Futility Closet

In 1607, a 15-year-old girl fled her convent in the Basque country, dressed herself as a man, and set out on a series of unlikely adventures across Europe. In time she would distinguish herself fighting as a soldier in Spain's wars of conquest in the New World. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of Catalina de Erauso, the lieutenant nun of Renaissance Spain. We'll also hunt for some wallabies and puzzle over a quiet cat. Intro: In 1856 the Saturday Review asked: Why do ghosts wear clothes? Because of the peculiarities of bee reproduction, the population of each generation is a Fibonacci number. Sources for our feature on Catalina de Erauso: Joaquín María de Ferrer, The Autobiography of doña Catalina de Erauso, 1918 (translated by Dan Harvey Pedrick). Heidi Zogbaum, Catalina de Erauso: The Lieutenant Nun and the Conquest of the New World, 2015. Sonia Pérez-Villanueva, The Life of Catalina de Erauso, the Lieutenant Nun: An Early Modern Autobiography, 2014. Eva Mendieta, In Search of Catalina de Erauso: The National and Sexual Identity of the Lieutenant Nun, 2009. Sherry Velasco, The Lieutenant Nun: Transgenderism, Lesbian Desire, and Catalina de Erauso, 2000. Robin Cross and Rosalind Miles, Warrior Women: 3000 Years of Courage and Heroism, 2011. Christel Mouchard, Women Travelers: A Century of Trailblazing Adventures 1850-1950, 2007. Faith S. Harden, "Military Labour and Martial Honour in the Vida de la Monja Alférez, Catalina de Erauso," Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 94:2 (2017), 147-162. Madera Gabriela Allan, "'Un Hombre Sin Barbas': The Transgender Protagonist of La Monja Alférez (1626)," Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 17:2 (June 2016), 119-131. Sonia Pérez Villanueva, "Vida y sucesos de la Monja Alférez: Spanish Dictatorship, Basque Identity, and the Political Tug-of-War Over a Popular Heroine," Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 83:4 (2006), 337-347. Matthew Goldmark, "Reading Habits: Catalina de Erauso and the Subjects of Early Modern Spanish Gender and Sexuality," Colonial Latin American Review 24:2 (June 2015), 215-235. Mary Elizabeth Perry, "The Manly Woman: A Historical Case Study," American Behavioral Scientist 31:1 (September/October 1987), 86. Joy Parks, "Passing Into Legend," The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide 8:6 (Dec. 31, 2001), 41. Benito Quintana, "The Life of Catalina de Erauso, the Lieutenant Nun: An Early Modern Autobiography," Biography 38:3 (2015). Christine Hamelin, "Outrageous Adventurer Risked Her Safety for Freedom," Kingston Whig, May 11, 2002, 6. "The Daring, Dueling 'Lieutenant Nun,'" El Pais, Jan. 31, 2009, 8. Angeline Goreau, "Cross-Dressing for Success," New York Times, March 17, 1996. "Catalina de Erauso's Story; La Nonne Alferez," New York Times, April 21, 1894. Listener mail: "Wallaby on Loose After Filey Park Escape," BBC News, Aug. 21, 2018. "Wallaby Seen Near Wombourne Sainsbury's," BBC News, Aug. 16, 2018. Filey Bird Garden & Animal Park, Facebook, Aug. 27, 2018. "Wallaby Update," Filey Bird Garden & Animal Park, Facebook, Aug. 29, 2018. "Zoo Hunts for 'Friendly' Missing Wallaby Who Was Spotted Sunbathing in Wolverhampton," Sky News, Aug. 16, 2018. WILD Zoological Park, Facebook, Aug. 16, 2018. WILD Zoological Park, Facebook, Aug. 25, 2018. WILD Zoological Park, Facebook, Aug. 29, 2018. Makenzie O'Keefe, "Bear Gets Stuck Inside Truck, Destroys Interior," 4CBS Denver, July 27, 2018. Rob Griffiths, "Life Is Different in Mammoth Lakes," Twitter, Aug. 12, 2018. Ben Hooper, "Bear Visits Tennessee Hotel, Carries Bag of French Toast," UPI, March 22, 2018. Matt Lakin, "Mom's Close Call With Gatlinburg Bear Makes for Viral Video," Knox News, March 22, 2018. "A Bear Had a Scary Good Time After Wandering Into the Shining Hotel in Colorado," Associated Press, Aug. 24, 2018. Amanda Maile, "Black Bear Wanders Around Colorado Hotel Lobby," ABC News, Aug. 24, 2018. Ryan White, "Parks Canada Officials Endorse the Human Voice and Bear Spray Over Bear Bangers and Bells," CTV News Calgary, June 9, 2017. Karin Brulliard, "Bear Breaks Into House, Plays the Piano but Not Very Well," Washington Post, June 8, 2017. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listeners Kelly and Cherie Bruce (and Juno). Here's a corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Google Podcasts, on Apple Podcasts, or via the RSS feed at https://futilitycloset.libsyn.com/rss. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1902, chemist Harvey Wiley launched a unique experiment to test the safety of food additives. He recruited a group of young men and fed them meals laced with chemicals to see what the effects might be. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe Wiley's "poison squad" and his lifelong crusade for food safety. We'll also follow some garden paths and puzzle over some unwelcome weight-loss news. Intro: In 1887, an inadvertent dot in a telegram cost wool dealer Frank Primrose $20,000. For 25 years, two Minnesota brothers-in-law exchanged a weaponized pair of moleskin pants. Harvey Washington Wiley's poison squad dined in formal clothing and wrote their own inspirational slogan. Sources for our feature: Bernard A. Weisberger, "Doctor Wiley and His Poison Squad," American Heritage 47:1 (February/March 1996). Oscar E. Anderson Jr., The Health of a Nation: Harvey W. Wiley and the Fight for Pure Food, 1958. Paul M. Wax, "Elixirs, Diluents, and the Passage of the 1938 Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act," Annals of Internal Medicine 122:6 (March 15, 1995), 456-461. James Harvey Young, "Food and Drug Regulation Under the USDA, 1906-1940," Agricultural History 64:2 (Spring 1990), 134-142. Cornelius C. Regier, "The Struggle for Federal Food and Drugs Legislation," Law and Contemporary Problems 1:1 (December 1933), 3-15. Donna J. Wood, "The Strategic Use of Public Policy: Business Support for the 1906 Food and Drug Act," Business History Review 59:3 (Autumn 1985), 403-432. E. Pendleton Herring, "The Balance of Social Forces in the Administration of the Pure Food and Drug Act," Social Forces 13:3 (March 1935), 358-366. Carol Lewis and Suzanne White Junod, "The 'Poison Squad' and the Advent of Food and Drug Regulation," FDA Consumer 36:6 (November-December 2002), 12-15. Mike Oppenheim, "Food Fight," American History 53:4 (October 2018), 68. Bette Hileman, "'Poison Squads' Tested Chemical Preservatives," Chemical & Engineering News 84:38 (Sept. 18, 2006). Wallace F. Janssen, "The Story of the Laws Behind the Labels," FDA Consumer 15:5 (June 1981), 32-45. G.R. List, "Giants From the Past: Harvey W. Wiley (1844-1930)," Inform 16:2 (February 2005), 111-112. Bruce Watson, "The Poison Squad: An Incredible History," Esquire, June 27, 2013. Deborah Blum, "Bring Back the Poison Squad," Slate, March 2, 2011. Lance Gay, "A Century Ago, the Federal Government Launched One of Its Most Unusual and Controversial Investigations," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dec. 30, 2002, A-8. "Harvey W. Wiley: Pioneer Consumer Activist," FDA Consumer 40:1, (January-February 2006), 34-35. "Harvey Washington Wiley," Science History Institute, Jan. 10, 2018. Karen Olsson, "We Must Eat, Drink and (Still) Be Wary," Washington Post, Sept. 6, 1998, C01. O.K. Davis, "The Case of Dr. Wiley," Hampton Columbian Magazine 27:4 (October 1911), 469-481. A.A. Langdon, "Food Expert Defends Borax," What-to-Eat 22:3 (March 1907), 91-92. "To Investigate Wiley's Food Squad Methods," National Provisioner 36:2 (Jan. 12, 1907), 1. "Letter Box," Pharmaceutical Era 37:22 (May 30, 1907), 514. "The Case of Dr. Wiley," American Food Journal 4:2, Feb. 15, 1909, 