‘Quite Interesting’ Archives
I welcome our new cephalopod overlords
There is something about octopuses that unnerves me. Whenever I see one, I almost feel as though I should grovel before it and bring it gifts. In recent years, there have been many signs that cephalopods (and octopuses in particular) might be superior to humans and just lets us think we are the kings of the hill because we are beneath their [...]
The Corn People
Read this book! Did you know that the average US resident consumes more corn than the "Corn People" of Mexico and South America, every day? There are almost no items in a US supermarket today that do not contain corn in any form - processed, perfected, enchanted, et cetera - and scientists have ways to tell what a person's diet are made up of. [...]
The Dancing Plague
The most famous example of the Dancing Plague is the one of 1518 in Strasbourg, France, but it is not the most interesting case to date. No, the more interesting one is one of the earlier outbreaks, i Aachen, Germany, 1374 - not that the illness was much different, but certainly the cure. (more...)
The Indian Yellow Scheme
Indian Yellow is a transparent yellow pigment, used in oil paint and watercolours. Nowadays it's a pretty boring pigment: a mixture of nickel azo, hansa yellow and the tongue-twister 'quinacridone burt orange', but it's been at the centre of a historical claim of animal cruelty: disputed as early as 1830 (the pigment was introduced to India in [...]
