In her new book Nuts and Bolts Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World (in a Big Way), structural engineer Roma Agrawal identifies and examines the seven of most basic building blocks of engineering that have shaped the modern world: the nail, the wheel, the spring, the len … | Continue reading
Bad closed captions can be entertaining, but they can be serious, too, because captions are a critical tool for lots of lots of people. There are the people learning a new language, the easily confused, and of course captions are essential for people who are Deaf or hard-of-heari … | Continue reading
Everyone has tried it at some point. The authorities started turning a blind eye years ago, but it wasn’t officially legalized until the summer of 2014. Finally, after more than 80 years of illegitimacy, the City of Oakland has legalized…pinball machines. Today, we travel back to … | Continue reading
Last year, Roman Mars teamed up with Hank Green to guest host Dear Hank & John — this year he’s back on the Greens’ show once again, but this time with Hank’s brother John. In their podcast Dear Hank & John, “hosts John and Hank Green (who are also authors and YouTubers) offer bo … | Continue reading
Every week, one in eight Americans places a bet on the dream of a life-changing lottery jackpot. Americans spend more on lottery tickets annually than on video streaming services, concert tickets, books, and movie tickets combined. The story of lotteries in the United States may … | Continue reading
Today the Netherlands has a reputation as a kind of bicycling paradise. Dutch people own more bicycles per capita than any other place in the world. The country has more than 20,000 miles of dedicated cycling paths. International policymakers make pilgrimages to the Netherlands t … | Continue reading
In the Netherlands, about an hour and a half south of Amsterdam, there’s a city called Breda. Like many Dutch towns, it has cozy narrow streets, canals and plenty of bicycles. But there’s one historic building – right in the middle of town that really stands out from the rest. It … | Continue reading
Imagine one of those old-timey lumberjack photos. The kind where two men in plaid are working away at a tree, holding opposite ends of a huge, human-length saw. That is a vintage crosscut saw. Some avid crosscut seekers spend hours mining websites like eBay and Craigslist. But th … | Continue reading
In the 1800s, whaling was a vast and brutal industry–sometimes as deadly for the sailors involved as it was for the whales. And the global epicenter of whaling could be found in New Bedford, MA. All this slaughter wasn’t to feed hungry people with whale meat. It was about all the … | Continue reading
If we’ve learned anything from watching the turnover of tech giants like Yahoo and Myspace, it’s that internet darlings rise and fall — and there’s something darkly fascinating about watching it happen in real time. The Lost Cities of Geo We may now be seeing it all again with Tw … | Continue reading
In the major leagues, there are four umpires on the field — one behind each base, and one behind home plate, who has arguably the most important job, calling balls and strikes. A strike is basically any hittable pitch — something over the plate, between the batter’s chest and his … | Continue reading
In the months following the invasion of Ukraine, cryptic anti-war graffiti began popping up across Russia. People started writing out the phrase “no war” using asterisks instead of the various letters in order to disguise the meaning of the message. Then back in September, a woma … | Continue reading
The most recognizable feature of LA’s Chinatown is its Central Plaza. It’s an outdoor pedestrian mall that is almost overwhelmingly colorful. Brightly painted buildings are topped with sweeping pagoda style roofs, and then accented with fluorescent neon lacing. For decades Centr … | Continue reading
On Aug. 1, 1942, the nation’s recording studios went silent. Musicians were fed up with the new technologies threatening their livelihoods, so they refused to record until they got their fair share. Evan Chung explores one of the most consequential labor actions of the 20th centu … | Continue reading
When producer Ellie Gordon-Moershel was growing up, she played baseball, tennis, soccer, ice hockey, field hockey, flag football, volleyball, field lacrosse, box lacrosse — basically whatever she could find. If there was a team and a moving object, she was down for it. Ellie’s mo … | Continue reading
Most years, more than 15,000 people run the Comrades – way more than run any other ultra-marathon in the world. For reference, about 25,000 people ran the last Boston marathon. But at 56 miles, the Comrades is more than twice as long. It’s a slog by any standard. Over the course … | Continue reading