16. "Food Law's Anniversary," New York Times, June 30, 1908. "Wiley's Foes Think They've Beaten Him," New York Times, Dec. 29, 1908. H.H. Langdon, "Why Wiley Is Criticised; His Radical Views Said to Justify Tests by the National Commission," New York Times, April 7, 1907. "Benzoate Indorsed; Wiley Loses Fight," New York Times, Aug. 27, 1909. "Health Rather Than Money," New York Times, Aug. 21, 1910. "Germans Verified Wiley Poison Tests," New York Times, Aug. 19, 1911. "Forbidden Fruit," New York Times, Oct. 11, 1911. "Pure Food in One State Is Poison in Another," New York Times, Jan. 25, 1914. "Dr. H.W. Wiley Dies, Pure-Food Expert," New York Times, July 1, 1930. Listener mail: Listener Rob Emich discovered Spring-Heeled Jack London-Style Porter in Cape Cod last month (see Episode 34). Brittany Hope Flamik, "Australia's Endangered Quolls Get Genetic Boost From Scientists," New York Times, July 26, 2018. April Reese, "Ecologists Try to Speed Up Evolution to Save Australian Marsupial From Toxic Toads," Nature, July 23, 2018. Jesse Thompson and Liz Trevaskis, "Questions Over Quarantined Astell Island Quolls Who Lost Their Fear of Predators," ABC Radio Darwin, Aug. 9, 2018. Wikipedia, "Garden-Path Sentence" (accessed Aug. 17, 2018). "Garden Path Sentences," Fun With Words (accessed Aug. 17, 2018). BBC Sound Effects. Dave Lawrence, "RNN of BBC Sound Effects," Aardvark Zythum, Aug. 2, 2018. Dave Lawrence, "More Sound Effects," Aardvark Zythum, Aug. 3, 2018. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener David Palmer. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Google Podcasts, on Apple Podcasts, or via the RSS feed at https://futilitycloset.libsyn.com/rss. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to

In 1893, Grover Cleveland discovered a cancerous tumor on the roof of his mouth. It was feared that public knowledge of the president's illness might set off a financial panic, so Cleveland suggested a daring plan: a secret surgery aboard a moving yacht. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe the president's gamble -- and the courageous reporter who threatened to expose it. We'll also audit some wallabies and puzzle over some welcome neo-Nazis. Intro: Robert Louis Stevenson inadvertently borrowed much of Treasure Island from Washington Irving. When Graeme Gibson donated his parrot to the Toronto Zoo, it suddenly called after him. Sources for our feature on Grover Cleveland's secret surgery: Matthew Algeo, The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth, 2011. William Williams Keen, The Surgical Operations on President Cleveland in 1893, 1917. Shahid R. Aziz, "The Oral Surgical Operations of Grover Cleveland: A Presidential Cover-Up," Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery 53:9 (1995), 1088-1090. W.O. Fenn et al., "Dr. Joseph Bryant's Role in President Grover Cleveland's Secret Anesthesia and Surgery," Anesthesiology 119:4 (October 2013), 889. "The Secret Operation on President Cleveland," British Medical Journal 1:3568 (May 25, 1929), 965. Ronald H. Spiro, "Verrucous Carcinoma, Then and Now," American Journal of Surgery 176:5 (1998), 393-397. Andrew Renehan and J.C. Lowry, "The Oral Tumours of Two American Presidents: What If They Were Alive Today?", Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 88:7 (1995), 377. Philip H. Cooper, "President Cleveland's Palatal Tumor," Archives of Dermatology 122:7 (1986), 747-748. Richard L. Rovit and William T. Couldwell, "A Man for All Seasons: WW Keen," Neurosurgery 50:1 (2002), 181-190. "Without Prejudice," British Medical Journal 2:5467 (Oct. 16, 1965), 938. John J. Brooks and Horatio T. Enterline, "The Final Diagnosis of President Cleveland's Lesion," JAMA 244:24 (1980), 2729-2729. William Maloney, "Surreptitious Surgery on Long Island Sound," New York State Dental Journal 76:1 (January 2010), 42-45. Robert S. Robins and Henry Rothschild, "Ethical Dilemmas of the President's Physician," Politics and the Life Sciences 7:1, Medicine and Political Behavior (August 1988), 3-11. Richard Norton Smith, "'The President Is Fine' and Other Historical Lies," Columbia Journalism Review 40:3 (September/October 2001), 30-32. "A Yacht, A Mustache: How A President Hid His Tumor," Morning Edition, National Public Radio, July 6, 2011. "Grover Cleveland - Secret Surgery," University of Arizona Health Sciences Library, July 20, 2018. Arlene Shaner, "The Secret Surgeries of Grover Cleveland," New York Academy of Medicine, Feb. 27, 2014. Paul Maloney, "Grover Cleveland's Secret Surgery," Grover Cleveland Birthplace Memorial Association (accessed July 23, 2018). "Dr. W.W. Keen Dies; Famous Surgeon," New York Times, June 8, 1932. Abigail Trafford, "Presidential Illness: Are Coverups Still Possible?", Montreal Gazette, Jan. 8, 1987, A1. Martin D. Tullai, "Health Secret Was Once Possible for U.S. President," Salt Lake Tribune, March 14, 1994, A6. Allan B. Schwartz, "Medical Mystery: Grover Cleveland's Secret Operation," Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 24, 2016. Dan Gunderman, "The Secretive, Disfiguring Medical Battle Waged by President Grover Cleveland as the Nation Fell Into a Deep Depression," New York Daily News, Dec. 25, 2016. David Steinberg, "Should the President Undergo Independent Medical Evaluations?", Boston Globe, May 27, 2018, A.4. Listener mail: "Wallabies in Onchan," Onchan and Garff Area Matters, Facebook, July 12, 2018. Samantha Harrelson, "Wandering Kangaroo Causes Rollover Crash Near Dodson in Northern Montana," KTVQ, June 21, 2018. "Two Injured in Montana After Swerving to Avoid a Kangaroo or Wallaby," KULR 8, June 21, 2018. Rob Rogers, "Startled Driver Rolls Car to Avoid 'Kangaroo' in Northern Montana," Billings Gazette, June 21, 2018. "Prohibited Species," Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (accessed Aug. 16, 2018). "Animals Go Wild! The Wallabies of Kalihi Valley," Hawaii News Now (accessed Aug. 16, 2018). "Native Animals," New Zealand Department of Conservation (accessed Aug. 16, 2018). "Kawau Island Wallabies," New Zealand Department of Conservation (accessed Aug. 16, 2018). Wikipedia, "Kawau Island: History" (accessed Aug. 12, 2018). This week's lateral thinking puzzle was devised by Sharon. Here are three corroborating links (warning -- these spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Google Podcasts, on Apple Podcasts, or via the RSS feed at https://futilitycloset.libsyn.com/rss. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can al

Cocos Island, in the eastern Pacific, was rumored to hold buried treasure worth millions of dollars, but centuries of treasure seekers had failed to find it. That didn't deter August Gissler, who arrived in 1889 with a borrowed map and an iron determination. