The Strange Tale of Phineas Gage

Even if you're not a neurologist or a psychotherapist, you may have heard of Phineas Gage. When a guy survives being impaled with a three-foot iron rod in the skull, he tends to gain a certain notoriety. What makes Gage's case interesting isn't the fact that he survived, it's how he changed after his accident.

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Via: Neatorama

DARPA Brings Our Comic Book Fantasies to Life

When the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was founded in 1958, its primary mission was to make the Commies stain their Party-issued boxers. The Soviet Union has since fallen, but DARPA has grown. It has matured. And, like anyone poised on the brink of manhood, it's read a lot of graphic novels.

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Via: Asylum

DARPA Website

Tesla: Master of Lightning

From Neatorama's new Spotlight

Few inventors contributed more to advances in science and engineering in the early 20th century than Nikola Tesla. As one of the Fathers of Electricity, Tesla did groundbreaking work on alternating current (AC) power system, electromagnetism, hydroelectric power, radio, and radar to name a few. Many of his inventions (Tesla obtained some 300 patents in his lifetime) became the stuff we take for granted today: when we flip a switch to turn on the light, we owe a lot of that electrical magic to Tesla.

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Via: Neatorama

15 Rule-Breakers that Make Perfect Role-Models for Today’s Men

There have been many great men over the centuries, and though most of them weren’t exactly known for authority-bucking attitude, there were exceptions. Some of them have been nothing short of absolute outlaws; wanted and hunted by a ruling party somewhere, while praised and hidden by others. Some of these men were public figures, some liked their privacy, and some found themselves forced into the limelight for their beliefs. They come from all walks of life the world over, but they are recognized just the same — these are 15 rule-breakers that make for perfect role-models for today’s men.


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Via: Manolith

Little Known Facts About American History

February is American History Month and here at Neatorama, we urge those of you who live in the states to celebrate your country’s past by getting to know a little more about its history. As a result, we’ve decided to bring you a selection of little known facts about American History. While the truth behind many stories may not be pretty, it’s far better to know the facts than to celebrate through myths.

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Via: Neatorama

5 Things Benefiting From Global Warming

Climate change isn’t all bad; it just depends on your perspective! If you’re a mountain, a jellyfish, or some of the other things on this list, your future may be pretty bright.

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Via: Neatorama

10 Secrets of the Vatican Exposed

Vatican City may have fewer than 1,000 citizens and span only 110 acres, but it also has a multimillion-dollar budget and an unbelievably complex history. Understanding how it all works requires parsing through centuries of religious texts. Is the Vatican confusing and mysterious? Is the Pope Catholic? Here’s a look behind the scenes.

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Via: Mental Floss

Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple?

Six miles from Urfa, an ancient city in southeastern Turkey, Klaus Schmidt has made one of the most startling archaeological discoveries of our time: massive carved stones about 11,000 years old, crafted and arranged by prehistoric people who had not yet developed metal tools or even pottery. The megaliths predate Stonehenge by some 6,000 years. The place is called Gobekli Tepe, and Schmidt, a German archaeologist who has been working here more than a decade, is convinced it's the site of the world's oldest temple.

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Via: Smithsonian

The 14 Freakiest Serial Killers You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

We all know of the Mansons, Dahmers and John Wayne Gacys of the world—the mass killers that are media darlings. But for every nutbar killer who are splashed all over the headlines, there are plenty who never make the limelight. Some are from other parts of the world, some from too long ago to remember. But each of them is interesting and terrifying in their own right.

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Via: Pop Crunch

The Lost Art of Bloodstopping

Back in the days before modern medicine, in the parts of North America where the work was rough and a doctor might be a day’s ride away — the Ozarks, the mining towns of Appalachia, and among the lumberjacks of the great North woods — there existed a trade, a kind of faith-healing, really — called bloodstopping. Legends and folktales of bloodstoppers and their inexplicable medical miracles have been passed down through the generations, though I had never heard of it recently.

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Via Mental_Floss

Hatfield The Rainmaker: The Man Who Courted Nature

The greatest rainmaker of modern times. For more than 30 years he practiced his art and won a name for himself by filling lakes, saving crops, and breaking droughts, from the Yukon to Guatemala. He offered to clear London of its fog and to water the Sahara. But the scene of his most spectacular achievement was San Diego, California.

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Via: Socyberty

7 Mad Science Experiments You Can Do At Home But Probably Shouldn't

Theo, a columnist for the magazine Popular Science, recently published a book titled Theo Gray’s Mad Science: Experiments You Can Do At Home – But Probably Shouldn’t. The book is full of experiments so outrageous (Ignite your own phosphorus sun in a globe filled with pure oxygen! Make your own shotgun ammo by pouring molten lead off the roof! Heat a hot tub with 500 pounds of quicklime!) that it sounds like a parent’s nightmare. It’s actually quite the opposite: there’s no a better way to spark the imagination of the young minds of proto-scientists than to bring science to life with Theo’s hands-on experiments. Yes, these are dangerous experiments but that’s why they’re so much fun!

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Via: Neatorama

Views Of Earth From The Middle Ages To The Space Age

From Earth as the center of the cosmos to just a speck amid the vastness of space, Robert Poole, a historian at the University of Cumbria in the United Kingdom and author of Earthrise: How Man First Saw the Earth, takes us on a journey of how we’ve imagined our planet through the ages.

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Via: NPR

End of the world?

December 21th, 2012? Check out this great info-graphic that compares both sides of the argument. The Mayans thought the Spanish were Gods and sacrificed virgins. They do not seem to enlightened to me.

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Via: Pixl Monster

10 Book Burnings

This weekend, sadly, marks the anniversary of the bonfire of the vanities. Not that novel from the ‘80s, but the actual bonfire of the vanities, the event in 1497 when thousands of objects that might tempt people to sin were reduced to nothing but ash. Unfortunately, burnings such as this one weren’t that unusual – they have happened many times over the course of history and have cost us countless priceless works of art.

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Mental Floss