Seven Miles Down On March 26, 2012, James Cameron climbed alone into a submersible called DEEPSEA CHALLENGER and dropped into the Pacific Ocean about 200 miles (322 km) southwest of Guam. After a descent of two hours and thirty-six minutes, he settled onto the floor of the Mariana Trench’s Challenger Deep at a corrected depth … Read more
The Photo Nobody Could Place Every week, Neatorama runs a feature called “What Is It?” where editors post a single photo of some obscure object and ask readers to name it, no background, no scale reference, nothing but the image. On July 17, 2014, installment 336 showed a glass-fronted cabinet trimmed in brass, with tiered … Read more
A Staircase at the Beginning, a Staircase at the End Alfred Hitchcock’s first film as a director opens on a staircase. His last film closes on one. Between them lies a career spanning more than 50 years, with the same simple piece of architecture standing guard at both ends. In 1925, “The Pleasure Garden” opens … Read more
The Bird That Wouldn’t Fly Away In September 2012, Karen Gwillim was driving through the village of Craven, Saskatchewan, when a bird at the roadside caught her eye. It was a double-crested cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus), the only cormorant species found in Saskatchewan, and it was clearly struggling. Her first thought was an injury. It wasn’t. … Read more
One Detail Decides Everything Every Halloween party has that moment: someone walks in dressed as a bearded lady, and you know instantly whether it works. It’s not the dress. It’s not the wig or the eyeshadow. It’s the chin. That one feature decides whether the costume reads as clever or just confusing, and there are … Read more
Walk onto the third floor of the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum, on People’s Square in the Huangpu District, and the floor stops looking like a floor. In its place is a city. Tiny skyscrapers rise in clusters no taller than a soda can. Thin ribbons of pale blue trace the course of the Huangpu River. … Read more
A Pope’s Illegitimate Son Became Pope. It’s Only Happened Once. In the early 900s, a Roman noblewoman reportedly began an affair with a sitting pope. Their son grew up inside the Church and was eventually elected pope himself, taking the name John XI. As far as anyone can tell, it’s the only time in papal … Read more
Fresh Out of Prison, Looking for Management Work Picture scanning the “employment wanted” section of a newspaper and landing on this: a man describing himself as having “participated in the executive-level management of 120 people worldwide in a successful pot smuggling venture with revenues in excess of US$100 million annually.” He calls himself an expert … Read more
A Sandwich Counter With a Secret Room If you walked into Moore’s Delicatessen in Burbank, California, the front of the house looked like any neighborhood deli: a counter, a menu board, the smell of coffee and bread. Head toward the back dining room, though, and the character of the place changed completely. SpongeBob SquarePants held … Read more
HEADLINE: North Korea’s 2013 nuclear map listed Austin as a target, so it threw a party ARTICLE: A Dictator, a Desk, and a Very Strange Map In late March 2013, North Korea’s state media released photographs meant to project strength. Kim Jong Un sat in a military command room, signing an order to keep strategic … Read more