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow Gissler's obsessive hunt for the Treasure of Lima. We'll also marvel at the complexity of names and puzzle over an undead corpse. Intro: In 1875, Frederick Law Olmsted warned his son of the dangers of unchecked pussycats. Dogs were formerly so common at church services that "dog whippers" were employed to manage them. Sources for our feature on August Gissler: Ralph Hancock and Julian A. Weston, The Lost Treasure of Cocos Island, 1960. John Chetwood, Our Search for the Missing Millions of Cocos Island: Being an Account of a Curious Cruise and a More Than Curious Character, 1904. Hervey De Montmorency, On the Track of a Treasure: The Story of an Adventurous Expedition to the Pacific Island of Cocos in Search of Treasure of Untold Value Hidden by Pirates, 1904. Theon Wright, The Voyage of the Herman, 1966. David McIntee, Fortune and Glory: A Treasure Hunter's Handbook, 2016. Alex Capus, Sailing by Starlight: In Search of Treasure Island, 2013. Judith Schalansky, Atlas of Remote Islands, 2010. Alban Stewart, "Expedition of the California Academy of Sciences to the Galapagos Islands, 1905-1906: V. Notes on the Botany of Cocos Island," Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, Fourth Series, Vol. 1, Jan. 19, 1912, 375-404. Laws of the American Republics Relating to Immigration and the Sale of Public Lands: Costa Rica, United States Congressional Serial Set, Issue 2, 1892. Maarten Kappelle, Costa Rican Ecosystems, 2016. "Gold of Cocos Not for Them," San Francisco Call, Oct. 14, 1901. "Race for Treasure," Topeka State Journal, Aug. 4, 1902. Alban Stewart, "Further Observations on the Origin of the Galapagos Islands," The Plant World 18:7 (July 1915), 192-200. "People Do Find Buried Treasure: Like to Join in the Search?" Changing Times 10:5 (May 1956), 44. Stuart Mann, "Another 'Treasure' Island?" Toronto Star, Aug. 26, 1989, H5. Denise Kusel, "Only in Santa Fe: Sailing Family Reaches Mystical Cocos," Santa Fe New Mexican, June 24, 2001, B-1. Jos Eduardo Mora, "Culture-Costa Rica: New Status to Help Preserve 'Treasure Island,'" Global Information Network, Dec. 21, 2002, 1. "Explorers Closing In on Pirate's Fabled Buried Treasure," Sunday Independent, Aug. 5, 2012. Jasper Copping, "'Treasure Island' Jewels Sought," Edmonton Journal, Aug. 6, 2012, A.2. Graham Clifford, "Did an 'Indo' Man Get the Hidden €200m Pirates' Treasure First?" Independent, Aug. 12, 2012. Jasper Copping, "British Expedition to Pacific 'Treasure Island' Where Pirates Buried Their Plunder," Telegraph, Aug. 5, 2012. Jasper Copping, "Closing in on Treasure Island's Hoard: An English Explorer Believes Hi-Tech Wizardry Can Finally Locate a Fabled 160m Stash Buried on Cocos, Off Costa Rica's Coast," Sunday Telegraph, Aug. 5, 2012, 27. Karen Catchpole, "Crossing Paradise: Off Costa Rica's Remote and Pristine Cocos Island, a Profusion of Fish Draws Divers -- and Illegal Fishermen -- to the Protected Marine Area," Minneapolis Star Tribune, Sept. 23, 2012, G.1. Bernie McClenny, "Cocos Island - TI9," QST 99:2 (February 2015), 93-94. Listener mail: Patrick McKenzie, "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names," June 17, 2010. "Awesome Falsehood: A Curated List of Awesome Falsehoods Programmers Believe in," GitHub (accessed August 11, 2018). Richard Ishida, "Personal Names Around the World," W3C, Aug. 17, 2011. Wikipedia, "Chinese Name" (accessed August 11, 2018). Wikipedia, "Mononymous Person" (accessed August 11, 2018). Michael Tandy, "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Addresses," May 29, 2013. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Jamie Cox, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Google Podcasts, on Apple Podcasts, or via the RSS feed at https://futilitycloset.libsyn.com/rss. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

Germany's polar expedition of 1869 took a dramatic turn when 14 men were shipwrecked on an ice floe off the eastern coast of Greenland. As the frozen island carried them slowly toward settlements in the south, it began to break apart beneath them. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the crew of the Hansa on their desperate journey toward civilization. We'll also honor a slime mold and puzzle over a reversing sunset. Intro: The yellow-bellied longclaw, Macronyx flavigaster, could produce the long-sought 10×10 word square. Bruckner's seventh symphony has made generations of cymbalists nervous. A ground plan of the "Hansa house," from expedition commander Karl Koldewey's 1874 narrative. Sources for our feature on the Hansa: Fergus Fleming, Ninety Degrees North: The Quest for the North Pole, 2007. William James Mills, Exploring Polar Frontiers: A Historical Encyclopedia, 2003. David Thomas Murphy, German Exploration of the Polar World: A History, 1870-1940, 2002. Karl Koldewey, The German Arctic Expedition of 1869-70: And Narrative of the Wreck of the "Hansa" in the Ice, 1874. "The 'Polaris' Arctic Expedition," Nature 8:194 (July 17, 1873), 217-220. "The Second German Arctic Expedition," Nature 11:265 (Nov. 26, 1874), 63-66. "The Latest Arctic Explorations -- The Remarkable Escape of the Polaris Party," Scientific American 28:23 (June 7, 1873), 352-353. Leopold M'Clintock, "Resumé of the Recent German Expedition, from the Reports of Captain Koldewey and Dr. Laube," Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London 15:2 (1870-1871), 102-114. William Barr, "Background to Captain Hegemann's Account of the Voyage of Hansa and of the Ice-Drift," Polar Geography and Geology 17:4 (1993), 259-263. "The Polaris," Report to the Secretary of the Navy, Executive Documents, First Session, 43rd Congress, 1873-1874, 12-627. Fridtjof Nansen, "Towards the North Pole," Longman's Magazine 17:97 (November 1890), 37-48. T. Nelson, Recent Expeditions to Eastern Polar Seas, 1882. N.S. Dodge, "The German Arctic Expedition," Appleton's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art 5:93 (Jan. 14, 1871), 46-47. "The Thrones of the Ice-King; or, Recent Journeys Towards the Poles," Boy's Own Paper 5:237 (July 28, 1883), 700-702. William Henry Davenport Adams, The Arctic: A History of Its Discovery, Its Plants, Animals and Natural Phenomena, 1876. "A Contrast," New York Times, July 21, 1875. "Letters to the Editor," New York Times, July 12, 1875. A sphinx of snow. Listener mail: "I am the Airport K-9 Guy. My dog is the 'Airport Guard Dog' that made the front page last week. AMA!," Reddit Ask Me Anything, Feb. 29, 2016. Cherry Capital Airport K-9. Kris Van Cleave, "Meet Piper, a Dog Helping Protect Planes From Bird Strikes," CBS News, June 9, 2016. "Visiting Non-Human Scholar: Physarum Polycephalum," Hampshire College (accessed July 26, 2018). Robby Berman, "Slime Molds Join the Faculty at Hampshire College," Big Think (accessed July 26, 2018). Robby Berman, "Scientists Catch Slimes Learning, Even Though They Have 0 Neurons," Big Think (accessed July 26, 2018). Karen Brown, "Should We Model Human Behavior on a Brainless, Single-Cell Amoeba?", NEPR, Nov. 7, 2017. Ashley P. Taylor, "Slime Mold in Residence," The Scientist, March 2, 2018. Joseph Stromberg, "If the Interstate System Were Designed by a Slime Mold," Smithsonian.com, May 15, 2012. "Heather Barnett: What Humans Can Learn From Semi-Intelligent Slime," TED, July 17, 2014. Tejal Rao, "With a Sniff and a Signal, These Dogs Hunt Down Threats to Bees," New York Times, July 3, 2018. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Dan Lardner. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Google Podcasts, on Apple Podcasts, or via the RSS feed at https://futilitycloset.libsyn.com/rss. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

