Author Archives: Gilles Messier

The Brink of Starvation- The Inspiring Tale of Inventing Instant Ramen

Ah, instant ramen: friend to starving students and broke individuals everywhere. A convenient and delicious source of cheap calories, it is the perfect meal for getting through exam season or stretching a dollar until the next paycheque arrives. Available in a dizzying array of styles and flavours, instant ramen is enjoyed all around the world, with an estimated 290 million […]

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Incredible Engineering- Inventing the Transistor

Reach into your pocket and pull out your cell phone. Even if you are rocking the most ancient, stripped-down flip phone from 2002, the object in your hands is still a marvel of modern electronics technology, packing billions of tiny switches into just a few cubic centimetres of space. By contrast, the Apollo Guidance Computer that sent humans to the […]

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The Great Vibrator Myth

Selfie stick. Electrical banana. Pocket pleaser. Magic wand. Divorce maker. Buzz Nightgear. Battery Operated Boyfriend. These are but a few colourful euphemisms for womankind’s best friend, found in millions of nightstand drawers across the globe: the vibrator. If you are a connoisseur of strange product origins then you’ve likely heard the quirky and unlikely story of the vibrator’s creation, which […]

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To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before: How do Astronauts Answer the Call of Nature in Space?

It was 8:15 AM on May 5, 1961, and astronaut Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. was facing an unexpected crisis. Chosen to be the first American – and the second human – in history to blast into space, at 5:15 AM Shepard had been strapped into his Mercury spacecraft Freedom 7 and the hatch bolted shut behind him. Liftoff was scheduled […]

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How do They Make Decaf Coffee and Tea and Non-Alcoholic Beer and Wine?

Caffeine. Alcohol. Nicotine. These are the three most widely-consumed drugs in the world. Every day, around 80% of the world’s population – around 6.4 billion people – consumes caffeine – typically in the form of coffee, tea, or cola – with the average consumer’s daily intake being around 200 milligrams. Meanwhile, 32.5% of the world’s population – around 2.4 billion […]

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Nazi Germany’s Utterly Bonkers Wooden Manned Missile

On this channel, we have covered our fair share of weird, wonderful, and sometimes utterly bonkers German ‘secret weapons’ from the Second World War, from rocket-powered fighters that sometimes dissolved their pilots alive to midget submarines cobbled together from old torpedoes, piggyback bombers crammed with explosives, jet fighters designed to be flown by children, and even weaponized space shuttles. But […]

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WWII’s Most Absurd Secret Weapons

In the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, a massive Allied invasion force comprising some 5,000 ships, 1,200 aircraft, and 160,000 troops steamed across the English Channel towards the beaches of Normandy. It was the opening act of Operation Overlord, the largest amphibious invasion in history and the battle that would finally secure an Allied foothold in western Europe […]

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Who Invented the Submarine?

It is the ultimate naval weapon. Lurking unseen beneath the waves, it can travel the world’s oceans at will and appear without warning, unleashing a deadly salvo of ship-killing torpedoes or world-ending nuclear missiles before melting away back into the depths. It is, of course, the submarine. But the stealthy, ultra-sophisticated nuclear submarines of today did not suddenly appear fully-formed; […]

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That Time the British Military Tried to Replace Parachutes with Rockets

Of all major military conflicts of the Twentieth Century, the Second World War stands apart. Not only was it the deadliest conflict in modern history, claiming an estimated 85 million lives, or about 1 in every 25 people, but it was also arguably history’s first truly technological war. While many now-ubiquitous military technologies such as aircraft, tanks, and submarines saw […]

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Germany’s WWI Corpse Factories

On the 25th of April, 1917, the British satirical magazine Punch ran an evocative political cartoon. In it, a stern Kaiser Wilhelm II, dressed in full regalia, stands before a young German army recruit. Pointing out the window to a giant factory belching black smoke, he declares: “And don’t forget that your Kaiser will find a use for you—alive or […]

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Who Invented Lasers and How Do They Actually Work?

Ah, the laser! Whether spaceship-mounted for blowing up planets, handheld for close-quarters battle, or table-mounted for bisecting troublesome secret agents, a laser is a surefire way to add a bit of sci-fi pizzazz to any story. Meanwhile, in the real world, lasers perform all manner of useful jobs, from cutting and welding metal to performing surgery, scanning barcodes, transmitting data […]

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