Author: Ms. R.

This story was originally published on The Conversation and appears here under a Creative Commons license. Rice farmers living in Sidoarjo Regency, Indonesia, awoke to a strange sight on May 29, 2006. The ground had ruptured overnight and was spewing out steam. In the following weeks, water, boiling-hot mud, and natural gas were added to the mixture. When the eruption intensified, mud started to spread over the fields. Alarmed residents evacuated, hoping to wait out the eruption safely. Except……

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This Atlas Obscura–themed crossword comes from independent crossword constructor Brendan Emmett Quigley. He has been a professional puzzlemaker since 1996, and his pieces have appeared in dozens of publications. He’s also a member of the Boston Typewriter Orchestra. You can solve the puzzle below, or download it in .pdf or .puz. Note that the links in the clues will take you to Atlas Obscura pages that contain the answer. Happy solving!…

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Look, carnivorous plants have it rough. Sure, they have a big fan base, including some of the heaviest hitters in the world of science. Charles Darwin, for example, was so obsessed with the innocuous-looking sundew Drosera that, in an 1860 letter to Charles Lyell, he declared, “I care more about Drosera than the origin of all the species in the world.” A few other species—real, imagined, or somewhere in between—have made it big in Hollywood and Broadway, from the……

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Thanks to its distinctive nutty flavor and ability to melt smoothly, Gruyère is one of Switzerland’s most popular cheeses. By law, in order to bear the name, this hard, cow’s milk cheese can only be produced in or around the town of Gruyères in the canton of Fribourg. Cheese-makers in the region have been churning out this prized product since 1115. While most factories prefer to make their cheese behind closed doors, La Maison du Gruyère opens up the……

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The 5,000-year-old port city of Dholavira can be found on an island in the salt flats of the Great Rann of Kutch on India’s western edge. It has been described as “one of the best preserved urban settlements from the period in Southeast Asia” by UNESCO. Researchers have found step-wells and reservoirs that formed a sophisticated water management system, the remains of ancient streets and boulevards lined by houses of varying sizes, the ruins of a jewelry workshop, and……

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Asturias, in the north of Spain, is well-known for sidrerías, which pour bone-dry cider, often from great heights for dramatic effect. Each August, the city of Gijón celebrates with its Cider Festival To mark the occasion in 2013, this homage to the region’s favorite boozy beverage was unveiled in the Gijón Marina. This tree’s glinting, green branches are made up of 3,200 glass cider bottles. The number of containers is the equivalent to the annual glass consumption of 100……

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Be it run by a bank or mint, a money museum is not an uncommon concept across the globe, but on the whole such institutions tend to be neglected by a majority of tourists and locals alike. What’s there to expect, after all? A collection of coins and banknotes and nothing more, right? Well, that is pretty much true, but one also must consider how many forms money can come in—and its history. The Museum of the National Bank……

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