Here are six new lateral thinking puzzles -- play along with us as we try to untangle some perplexing situations using yes-or-no questions. Here are the sources for this week's puzzles. In a few places we've included links to further information -- these contain spoilers, so don't click until you've listened to the episode: Puzzle #1 was contributed by listener Amy Howard. Puzzle #2 was suggested by an item on the podcast No Such Thing as a Fish. Here are some corroborating links: 1, 2, 3, 4 Puzzle #3 was inspired by an item in Jerry Clark and Ed Palattella's 2015 book A History of Heists, and here's a link. Puzzle #4 was devised by Sharon. Here are two links; note that both contain some nudity. Puzzle #5 is from listener Justin Sabe, who was inspired by an item on the podcast 99% Invisible. Puzzle #6 is from listener Sam Dyck, who sent these links. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at https://futilitycloset.libsyn.com/rss. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1883 fisherman Howard Blackburn was caught in a blizzard off the coast of Newfoundland. Facing bitter cold in an 18-foot boat, he passed through a series of harrowing adventures in a desperate struggle to stay alive and find help. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow Blackburn's dramatic story, which made him famous around the world. We'll also admire a runaway chicken and puzzle over a growing circle of dust. Intro: During Oxfordshire's annual stag hunt in 1819, the quarry took refuge in a chapel. With the introduction of electric light, some American cities erected "moonlight towers." Sources for our feature on Howard Blackburn: Joseph E. Garland, Lone Voyager: The Extraordinary Adventures of Howard Blackburn, Hero Fisherman of Gloucester, 1963. Louis Arthur Norton, "The Hero of Gloucester," American History 35:5 (December 2000), 22. "The Terrible Odyssey of Howard Blackburn," American Heritage 33:2 (February/March 1982). Peter Nielsen, "Howard Blackburn: Heroism at Sea," Sail, July 31, 2017. Matthew McKenzie, "Iconic Fishermen and the Fates of New England Fisheries Regulations, 1883-1912," Environmental History 17:1 (January 2012), 3-28. R. Guy Pulvertaft, "Psychological Aspects of Hand Injuries," Hand 7:2 (April 1, 1975), 93-103. Paul Raymond Provost, "Winslow Homer's 'The Fog Warning': The Fisherman as Heroic Character," American Art Journal 22:1 (Spring 1990), 20-27. "Ask the Globe," Boston Globe, Jan. 24, 2000, B8. Michael Carlson, "Obituary: Joseph Garland: Voice of Gloucester, Massachusetts," Guardian, Oct. 6, 2011, 46. Larry Johnston, "During a Struggle to Survive '83 Blizzard, a Sailor Becomes a Hero," Florida Today, June 21, 2006, E.1. Herbert D. Ward, "Heroes of the Deep," Century 56:3 (July 1898), 364-377. "Alone in a Four-Ton Boat," New York Times, June 19, 1899. "Passed Blackburn's Boat," New York Times, Aug. 11, 1899. "Capt. Blackburn at Lisbon," New York Times, July 21, 1901. Sherman Bristol, "The Fishermen of Gloucester," Junior Munsey 10:5 (August 1901), 749-755. Patrick McGrath, "Off the Banks," Idler 24:3 (March 1904), 522-531. John H. Peters, "Voyages in Midget Boats," St. Louis Republic Sunday Magazine, Dec. 11, 1904, 9. M.B. Levick, "Fog Is Still the Fisherman's Nemesis," New York Times, July 19, 1925. "Capt. Blackburn Dies," New York Times, Nov. 5, 1932. James Bobbins, "Two Are Rescued as Boat Capsizes," New York Times, Jan. 30, 1933. L.H. Robbins, "Out of Gloucester to the Winter Sea," New York Times, Feb. 12, 1933. Robert Spiers Benjamin, "Boats Dare Ice and Fog," New York Times, Dec. 22, 1935. Cape Ann Museum, "Captain Howard Blackburn, the Lone Voyager" (accessed July 1, 2018). Listener mail: Below the Surface. Kristina Killgrove, "You Can Virtually Excavate Artifacts From a Riverbed in Amsterdam With This Website," Forbes, June 30, 2018. "Home to Roost! Clever Hen Takes Flight and Opens a Glass Door After Eyeing Up Chicken Feed Inside," Daily Mail, June 30, 2018. Listener Sofia Hauck de Oliveira found this f on the Thames foreshore: This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener James Colter. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1726 London was rocked by a bizarre sensation: A local peasant woman began giving birth to rabbits, astounding the city and baffling the medical community. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review the strange case of Mary Toft, which has been called "history's most fascinating medical mystery." We'll also ponder some pachyderms and puzzle over some medical misinformation. Intro: The notion of music without substance raises some perplexing philosophical puzzles. Japanese haiku master Masaoka Shiki wrote nine verses about baseball. Sources for our feature on Mary Toft: Dennis Todd, Imagining Monsters: Miscreations of the Self in Eighteenth-Century England, 1995. Clifford A. Pickover, The Girl Who Gave Birth to Rabbits: A True Medical Mystery, 2000. Richard Gordon, Great Medical Mysteries, 1984. Lisa Forman Cody, Birthing the Nation: Sex, Science, and the Conception of Eighteenth-Century Britons, 2005. Wendy Moore, "Of Rabbit and Humble Pie," British Medical Journal 338 (May 7, 2009). Palmira Fontes da Costa, "The Medical Understanding of Monstrous Births at the Royal Society of London During the First Half of the Eighteenth Century," History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 26:2 (2004), 157-175. Lawrence Segel, "What's Up, Doc?" Medical Post 39:11 (March 18, 2003), 37. Glennda Leslie, "Cheat and Impostor: Debate Following the Case of the Rabbit Breeder," Eighteenth Century 27:3 (Fall 1986), 269-286. Bill Bynum, "Maternal Impressions," Lancet 359:9309 (March 9, 2002), 898. Dolores Peters, "The Pregnant Pamela: Characterization and Popular Medical Attitudes in the Eighteenth Century," Eighteenth-Century Studies 14:4 (Summer 1981), 432-451. S.A. Seligman, "Mary Toft -- The Rabbit Breeder," Medical History 5:4 (1961), 349-360. Charles Green Cumston, "The Famous Case of Mary Toft, the Pretended Rabbit Breeder of Godalming," American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children 68:2 (August 1913), 274-300. Nathaniel Saint-André, A Short Narrative of an Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbets, Perform'd by Mr John Howard, Surgeon at Guilford, 1727. Sir Richard Manningham, An Exact Diary of What Was Observ'd During a Close Attendance Upon Mary Toft, the Pretended Rabbet-Breeder of Godalming in Surrey, From Monday Nov. 28, to Wednesday Dec. 7 Following, 1726. Cyriacus Ahlers, Some Observations Concerning the Woman of Godlyman in Surrey, 1726. Thomas Brathwaite, Remarks on a Short Narrative of an Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbets, Perform'd by Mr. John Howard, Surgeon at Guilford, 1726. A Letter From a Male Physician in the Country, to the Author of the Female Physician in London; Plainly Shewing, That for Ingenuity, Probity, and Extraordinary Productions, he Far Surpasses the Author of the Narrative, 1726. The Several Depositions of Edward Costen, Richard Stedman, John Sweetapple, Mary Peytoe, Elizabeth Mason, and Mary Costen; Relating to the Affair of Mary Toft, of Godalming in the County of Surrey, Being Deliver'd of Several Rabbits, 1727. Jonathan Swift, The Anatomist Dissected: or the Man-Midwife Finely Brought to Bed, 1727. "Merry Tuft," Much Ado About Nothing: or, a Plain Refutation of All That Has Been Written or Said Concerning the Rabbit-Woman of Godalming, 1727. "Full and Impartial Relation and Detection of the Rabbit Imposture &c.," The Political State of Great Britain 32:12 (December 1726), 572-602. Edward White, "An Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbits," Paris Review, July 5, 2016. Listener mail: Rasnov Fortress, Romania Tourism (accessed July 5, 2018). Wikipedia, "Rasnov Citadel" (accessed July 5, 2018). Wikipedia, "Polybius" (accessed July 5, 2018). "Polybius," Encyclopaedia Britannica (accessed July 5, 2018). "The British Alpine Hannibal Expedition," John Hoyte (accessed July 5, 2018). Wikipedia, "War Elephant" (accessed July 5, 2018). "Battle of the Trebbia River," Encyclopaedia Britannica (accessed July 5, 2018). Philip Ball, "The Truth About Hannibal's Route Across the Alps," Guardian, April 3, 2016. Paul Rodgers, "Tracing Hannibal's Elephants -- With Dung," Forbes, April 5, 2016. Franz Lidz, "How (and Where) Did Hannibal Cross the Alps?" Smithsonian, July 2017. Michael B. Charles and Peter Rhodan, "'Magister Elephantorvm': A Reappraisal of Hannibal's Use of Elephants," The Classical World 100:4 (Summer 2007), 363-389. S. O'Bryhim, "Hannibal's Elephants and the Crossing of the Rhône," The Classical Quarterly 41:1 (1991), 121-125. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Benjamin Busser, who was inspired by the "Peter Weinberger" episode of the Casefile podcast. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation

