In terms of untapped mineral reserves, The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is arguably the richest country in the world, with its estimated $24 trillion worth of natural resources. The DRC is a country of superlatives, with vast reserves of coltan, gold, cassiterite, and tin mined in eastern Congo, and reserves of diamonds, copper, […]
The Voynich Manuscript has been called the world’s most mysterious medieval manuscript. It is an illustrated codex made of vellum, carbon-dated to the early 15th century. The manuscript is written in an unknown script and almost every page has a colorful drawing or diagram. Countless cryptographers, linguists, botanists, astronomers and historians have studied its text […]
“There is not a single ‘should give’ or ‘guess’ about it. Sun power is now a fact, and is no longer in the ‘beautiful possibility’ stage. It can compete profitably with coal in the true tropics now.” —Frank Shuman, American engineer and solar energy pioneer, 1913 In 1515, Leonardo da Vinci made sketches of […]
1. Never mind jokes about changing light bulbs. When spiders put their collective mind to it, they can pull down 8-foot long fluorescent light fixtures. In Baltimore, at least. 2. That’s not surprising when we consider spider silk as a prototype for synthetic muscle. 3. In fact, it turns out that the screenwriters […]
