August 09, 2022

HELLO, CUTIE PIE  The Delight of Echidnas  Behold: the echidna, Australia’s most delightfully different mammal. Despite looking like it has borrowed parts from hedgehogs, anteaters, and porcupines, the echidna has followed its own fascinating evolutionary path. Among its many traits: it mates in love trains, can swim in the ocean, and even uses jazz hands as a defensive tactic. Also, their offspring are known as puggles. What’s not to love?  READ MORE → GASTRO OBSCURA Calling Fans of Hardtack When it comes to hardtack, most people today only know the jokes about it. The little crackers are possibly history’s most essential, least-loved ration, earning all manner of nicknames: sheet iron, teeth dullers, or even insect castles if you had the dubious fortune to find one colonized by various bugs. People might be surprised to learn then that hardtack has taken on a second life in Alaska. There, it’s not known as hardtack, but as “pilot bread,” one of the most ubiquitous Alaskan foods. READ MORE → FOR YOUR NEXT LAYOVER 21 Airport Attractions If you’ve flown somewhere this summer, there’s a good chance it wasn’t easy, given the lines, unexpected delays, and cancellations. Most of the time, a long layover or delayed flight means eating overpriced airport food, browsing magazines, and generally managing grumpiness. But a couple extra hours in an airport can be surprisingly fun if you find yourself in the right place and know where to go. Here are 21 fascinating fixtures. READ MORE → ATLAS OBSCURA COURSES Making Scents Experiment with the basics of perfumery during this three-part course. Delve into the history of perfume, explore aromatic materials, and create a short perfume formula. Get your nose ready and explore this craft with us! ENROLL TODAY → HERE COMES THE SUN Is Solar Roasting the Future? Chile peppers are all but synonymous with New Mexican cuisine and culture. Each year, the state produces and roasts more than 150 million pounds of chiles, which burns enough propane yearly to release 7,800 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Enter Kenneth Armijo, a third-generation New Mexican chile farmer-turned-renewable energy expert, who set out to harness solar power to roast these chiles. READ MORE → MANHATTAN, NEW YORK Aretha Franklin Subway Tributes Hop off the Franklin Avenue subway stop in New York City, and you’ll find stickers that say “Respect” above the iconic tiled subway titles. The stickers, graphically similar to certain MTA signs, reference Aretha Franklin’s 1968 Grammy Award-winning recording. The stickers initially appeared as a spontaneous tribute, but have since become a long-lasting tribute to the “Queen of Soul.” READ MORE → ATLAS OBSCURA PUZZLES Warrior Women Crossword Throughout human history, women have fought. They’ve led armies. They’ve taken down big game. They’ve trained to cut down prey on the hunt and enemies on the battlefield. Both archaeology and history are telling increasingly complex stories around gender roles, upending decades-old beliefs that men hunted and fought while women stayed home. This puzzle highlights some of our favorite warrior women. PLAY NOW → UNUSUAL INDUSTRIES Switzerland’s Chimney Sweep ‘Mafia’ Imagine opening your front door, still in your pajamas, on a frosty Swiss morning, only to find a man dressed entirely in black staring back at you. He waves an official-looking document in the air and insists on entering your house. Such encounters are common in Switzerland, home to the “chimney sweep mafia”, a state-sanctioned service where the cantonal government assigns one chimney sweep to service a particular geographical area. But the sooty industry faces some new challenges. READ MORE → PORTLAND, OREGON  Portland Puppet Museum  Calling all puppet lovers. This museum, which occupies a bite-sized room in a former corner grocer built in the 1870s in Portland’s Sellwood neighborhood, boasts more puppets than you can imagine. Its entire archive of over 2,000 puppets spans 38 countries, all which hail from a range of different subcategories within the world of puppetry (dummies, shadow, rod-and-arm, marionettes, etc). Bonus: Admission is free, no strings attached. READ MORE →