In 1961, Wisconsin optometrist Arthur Duperrault chartered a yacht to take his family on a sailing holiday in the Bahamas. After two days in the islands, the ship failed to return to the mainland, and the unfolding story of its final voyage made headlines around the world. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll recount the fate of the Bluebelle and its seven passengers and crew. We'll also sympathize with some digital misfits and puzzle over some incendiary cigarettes. Intro: John Brunner's novel The Squares of the City encodes an 1892 chess game between Wilhelm Steinitz and Mikhail Chigorin. Around 1730 Ben Franklin laid out 11 "necessary hints to those that would be rich." Sources for our feature on the Bluebelle: Richard D. Logan and Tere Duperrault Fassbender, Alone: Orphaned on the Ocean, 2011. "The Sea: The Bluebelle's Last Voyage," Time, Dec. 1, 1961. Herbert Brean, "The 'Bluebelle' Mystery," Life, Dec. 1, 1961. Erle Stanley Gardner, "The Case of the Bluebelle's Last Voyage," Sarasota Herald-Tribune, March 25, 1962. "Shipwrecked Girl, 11, Rescued After 4 Days on Raft in Atlantic," United Press International, Nov. 17, 1961. "Skipper Is Suicide After Yacht Wreck," United Press International, Nov. 18, 1961. "Yacht Girl Rallies," New York Times, Nov. 19, 1961. "Yacht Girl Questioned; Survivor of Sinking Reported on Way to Full Recovery," Associated Press, Nov. 20, 1961. "Rescued Girl's Story Indicates Skipper Killed Others on Yacht," Associated Press, Nov. 21, 1961. "The Mystery of the Bluebelle," New York Times, Nov. 22, 1961. "Dead Skipper's Papers Are Held by Court Order," Associated Press, Nov. 22, 1961. "Rescued Skipper Showed No Grief," Associated Press, Nov. 23, 1961. "Yacht Survivor Hears of Deaths," United Press International, Nov. 24, 1961. "Bluebelle Survivor Tells Story Again," United Press International, Nov. 28, 1961. "Coast Guard Rules Harvey Was Killer," Associated Press, April 26, 1962. "Bluebelle's Owner Sued in Deaths of 4," Associated Press, April 28, 1962. Mary Ann Grossmann, "'Alone' Book Recounts Green Bay Girl's 1961 Ordeal at Sea -- and Life After," Saint Paul Pioneer Press, May 30, 2010. John Bogert, "The Tale of the Bluebelle Still Captivates Decades Later," [Torrance, Calif.] Daily Breeze, May 26, 2010. Marlene Womack, "Out of the Past: The Mystery of the Yacht Bluebelle," [Panama City, Fla.] News Herald, Nov. 10, 2014. Listener mail: Wikipedia, "Isle of Man" (accessed June 28, 2018). Wikipedia, "Geography of the Isle of Man" (accessed June 28, 2018). Wikipedia, "Wallaby" (accessed June 28, 2018). Wikipedia, "Red-Necked Wallaby" (accessed June 28, 2018). "Searching for the Isle of Man's Wild Wallabies," BBC News, Oct. 17, 2010. "Isle of Man Wallaby Population 'Increasing,'" BBC News, Sept. 16, 2014. Nazia Parveen, "Wallabies Flourishing in the Wild on Isle of Man," Guardian, Aug. 14, 2016. Christopher Null, "Hello, I'm Mr. Null. My Name Makes Me Invisible to Computers," Wired, Nov. 5, 2015. Associated Press, "Apostrophe in Your Name Can Cause a World O'Trouble," February 21, 2008. Anna Tims, "I Was Denied Boarding a Plane -- All Because of a Hyphen," Guardian, April 27, 2018. Tim O'Keefe, "Apostrophe in Name Causes Computer Chaos," April 29, 2016. Freia Lobo, "Here's Why Airlines Have Trouble With Your Hyphenated Name," Mashable, June 25, 2017. John Scott-Railton, "#HyphensUnite: A Decade of United Airlines Ignoring the Hyphenated," June 21, 2017. Click consonants are speech sounds that occur as consonants in Southern and East African languages. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Mike Wolin, who sent these corroborating links (warning -- these spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard opened two new worlds in the 20th century. He was the first person to fly 10 miles above the earth and the first to travel 2 miles beneath the sea, using inventions that opened the doors to these new frontiers. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow Piccard on his historic journeys into the sky and the sea. We'll also admire some beekeeping serendipity and puzzle over a sudden need for locksmiths. Intro: Herbert Hoover's doctor invented a game to keep him in shape. William Howard Taft boasted that he lost 70 pounds on this diet. Sources for our feature on Auguste Piccard: Auguste Piccard, Between Earth and Sky, 1950. Auguste Piccard, Earth, Sky and Sea, 1956. Alan Honour, Ten Miles High, Two Miles Deep: The Adventures of the Piccards, 1957. Fergus Fleming and Annabel Merulla, eds., The Explorer's Eye, 2005. Tom Cheshire, The Explorer Gene: How Three Generations of One Family Went Higher, Deeper, and Further Than Any Before, 2013. Markus Pagitz, "The Future of Scientific Ballooning," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 365:1861, 3003-3017. G. Pfotzer, "History of the Use of Balloons in Scientific Experiments," Space Science Reviews 13:2 (June 1972), 199-242. Don Walsh, "Dr. Piccard and His Wonderful Electric Submarines," United States Naval Institute Proceedings 137:9 (September 2011), 102. "Bathyscaphe Explores Ocean Bottom," Science News-Letter 733 (Jan. 18, 1958), 35. Jean Piccard, "Exploration by Balloon," Scientific Monthly 47:3 (September 1938), 270-277. J.R. Dean, "Deep Submersibles Used in Oceanography," Geographical Journal 131:1 (March 1965), 70-72. "Scientists Fortunate to Return from Region of Black Skies," Science News-Letter 19:530 (June 6, 1931), 364. "Auguste Piccard," Physics Today 15:8 (August 1962), 80. "Ten Miles High in an Air-Tight Ball," Popular Science, August 1931, 23. Mark Betancourt, "See The World From 100,000 Feet," Air & Space Smithsonian, July 2015. Malcolm W. Browne, "A Balloonist's Adventurous Lineage," New York Times, March 21, 1999, 8. "Balloon's Historic Flight an Aviation Milestone," South Bend [Ind.] Tribune, March 27, 1999, A9. "Jacques Piccard," Times, Nov. 5, 2008, 58. Naomi Koppel, "Balloonist Piccard Comes From Long Line of Record-Setting Pioneers," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 21, 1999, 21. Glenn C. Altschuler, "What Propels the Piccards to Their Extremes," Boston Globe, Dec. 3, 2013, G.6. Helen Fields, "A Swiss Family's Triple Crown," U.S. News & World Report 136:7 (Feb. 23, 2004), 78-80. "Brother Had Faith in Piccard's Success," New York Times, May 29, 1931. "Jacques Piccard, Scientist Who Explored the Deep Seas, Dies at 86," Associated Press, Nov. 1, 2008. "Piccard on Radio Describes Flight," New York Times, June 2, 1931. "Piccard and Cosyns to Aid Argentine Flight," New York Times, Jan. 21, 1940. "Auguste Piccard, Explorer, Is Dead. Auguste Piccard Is Dead at 78. Stratosphere and Sea Explorer," New York Times, March 26, 1962. Whit Burnett, "Piccard and Aide Had Close Call," [Washington D.C.] Evening Star, May 29, 1931, A-4. Auguste Piccard, "Conquest of the Stratosphere at Hand," [Washington D.C.] Evening Star, Feb. 14, 1932, 5. "Plan Stratosphere Flight," [Washington D.C.] Evening Star, May 23, 1933, A-2. Max Cosyns, "Conquest of the Stratosphere at Hand," [Washington D.C.] Evening Star, June 26, 1934, 11. Listener mail: Scott McArt, "The Latest Bee Science Distilled," American Bee Journal, April 1, 2018. Bettina Ziegelmann et al., "Lithium Chloride Effectively Kills the Honey Bee Parasite Varroa destructor by a Systemic Mode of Action," Scientific Reports 8:1 (2018), 683. Mary Bammer, "Lithium Chloride for Varroa Control?" Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and University of Florida, April 18, 2018. Sarah De Filippe, "Director of Geese: A Dog With a Job," Vassar College Miscellany News 134:8 (Nov. 12, 2004), 16. Maxim Alter, "Dog Days May End Fowl Play," New Paltz Oracle, Oct. 28, 2010. "New Paltz Welcomes the Arrival of Geese Herding Border Collie," New Paltz News, Feb. 16, 2011. This week's lateral thinking puzzle is based on an item in Dan Lewis' Now I Know enewsletter (warning -- this link spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1928 Nancy Wake ran away from her Australian home and into an unlikely destiny: She became a dynamo in the French resistance, helping more than a thousand people to flee the Germans and then organizing partisans to fight them directly. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of the White Mouse, one of the bravest heroes of World War II. We'll also marvel at mailmen and puzzle over an expensive homework assignment. Intro: The town of Agloe, New York, was invented by a pair of mapmakers. F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise contains two hidden poems. Sources for our feature on Nancy Wake: Peter FitzSimons, Nancy Wake, 2001. Nancy Wake, The White Mouse, 1985. Russell Braddon, The White Mouse, 1956. "Dispatches," World War II 26:4 (November/December 2011), 16. "History in the Media," History Today 55:4 (April 2005), 9. "Sound Off," Leatherneck 85:6 (June 2002), 2. Adam Bernstein, "Nancy Wake, 'White Mouse' of World War II, Dies at 98," Washington Post, Aug. 9, 2011. Paul Vitello, "Nancy Wake, Proud Spy and Nazi Foe, Dies at 98," New York Times, Aug. 13, 2011. "Obituary: Nancy Wake," Economist 400:8746 (Aug. 13, 2011), 82. Chris Brice, "The Mouse That Roared," [Adelaide] Advertiser, June 2, 2001. Bruce Wilson, "Forever in Her Debt," [Brisbane] Courier-Mail, Feb. 15, 2003, 34. "War Heroine Nancy Wake Dies," ABC Premium News, Aug. 8, 2011. "Prince Helps Pauper Heroine," [Adelaide] Advertiser, Feb. 11, 2003, 22. "Australian 'White Mouse' Was a Guerrilla to Nazis Selling Her War Medals Did Not Endear Her to Countrymen, Though," Christian Science Monitor, June 8, 1994. Sandra Laville, "Penniless Resistance Hero Stays On ... and On ... at Hotel," Vancouver Sun, Feb. 11, 2003, A16. Red Harrison, "All Guts and Garters," Weekend Australian, June 9, 2001. Lydia Clifford, "Secrets and White Lies," Daily Telegraph, June 1, 2001, 117. Bruce Wilson, "Penniless Wake Is Also Priceless," Daily Telegraph, Feb. 14, 2003, 23. Nate Rawlings, "Nancy Wake," Time 178:8 (Aug. 29, 2011), 20. Roderick Bailey, "Wake, Nancy Grace Augusta," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Jan. 8, 2015. Listener mail: A 1797 George III Cartwheel penny, a handgun, and a selection of pottery and pipes found on the Thames foreshore. The Bozeman Daily Chronicle's "Police Reports." The neural net that Dave Lawrence fed them through. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Simone Hilliard, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1804, when she was 5 years old, Mary Anning began to dig in the cliffs that flanked her English seaside town. What she found amazed the scientists of her time and challenged the established view of world history. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of "the greatest fossilist the world ever knew." We'll also try to identify a Norwegian commando and puzzle over some further string pulling. Intro: William Rowan Hamilton was so pleased with the fundamental formula for quaternions that he carved it into the bridge on which it occurred to him. On Christmas morning 1875, Mark Twain's daughter discovered a letter from the moon. Sources for our feature on Mary Anning: Shelley Emling, The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World, 2009. Thomas W. Goodhue, Fossil Hunter: The Life and Times of Mary Anning (1799-1847), 2004. Hugh Torrens, "Presidential Address: Mary Anning (1799-1847) of Lyme; 'The Greatest Fossilist the World Ever Knew,'" British Journal for the History of Science 28:3 (September 1995), 257-284. Crispin Tickell, "Princess of Palaeontology," Nature 400:6742 (July 22, 1999), 321. Adrian Burton, "The Ichthyosaur in the Room," Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10:6 (August 2012), 340. Tom Huntington, "The Princess of Paleontology," British Heritage 26:2 (May 2005), 44-59. Michael A. Taylor and Hugh S. Torrens, "Fossils by the Sea," Natural History 104:10 (October 1995), 66. Renee M. Clary and James H. Wandersee, "Mary Anning: She's More Than 'Seller of Sea Shells at the Seashore,'" American Biology Teacher 68:3 (March 2006), 153-157. Peggy Vincent et al., "Mary Anning's Legacy to French Vertebrate Palaeontology," Geological Magazine 151:1 (January 2014), 7-20. Michael A. Taylor and Hugh S. Torrens, "An Anonymous Account of Mary Anning (1799–1847), Fossil Collector of Lyme Regis, England, Published in Chambers's Journal in 1857, and its Attribution to Frank Buckland (1826–1880), George Roberts (c.1804–1860) and William Buckland (1784–1856)," Archives of Natural History 41:2 (2014), 309–325. Justin Pollard and Stephanie Pollard, "Mary Anning: Born 21 May 1799," History Today 68:3 (March 2018), 22-23. Sarah Zielinski, "Mary Anning, an Amazing Fossil Hunter," Smithsonian, Jan. 5, 2010. Shelley Emling, "Mary Anning and the Birth of Paleontology," Scientific American, Oct. 21, 2009. "Mary Anning," Discover 38:4 (May 2017), 47. "Mary Anning, the Fossil Finder," All the Year Round 13:303 (Feb. 11, 1865), 60-63. John P. Rafferty, "Mary Anning," Encyclopaedia Britannica, May 17, 2018. "Mary Anning (1799-1847)," University of California Museum of Paleontology (accessed May 27, 2018). "Mary Anning," University of Bristol Paleobiology Research Group (accessed May 27, 2018). In 1830 the geologist Henry De la Beche painted this watercolor depicting every one of Mary's finds -- he sold lithographs and gave the proceeds to her. This increased her security, but apparently not beyond worry. Listener mail: Ryan Osborne, "'America's Spirit Animal 2018:' Twitter Loves the Bear Who Ate Two Dozen Cupcakes," WFAA, May 12, 2018. Michael George, "New Jersey Baker Says Bear Broke Into Car, Ate 2 Dozen Cupcakes, Left Only Paw Print," NBC New York, May 11, 2018. Gene Myers, "Cupcake-Eating Bear Celebrated With Bear-Shaped Cupcakes by Bakery," North Jersey, May 11, 2018. Thomson Reuters, "Alaska Bear Falls Through Skylight Into Party, Eats All the Cupcakes," CBC News, June 25, 2014. Lindsay Deutsch, "Bear Falls Through Skylight, Eats Birthday Cupcakes," USA Today, June 26, 2014. Brendan Rand, "5-Year-Old Girl Attacked, Dragged by Black Bear," ABC News, May 14, 2018. Courtney Han, "5-Year-Old Girl Who Was Attacked and Dragged by Bear Is Released From Hospital," ABC News, May 19, 2018. To Tell the Truth, Jan. 17, 1966. Wikipedia, "To Tell the Truth" (accessed June 9, 2018). This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Stefan, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils this puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll explore some more curiosities and unanswered questions from Greg's research, including a misplaced elephant, a momentous biscuit failure, a peripatetic ax murderer, and the importance of the 9 of diamonds. We'll also revisit Michael Malloy's resilience and puzzle over an uncommonly casual prison break. Intro: In 1846, geologist Adam Sedgwick sent his niece some tips on pronouncing Welsh. In 1961, psychologist Robert Sommer reflected that a person's importance is reflected in his keyring. Sources for our feature on notes and queries: Justin Kaplan and Anne Bernays mention the naming of Deathball Rock, Oregon, in their 1999 book The Language of Names: What We Call Ourselves and Why It Matters. The anecdote about the King Kong animator is