Author: Ms. R.

Philly Typewriter, the largest typewriter company in the world, is housed in a surprisingly small brick-and-mortar shop in the heart of south Philadelphia. While humble in size, this shop is home to over 1,300 machines spanning 130 years of history. Visitors can drop in any time the shop is open to tour the workshop and type on restored typewriters without paying a dime. Typewriters are also for sale, and restorations are available for machines of all kinds (though the……

Read More

What’s the average lifespan of a male chicken on an industrial egg farm? Usually, it’s only one day. Since the eggs on grocery store shelves are unfertilized, “you don’t need a rooster for the egg to be produced,” says John Brunnquell, founder and CEO of free-range egg producer Egg Innovations. As a result, Brunnquell explains, “in the United States, virtually 100 percent of all male chicks are euthanized at one day old.” It’s a harsh reality of the American……

Read More

On a hot August afternoon in France, 1901, Miss Elizabeth Morison and Miss Frances Lamont, on holiday from England, took a trip to visit the Palace of Versailles, a former royal residence some twelve miles west of Paris. “We went by train,” they would later recall, “and walked through the rooms and galleries of the Palace with interest.” But it was not to be the pleasant day out that the ladies had anticipated. As they started to explore the……

Read More

Under the city of Aracena lies a complex of caves, carved over millions of years by the forces of nature. Formations resembling chandeliers and curtains adorn the walls of the enormous galleries. Since the earliest documentation of the Gruta de las Maravillas in the 19th century, 2,130 meters (6,988 feet) of this cave system have been mapped, and about 1,400 meters (4,593 feet) of the cave are open to the public. The waterways throughout the Gruta de las Maravillas are a……

Read More

On October 9, 1866, Reverend J. G. Joyce discovered a bronze sculpture of an eagle during the excavation of a ruined Roman basilica at the Calleva Atrebatum site in Silchester, England. Damaged and wingless, it appeared to have once been part of a bigger statue. As the artifact was found in a layer of charred wood, archaeologists theorized that it might have been one of the lost aquilae, the sacred eagle figurines of the Roman legions, and had been buried……

Read More

This story was originally published on The Conversation. It appears here under a Creative Commons license. For centuries, astronomers have realized that total solar eclipses offer a valuable scientific opportunity. During what’s called totality, the opaque moon completely hides the bright photosphere of the sun, its thin surface layer that emits most of the sun’s light. An eclipse allows astronomers to study the sun’s colorful outer atmosphere and its delicate extended corona, ordinarily invisible in the dazzling light of……

Read More

I have not been to the bottom of the ocean, but I’ve spoken to a fair number of scientists who have, and no two chronicle the experience in the same way. I think the most memorable comment came from a seafloor geologist, who described the slow descent into the abyss as akin to “being an astronaut in reverse.” That stuck with me—the thought of heading into the watery underdark, enclosed within a cramped capsule, frequently enveloped in an eerie……

Read More

Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps. In this episode of The Atlas Obscura Podcast, we go to Fayerweather Island, off the coast of Connecticut, and get the story of Kate Moore, one of the first recorded woman lighthouse keepers. Over several decades, she poured her heart and soul into a task and defied common expectations of what a keeper should be. Our podcast is an audio guide to the world’s wondrous, awe-inspiring,……

Read More