Mesopotamia How to Calm a Crying Baby Like a MesopotamianAtlas Obscura - by Noor Al-Samarrai Sing a simple song and sprinkle some sacred dust. Babies cry. It’s just what they do. And while parents have been trying to get their children to pipe …
Staffordshire, UK Staffordshire OatcakesAtlas Obscura - d drtrustrum The portable breakfast food is little known outside its native region. Locals who grew up eating them have been known to call Staffordshire oatcakes …
Coral Reefs Scientists Come Closer to Solving the Mystery of Coral Reef HalosAtlas Obscura - by Sabrina Imbler These light blue rings can be seen from space. Elizabeth Madin first fell into the rabbit hole of reef halos while stranded on Heron Island in …
Snakes A Hunter-Gatherer Ate an Entire Rattlesnake and We Have the Poop to Prove ItAtlas Obscura - by Matthew Taub “We know that the person must have lived to the point of defecation.” About 1,500 years ago, a hunter-gatherer in present-day Texas ate an entire …
Pudding The Club Devoted to Celebrating The Great British PuddingAtlas Obscura - by Lottie Gross At this pudding-themed hotel, a Pudding Master presides over a weekly dessert feast. From the outside, the Three Ways House Hotel looks like a typical …
CSS Arizona’s Most Unusual Cacti Have Their Own Fan ClubAtlas Obscura - by Kerry Wolfe The Crested Saguaro Society is on a quest to document the Sonoran Desert’s strangest succulents. A gnarled, sage-colored cactus is propped along a …
Birds Emperor Penguins Always Wear Warm CoatsAtlas Obscura - by Jessica Leigh Hester They need ‘em in order to weather the coldest desert on Earth. How do animals survive in harsh environments? This week, we’re celebrating some extreme …
Culture Yes, It’s a Witch Bottle HuntAtlas Obscura - by Evan Nicole Brown And if you live in Britain, you might be able to help. Back in 17th-century Britain, certain small containers had a big job. “Witch bottles” were …
Shipwrecks Sand Tiger Sharks Are Drawn to North Carolina’s ShipwrecksAtlas Obscura - by Jonathan Carey They return to the same sunken vessels over and over again, and researchers are trying to figure out why. Off the North Carolina coast, the rusty …
Cleo This Restaurant Has Wed Six Couples in Pools of ChocolateAtlas Obscura - by Rohini Chaki Desserted at the altar. Cleo Gakshteyn had not planned to get married in a kiddie pool whose contents reached her shins. But thanks to one …
Chili D.C. Half and Half MarathonAtlas Obscura - Rohini Chaki In a supreme test of gut and gam, runners must eat a half-smoke sausage with chips before completing a 13.1-mile race. Doctor’s orders to exercise on …
Particles Why Desert Sunsets Are Incredibly ColorfulAtlas Obscura - by Evan Nicole Brown Turns out, dry, clean air is the secret to a vivid landscape. There’s that small window of time, every day before night falls, when the sun hangs in …
The Return of the Pie Company That Gave the Frisbee Its NameAtlas Obscura - by Michele Herrmann An avid fan of the flying disc is now slinging Frisbie pies. When Dan O’Connor picked up an old Frisbie Pie Company tin at a tag sale more than 30 …
Beetles The Thirsty Beetles That Capture the FogAtlas Obscura - by Jessica Leigh Hester In the Namib Desert, slaking thirst is a slow process. How do animals survive in harsh environments? This week, we’re celebrating some extreme …
Gelatin Before Jell-O, Colorful Gelatin Desserts Were Haute CuisineAtlas Obscura - by Mark Hay Celebrity chefs served molded jelly dishes to monarchs and royalty. Marie-Antoine Carême made his name cooking for some of the greatest figures in …
Nelson Mandela Nelson Mandela’s Prison Cell, Through His EyesAtlas Obscura - by Matthew Taub The drawing is one of more than 20 original artworks by the Nobel Peace Prize recipient. Before becoming the first democratically elected president of …
Chernobyl Life in Pripyat Before, and the Morning After, the Chernobyl DisasterAtlas Obscura - by Adam Higginbotham When the scale of a tragedy dawned. In the early hours of April 26, 1986, a nuclear accident took place during a safety test at the Chernobyl Atomic …
Jordan In Jordan, Bedouins Are Preserving Ancient Rock Art With an AppAtlas Obscura - by Robin George Andrews Locals are using their phones to document and assess the engravings of Wadi Rum. If you’ve seen The Martian, then you didn’t just see Matt Damon’s …
The Goofy Worm Lizard That Beats the Heat by Never Coming to the SurfaceAtlas Obscura - by Jessica Leigh Hester It has claws like a mole, eyes that look like poppy seeds, and a great strategy for evading predators and filling up on prey. How do animals survive …
The Most Interesting, Spectacular Mirages Aren’t in the DesertAtlas Obscura - by Sabrina Imbler Spoiler alert: Try the Arctic or Sicily instead. A desperate, thirsty traveler crawls among the dunes in a never-ending desert. Then something …
The Strange Tale of the Great Trans-Saharan Ostrich Heist of 1911Atlas Obscura - by Vincent Gabrielle Big hats, big risks, big payoffs. It was 1911, and the Union of South Africa was awash with rumor and suspicion. It was said that there was a turncoat …
26 Real Animals That Shouldn’t Exist, But Do AnywayAtlas Obscura - by Eric Grundhauser Atlas Obscura readers nominated their favorite unlikely creatures. For as many fascinating, downright unbelievable places as there are to explore on …
Notre-Dame Fire Medieval Cathedral Spires Have Been at Risk From the Get GoAtlas Obscura - by Jessica Leigh Hester For centuries, they’ve been toppled by lightning, wind, and more. Fire made quick work of the 300-foot spire that stood until recently atop Paris’s …
Bees Notre Dame’s Bees Seem to Have Survived the BlazeAtlas Obscura - by Jessica Leigh Hester A little bit of sweet news. Several types of creatures make themselves at home on the tippy-tops of buildings. You have your gargoyles, their stone …
Meet the Mother-Son Duo Translating Astrophysics Into BlackfootAtlas Obscura - by Sabrina Imbler Corey Gray and Sharon Yellowfly want to bring gravitational wave astronomy to speakers of the language. Whenever her son detects a strange force …
Rhode Island Coffee CabinetAtlas Obscura - k kpearl2005 The uniquely Rhode Island treat is a relic from the era of soda fountain pharmacies. Diners who saddle up to the counter at Delekta Pharmacy in the …
Pueblo Pueblo BreadAtlas Obscura - Reina Gattuso Baked in traditional adobe hornos, this bread is a staple of the American Southwest's Native Pueblo people. The shapes of pueblo bread are as diverse …
East London Are Double-Sided Graves the Solution to London’s Burial Crisis?Atlas Obscura - by Katie Thornton Toward a new definition of eternity. In 1894, the two-year-old son of Marion and Robert Crawford died in the East London district of Stepney. When …
Drones A Remote Valley, A Drone, An Extinct Flower That’s Not Extinct AnymoreAtlas Obscura - by Evan Nicole Brown A find from Hawai’i’s cliffs. In 1991, botanists from the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG), a Hawai’i-based nonprofit, discovered the rare …
Fossils Found: One of the Largest Carnivorous Land Mammals Ever, in a Museum DrawerAtlas Obscura - by Jonathan Carey Despite its massive size, it had been overlooked for 40 years. Museums are teeming with secrets, some of which will stay unknown or unknowable …