from Orville Goldner and George E. Turner's 1975 book The Making of King Kong. The anecdote about Fred Astaire and the editor is from Brian Seibert's 2015 history of tap dancing, What the Eye Hears, supplemented by this New Yorker letter. Oxford mathematician Nick Trefethen's jotted thoughts are collected in Trefethen's Index Cards, 2011. The identity of the "bravest man" at the Battle of the Little Bighorn is discussed in Thom Hatch's 2000 Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn: An Encyclopedia and Frederic C. Wagner III's 2016 Participants in the Battle of the Little Big Horn. But I don't know any source that makes a decided claim as to his identity. "Icy Mike," the bull elephant skeleton discovered on Mount Kenya, is mentioned in Matthew Power and Keridwen Cornelius' article "Escape to Mount Kenya" in National Geographic Adventure 9:7 (September 2007), 65-71. Bernard Suits defines games in The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, 1978. The anecdote about Maidenhead, Berkshire, is from Gordon Snell's The Book of Theatre Quotes, 1982. The observation about William Byrd's diary is in Margaret Fleming's "Analysis of a Four-Letter Word," in Maledicta 1:2 (1977). Bill James' book about the Villisca ax murders is The Man From the Train, co-written with his daughter Rachel McCarthy James. Richard O. Jones describes the Cincinnati privy disaster of 1904 in this Belt Magazine article of Nov. 4, 2014. (Thanks, Glenn.) Here's a diagram of the Woodingdean Well, the deepest hand-dug well in the world. Barry Day mentions P.G. Wodehouse's characterization of his comic novels in his 2004 book The Complete Lyrics of P.G. Wodehouse (according to N.T.P. Murphy's 2006 A Wodehouse Handbook). Wikipedia gives a long list of reputed reasons the 9 of diamonds is called the "curse of Scotland." English curate Francis Kilvert mentions a mysterious organ grinder in his diary entry for May 12, 1874. Horace Walpole's owl whistles are mentioned in Arthur Michael Samuel's Mancroft Essays, 1912. The story about the Dabneys' clothesline telegraph appears in David Williams' I Freed Myself: African American Self-Emancipation in the Civil War Era, 2014, among other modern sources. Williams cites John Truesdale's The Blue Coats, and How They Lived, Fought and Died for the Union, from 1867. I'd be more sanguine with more authoritative sources. Listener mail: Nidhi Goyal, "Your Stomach Acid Can Dissolve Metal," Industry Tap, Feb. 3, 2016. Wikipedia, "Hydrochloric Acid" (accessed June 2, 2018). S.E. Gould, "What Makes Things Acid: The pH Scale," Lab Rat, Scientific American, Dec. 3, 2012. Charles Herman Sulz, A Treatise on Beverages, Or, The Complete Practical Bottler, 1888. "Properties of Some Metals: Tin," James P. Birk, CHM-115: General Chemistry with Qualitative Analysis, Arizona State University. P.K. Li et al., "In Vitro Effects of Simulated Gastric Juice on Swallowed Metal Objects: Implications for Practical Management," Gastrointestinal Endoscopy 46:2 (August 1997), 152-155. IMDb, "Open Water 2: Adrift." https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470055/ Wikipedia, "Open Water 2: Adrift" (accessed June 2, 2018). This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Esmeralda Rupp-Spangle, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In the 1970s psychologist David Rosenhan sent healthy volunteers to 12 psychiatric hospitals, where they claimed to be hearing voices. Once they were admitted, they behaved normally, but the hospitals diagnosed all of them as seriously mentally ill. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe the Rosenhan experiment, which challenged the validity of psychiatric diagnosis and set off a furor in the field. We'll also spot hawks at Wimbledon and puzzle over a finicky payment processor. Intro: In 2002, Burkard Polster investigated the mathematics of shoelaces. A raindrop that lands on Montana's Triple Divide Peak might arrive at any of three oceans. Sources for our feature on the Rosenhan experiment: Roger R. Hock, Forty Studies That Changed Psychology, 2009. Dusan Kecmanovic, Controversies and Dilemmas in Contemporary Psychiatry, 2017. Donald O. Granberg and John F. Galliher, A Most Human Enterprise, 2010. David Rosenhan, "On Being Sane in Insane Places," Science 179:4070 (Jan. 19, 1973), 250–258. Paul R. Fleischman et al., "Psychiatric Diagnosis," Science, New Series 180:4084 (April 27, 1973), 356+358+360-369. Robert L. Spitzer, "On Pseudoscience in Science, Logic in Remission, and Psychiatric Diagnosis: A Critique of Rosenhan's 'On Being Sane in Insane Places,'" Journal of Abnormal Psychology 84:5, 442–452. Ulric Neisser, "Reversibility of Psychiatric Diagnoses," Science, New Series 180:4091 (June 15, 1973), 1116. Martin Bulmer, "Are Pseudo-Patient Studies Justified?," Journal of Medical Ethics 8:2 (June 1982), 65-71. Peter C. Gaughwin, "On Being Insane in Medico-Legal Places: The Importance of Taking a Complete History in Forensic Mental Health Assessment," Psychiatry, Psychology and Law 12:2 (2005), 298-310. Theodore Millon, "Reflections on Rosenhan's 'On Being Sane in Insane Places,'" Journal of Abnormal Psychology 84:5 (October 1975), 456-461. Maurice K. Temerlin, "Suggestion Effects in Psychiatric Diagnosis," Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 147:4 (October 1968), 349–353. Murray J. Goddard, "Personal Accounts: On Being Possibly Sane in Possibly Insane Places," Psychiatric Services 62:8 (August 2011), 831-832. Jared M. Bartels and Daniel Peters, "Coverage of Rosenhan's 'On Being Sane in Insane Places' in Abnormal Psychology Textbooks," Teaching of Psychology 44:2 (2017), 169-173. Marti Loring and Brian Powell, "Gender, Race, and DSM-III: A Study of the Objectivity of Psychiatric Diagnostic Behavior," Journal of Health and Social Behavior 29:1 (March 1988), 1–22. Jim Schnabel, "Puck in the Laboratory: The Construction and Deconstruction of Hoaxlike Deception in Science," Science, Technology, & Human Values 19:4 (October 1, 1994), 459-492. Michael Fontaine, "On Being Sane in an Insane Place -- The Rosenhan Experiment in the Laboratory of Plautus' Epidamnus," Current Psychology: Research and Reviews 32:4 (December 2013), 348-365. Mark Moran, "Writer Ignites Firestorm With Misdiagnosis Claims," Psychiatric News 41:7 (April 7, 2006), 10–12. Sandra Blakeslee, "8 Feign Insanity in Test and Are Termed Insane," New York Times, Jan. 21, 1973. Nathaniel Morris, "This Secret Experiment Tricked Psychiatrists Into Diagnosing Sane People as Having Schizophrenia," Washington Post, Dec. 29, 2017. Claudia Hammond, "One Flew Into the Cuckoo's Nest," Times, July 27, 2009, 8. Richard M. Restak, "Medicine of the Mind," Wilson Quarterly 7:4 (Autumn 1983), 112-118. Listener mail: Pierre Bertrand, "Feral Parakeets Taking Over London, Prompting Concerns They'll Push Out Native Birds," CBC News, Feb. 14, 2016. Wikipedia, "Feral Parakeets in Great Britain," (accessed May 23, 2018). James Owen, "Feral Parrot Population Soars in U.K., Study Says," National Geographic News, July 8, 2004. Hazel Jackson, "Move Aside, Pigeons: Wild Parakeets Poised for World Domination," CNN, Aug. 17, 2016. Oliver Pickup, "Introducing Rufus the Hawk: The Official Bird Scarer of the Wimbledon Championships," Telegraph, July 3, 2017. Wikipedia, "Rufus the Hawk" (accessed May 23, 2018). "Rufus the Hawk Back at Work," BT, June 25, 2013. Bryony Gordon, "Rufus the Hawk: Quails, Baths And Me-Time -- Meet Wimbledon's Biggest Diva," Telegraph, July 2, 2012. "Nosy Neighbour," finalist, 2016 Natural History Museum Wildlife Photographer of the Year, 2016. Sam Hobson's photography. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Tommy Honton, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any quest