Back in 2017 we ran an episode about the history of Brazil’s iconic, yellow national soccer jersey. We were reminded of that story during the recent world cup, and then again on January 8th as a mob of right wing rioters attacked the Brazilian capital, many of them wearing those … | Continue reading
We’re kicking off the new year at 99pi with a fresh installment of mini-stories, including: what lies at the intersection of a street and a road; the most unlikely of theme parks; and the evolution of ancient alleyways in Beijing, China. Mini-Stories: Volume 15 There are also man … | Continue reading
This time of year, right in the middle of the holiday season, there’s a beloved, frenzied tradition playing out in Filipino households all around the world, with which reporter Gabrielle Berbey is intimately familiar. A Balikbayan box is a huge cardboard box (usually weighing ove … | Continue reading
The whole conceit of this show is that if look at the world in the right way, you’ll see stories everywhere. Some of the stories are epic power struggles chronicling the construction of a famous skyscraper or the founding of a city; but other stories are more modest, smaller in s … | Continue reading
If you’ve ever flipped through the radio dial — not satellite, not podcasts, but good old-fashioned AM and FM radio — you may have noticed something. First of all, “Don’t Stop Believing” still gets a shocking amount of air time. Great song but maybe culture should evolve. But als … | Continue reading
Mountain lions are classified as a “specially protected species”—not quite endangered, but close. There are somewhere between 2,000 and 6,000 of them spread across the foothills and mountains of California. One exceptional specimen in particular miraculously survived a trek acros … | Continue reading
It all started when a woman in a white Jeep pulled up to the traffic light to make a right turn onto Sunset Boulevard. Now, it’s perfectly legal to make a right turn on red in California. What you’re not supposed to do is block the crosswalk while you wait to turn. And that’s exa … | Continue reading
Funiculars are great, which is why the main image from our previous train episode featured one — except we didn’t actually talk about that one during the show. It’s a cable car from Wellington, and as it turns out it’s one of hundreds of funiculars in this city. Roman and Kurt ar … | Continue reading
Articles of Interest is a show about what we wear. Host and producer Avery Trufelman investigates our collectively held beliefs about fashion and explores topics like the intellectual property law behind knockoffs, creation of tartan and the history of plaid, and how a dolls in a … | Continue reading
The basic mechanics of the bike are pretty simple — it’s basically a triangle with wheels and a chain drive to propel it forward. No batteries or engines. It seems obvious in hindsight …. And that’s why most people guess the bike was invented a long time ago. Yet the ‘running mac … | Continue reading
Even if you haven’t made the pilgrimage to Southern California, you can probably already picture what the Walk of Fame looks like. It’s a 1.3 mile walkway lined with terrazzo and brass squares. Each slab spotlights a salmon-pink star, and the name of a different famous celebrity … | Continue reading
South Africa wanted to be the first African nation to host the World Cup. They also wanted the tournament to be the start of a new chapter. During apartheid, the country was banned from the international sporting community. But in 2004, they were on the precipice of hosting socce … | Continue reading
When Herbie Miller was growing up in East Kingston, Jamaica in the 1950s and 60s, he and his friends would put on their best outfits and head into the city. From blocks away, they could hear music pumping out through giant, powerful speakers set up at dance halls, bars and social … | Continue reading
The story starts with the mayor of a Prussian city, who wrote to the famous mathematician Leonhard Euler with a question: how could one walk through Königsberg without crossing any of its bridges twice? At first, Euler thought this question trivial, but the “Seven Bridges of Köni … | Continue reading
And a few months ago, while driving across the wide, stretching grasslands of South Dakota, reporter Fil Corbitt turned off the freeway and followed the signs to the ultimate roadside stop: Wall Drug. What was once simple, small-town pharmacy during the Great Depression has been … | Continue reading
Do you remember… airplane travel? Packing into a tin can with 200 other people all breathing each other’s air? These days most of us are still avoiding plane travel. But, in the Before Times, when we boarded a flight, we all received the same familiar set of instructions. If you’ … | Continue reading
