Lady Li Xianhui’s tomb, the Qianling Mausoleum.
‘Why am I obsessed with China’s ancient golden age? I took my daughter on a trip to find out’
🌎️ theguardian.com
  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows
A Wartburg 353 and Trabant cars parked beside the Berlin Wall while a queue of East German people wait to cross to the West after the Wall fell and travel restrictions were lifted, Berlin, December 1989.
Cold War espionage added $4.6 billion to East Germany’s economy
🌎️ popsci.com
(see also)
  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows

That night, I didn’t sleep. I was lying next to a grown man I had just met, his feet mere inches away from my head, in a tiny concrete box I couldn’t leave.

prison two men blue jacket bed bars
‘The Cellmate Who Taught Me the Codes of Russian Prison’
🌎️ newyorker.com
  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows

DraftKings have pushed back, arguing that their responsible gaming system provides adequate safeguards to protect their customers from spiraling out of control. “I think as a business, as an industry, we’re doing a good job of educating people, of raising awareness, of making tools and resources available, of monitoring accounts,” Lori Kalani, the company’s chief responsible gaming officer, told me. If a customer waves too many red flags, she said, the company will proactively close the account. But when I asked how often this actually happens, DraftKings wouldn’t say.

Related: DraftKings Is Using AI to Supercharge the Harms of Online Behavioral Advertising

A large golden crown entraps a person wearing a baseball cap looking at a glowing smartphone.
‘I Posed as a Problem Gambler. DraftKings Made Me a VIP.’
🌎️ propublica.org
(see also)
  • Damn (2)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows • Suggested by J. A. Macfarlane

So, how has Samba evaded capture for so long? For one, her biology. Capybaras are quick. “The things that would hunt these guys [in their native habitat] are jaguars. They need to be able to outrun them”

A capybara shown against a yellow background with a spotlight effect on it.
‘I just saw this furry brown bottom disappear!’ In search of Samba – the fearless fugitive capybara
🌎️ theguardian.com
  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows
Video: What’s Really Inside the Sun? [18:13]
🌎️ youtube.com
(see also)
  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows

The problem with headlines proclaiming that AI agents have gone rogue goes beyond anthropomorphizing the technology. It creates the impression that the agents were beyond the control of the AI companies that made them and there was little the companies could do about it.

a dark room with a set of very large display screens
The ‘War Games’ problem: Computer science has long understood what it takes to keep AI under control
🌎️ theconversation.com
  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows

Chinyere Ukeje, 25, won a $300,000 for her innovative food system, which would hypothetically sustain a 15-person astronaut crew for around 513 days

NASA Held Contest to Figure Out How to Feed Astronauts Going to Mars. A Philadelphia Woman Won First-Place $300K Prize
🌎️ people.com
  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows
Bizarre References to the 9/11 Attacks That Appeared in Popular Culture Before 2001
🌎️ rarehistoricalphotos.com
  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows

*Slow whistle of appreciation*

A dense field of galaxies of various shapes and colors, featuring bright stars with diffraction spikes and curved arcs of light.
Webb Photographs One of the Most Beautiful Gravitational Lenses
🌎️ petapixel.com
Download hires (~100MB)
  • Damn (1)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows • via Hacker News
Space Now: Real-time Solar System with 526k asteroids and all tracked satellites
🌎️ space.bl2.net
  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows

Scientists have found a human gene lurking in a virus that causes skin infections. It may be using our own DNA to infect us.

A jumble of round orange-and-red cells that are yellow on the edges against a brown-and-blue background.
This Virus Stole a Human Gene and Won’t Let Go of It
🌎️ nytimes.com
  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows
Starliner
Boeing “incredibly excited” to serve as nation’s only astronaut transportation
🌎️ arstechnica.com
  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows • via kottke.org

The game rapidly made its way through the Eastern bloc before reaching Hungary, where British software entrepreneur Robert Stein recognized its commercial potential. From there, its licensing history became notoriously tangled. Rights to various versions passed, under sometimes competing claims, through the Robert Maxwell group, Atari, Sega, and finally to Nintendo, which packaged Tetris as the Game Boy’s “killer app.”

Opening screen of the Atari-Tengen Tetris port
The Bizarre, Murky History of Soviet-Born Tetris
🌎️ thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
  • Damn (1)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss
--
Posted by Alan Bellows
helmet
See a Stunning Collection of Stolen Greek Artifacts, Spanning 5,000 Years, That Were Just Returned to Greece
🌎️ smithsonianmag.com
  • Damn (0)
  • ✉️ Share
  • 💬 Discuss


Login/Register

Made by humans.

Copyright

Design & logo © Alan Bellows • All text/images/media © copyright 2005-2026 their respective creators • All rights reserved

Policy Stuff

  • Using Our Writings
  • AI Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Paywall Policy
  • Advertise With Us

Follow Us

  • Explore Damn Interesting
  • Follow Us via Email, etc.
  • Subscribe to one of our Podcasts
  • RSS: Original content
  • RSS: Curated links
  • Contact