Adam Rogers is a senior tech correspondent at Insider – and he’s been thinking and writing about what’s known in the industry simply as “search.” For the last decade, people have been grumbling about not being able to find things online, both in our private data and on the public … | Continue reading
In downtown Windhoek, Namibia — at the intersection of Fidel Castro Street and Robert Mugabe Avenue — there’s an imposing gold building with an affectionate nickname: the Coffee Maker. This notable structure was built to commemorate Namibia’s fight for independence from apartheid … | Continue reading
Back in March, Netflix picked up a long running Japanese TV program based on a children’s book from the 1970s. The show is called Old Enough, but the name of the original Japanese program translates to My First Errand. Because in each episode, a child runs an errand for the very … | Continue reading
Note: This episode contains references to adult language, and might not be suitable for younger listeners. You’ll likely know within the first fifteen seconds if this episode is appropriate for your children. There’s a particular one-kilohertz tone that is universally understood … | Continue reading
When you own a home, water is your greatest enemy. So much work is put into keeping water from coming in– and so much engineering is built into getting whatever water that inevitably seeps in, back out again before it pools and causes rot. 99% Vernacular: Volume 1 When the 99pi s … | Continue reading
Chicago has an extensive alleyway network, populated with distinctively utilitarian wooden fire escapes bolted onto the backs of low- and mid-rise buildings. Though to call them fire escapes is almost a misnomer; they usually have a substantial landing at each floor, so they serv … | Continue reading
For the 500th episode of 99% Invisible, we started thinking about the kinds of designs that we love from the places we have lived — and even some regional vernacular we love from places we haven’t lived, but just admire. 99% Invisible is all about who we are through the lens of t … | Continue reading
Houseplants are having a moment right now. In 2020, 66% of people in the US owned at least one plant, and sales have skyrocketed during the pandemic. Meanwhile, Instagram accounts like House Plant Club have a million followers. Over the past decade there has been a steady stream … | Continue reading
Given the bonds between the United States and Europe in the wake of World War II, it is hard to imagine America’s United Nations headquarters located anywhere but the East Coast, yet hundreds of locations were considered, including the Black Hills of South Dakota. There were a lo … | Continue reading
99 Percent Invisible producer emeritus Avery Trufelman traveled from New York to San Francisco recently, and took host Roman Mars to see an unusually shaped old building on the west side of the Bay. As it turns out, this peculiar octagonal home isn’t unique — there was a whole ar … | Continue reading
In 1989, Japan’s Shinkansen Bullet Train had a problem. It was really fast, pushing 170 miles per hour. But every time it exited a tunnel, it created a loud sonic boom that disrupted surrounding residential neighborhoods. So an engineering team was brought in to design a quieter, … | Continue reading
Sakhalin is a long, skinny island east of Russia’s mainland. Winters can get very cold and snowy there. Not many people outside of Russia know much about Sakhalin. Apparently it used to be home to a Tsarist penal colony and Anton Chekov once described it as “hell” but Tatyana Kim … | Continue reading
The Ojibwe name for wild rice is Manoomin, which translates to “the good berry.” The scientific name is Zizania palustris. It’s the only grain indigenous to North America, and while it might be called rice, it’s actually not closely related to brown or white rice at all. It has l … | Continue reading
Like it or not, no teenager in America in the 1980s could avoid the gravitational pull of the mall, not even author Alexandra Lange. In her new book, Meet Me by the Fountain, Lange writes about how malls were conceptually born out of a lack of space for people to convene in Ameri … | Continue reading
Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag. At least, that’s what we were taught in school, and what a particularly famous painting depicts. But when historians go searching … there’s no proof to be found. The prevailing theories based on the evidence, however, are arguably more in … | Continue reading
Priceless cultural artifacts have been plundered and sold for hundreds of years. You can find these relics in museums and in private collections. In recent years, with the advent of online marketplaces, researchers have begun to find a lot of artifacts for sale on the web. The Sy … | Continue reading