In 1990, two thieves dressed as policemen walked into Boston's Gardner museum and walked out with 13 artworks worth half a billion dollars. After 28 years the lost masterpieces have never been recovered. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe the largest art theft in history and the ongoing search for its solution. We'll also discover the benefits of mustard gas and puzzle over a surprisingly effective fighter pilot. Intro: In 1938, Italian physicist Ettore Majorana vanished without a trace. Many of the foremost intellectuals of the early 20th century frequented the same café in Vienna. Sources for our feature on the Gardner heist: Ulrich Boser, The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft, 2008. Stephen Kurkjian, Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World's Greatest Art Heist, 2015. Michael Brenson, "Robbers Seem to Know Just What They Want," New York Times, March 19, 1990. Peter S. Canellos, Andy Dabilis, and Kevin Cullen, "Art Stolen From Gardner Museum Was Uninsured, Cost of Theft Coverage Described as Prohibitive," Boston Globe, March 20, 1990, 1. Robert Hughes, "A Boston Theft Reflects the Art World's Turmoil," Time 135:14 (April 2, 1990), 54. Peter Plagens, Mark Starr, and Kate Robins, "To Catch an Art Thief," Newsweek 115:14 (April 2, 1990), 52. Scott Baldauf, "Museum Asks: Does It Take a Thief to Catch a Degas?," Christian Science Monitor 89:193 (Aug. 29, 1997), 3. Steve Lopez and Charlotte Faltermayer, "The Great Art Caper," Time 150:21 (Nov. 17, 1997), 74. "Missing Masterpieces," Security 37:6 (June 2000), 14-18. Robert M. Poole, "Ripped From the Walls (And the Headlines)," Smithsonian 36:4 (July 2005), 92-103. Paige Williams, "The Art of the Story," Boston Magazine, March 2010. Randy Kennedy, "20th Anniversary of a Boston Art Heist," New York Times, March 17, 2010. Mark Durney and Blythe Proulx, "Art Crime: A Brief Introduction," Crime, Law and Social Change 56:115 (September 2011). Katharine Q. Seelye and Tom Mashberg, "A New Effort in Boston to Catch 1990 Art Thieves," New York Times, March 18, 2013. Tom Mashberg, "Isabella Stewart Gardner: 25 Years of Theories," New York Times, Feb. 26, 2015. Shelley Murphy, "Search for Artworks From Gardner Heist Continues 25 Years Later," Boston Globe, March 17, 2015. Tom Mashberg, "Arrest by F.B.I. Is Tied to $500 Million Art Theft From Boston Museum, Lawyer Says," New York Times, April 17, 2015. Serge F. Kovaleski and Tom Mashberg, "Reputed Mobster May Be Last Link to Gardner Museum Art Heist," New York Times, April 24, 2015. "New Video in 25-Year-Old Art Heist at Boston's Isabella Gardner Museum," New York Daily News, Aug. 6, 2015. Tom Mashberg, "25 Years After Gardner Museum Heist, Video Raises Questions," New York Times, Aug. 6, 2015. Rodrigue Ngowi and William J. Kole, "2 Suspects in Boston Art Theft Worth $500 Million Are Dead, FBI Says," Washington Post, Aug. 7, 2015. Sarah Kaplan, "Surveillance Video Raises Questions — and Possible Clues — in 25-Year-Old Museum Mystery," Washington Post, Aug. 7, 2015. Justin Peters, "Why Is Stolen Art So Hard to Find?," Slate, Aug. 14, 2015. Erick Trickey, "The Gardner Museum Heist: Who's Got the Art?," Boston Magazine, March 13, 2016. Shelley Murphy and Stephen Kurkjian, "Six Theories Behind The Stolen Gardner Museum Paintings," Boston Globe, March 18, 2017. Graham Bowley, "Gardner Museum Doubles Reward for Recovery of Stolen Masterpieces," New York Times, May 23, 2017. Edmund H. Mahony, "Stubborn Stand-Off Over Stolen Gardner Museum Art Could End With Sentencing of Hartford Gangster," Hartford Courant, Sept. 5, 2017. Katharine Q. Seelye, "Clock Is Ticking on $10 Million Reward in Gardner Art Heist," New York Times, Dec. 26, 2017. Camila Domonoske, "Got the Scoop on the Gardner Museum Art Heist? You Have 4 Days to Earn $10 Million," The Two-Way, National Public Radio, Dec. 27, 2017. Edmund H. Mahony, "Museum Extends $10 Million Reward in Notorious Boston Gardner Museum Art Heist," Hartford Courant, Jan. 11, 2018. Colin Moynihan, "Gardner Museum Extends $10 Million Reward for Information in Art Heist," New York Times, Jan. 11, 2018. Nadja Sayej, "Will Boston's $500m Art Heist Ever Be Solved?," Guardian, Jan. 19, 2018. Leah Silverman, "Suspect in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist Sentenced to Four Years in Prison," Town & Country, Feb. 28, 2018. Sarah Cascone, "Paintings Stolen in America's Biggest Art Heist Have Returned to Their Frames -- Thanks to Augmented Reality," Artnet, March 26, 2018. "Learn About the Theft," Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (accessed April 29, 2018). Listener mail: Derek Lowe, "Understanding Antidepressants -- or Not," Science Translational Medicine, Feb. 12, 2018. Johnathan Frunzi, "From Weapon to Wonder Drug," Hospitalist, February 2007. "Evolution of Cancer Treatments: Chemotherapy," American Cancer Society (accessed May 17, 2018). Augustus De Morgan, A Budget of Paradoxes Reprinted, With the Author's

Here are five new lateral thinking puzzles -- play along with us as we try to untangle some perplexing situations using yes-or-no questions. Here are the sources for this week's puzzles. In a few places we've included links to further information -- these contain spoilers, so don't click until you've listened to the episode: Puzzle #1 was contributed by listener Mary McNally. Puzzle #2 is from listeners Tay Moss and John Russell. Puzzle #3 is from Paul Sloane and Des MacHale's 2014 book Remarkable Lateral Thinking Puzzles, plus this article. Puzzle #4 was suggested by an item in Kevin McAleer's 2014 book Dueling: The Cult of Honor in Fin-de-Siècle Germany. Puzzle #5 was devised by Sharon. Here are three corroborating links. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1921 a schooner ran aground on the treacherous shoals off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. When rescuers climbed aboard, they found signs of a strange drama in the ship's last moments -- and no trace of the 11-man crew. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll examine the curious case of the Carroll A. Deering, which has been called "one of the enduring mysteries of maritime history." We'll also experiment with yellow fever and puzzle over a disputed time of death. Intro: Benoni Lanctot's 1867 Chinese and English Phrase Book is not a model of cross-cultural comity. In 1916 a bank director mailed 15,000 bricks to establish a new bank in Vernal, Utah. Sources for our feature on the Carroll A. Deering: Bland Simpson, Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals, 2002. Edward Rowe Snow, Mysteries and Adventures Along the Atlantic Coast, 1948. David Stick, Graveyard of the Atlantic: Shipwrecks of the North Carolina Coast, 1952. David H. Grover, "Baffling Mystery of Cape Hatteras' Twin Ship Disappearances," Sea Classics 40:6 (June 2007), 42. David Grover, "Bedeviling Mystery of the Vanished Conestoga," Sea Classics 42:4 (April 2009), 42-49. National Park Foundation, "The Legend of the Ghost Ship: Carroll A. Deering," Oct. 28, 2015. National Park Service, "The Ghost Ship of the Outer Banks," April 14, 2015. Richard Seamon, "Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals: The Mystery of Carroll A. Deering," United States Naval Institute Proceedings 128:11 (November 2002), 82-84. "3 U.S. Ships Vanish at Sea With Crews; Reds Blamed," New York Tribune, June 21, 1921. "Piracy Suspected in Disappearance of 3 American Ships," New York Times, June 21, 1921. "Ghost Ship Met Foul Play, U.S. Charges," Washington Times, June 21, 1921. "Bath Owners Skeptical," New York Times, June 21, 1921. "Schooner Deering Seized by Pirates Off the North Carolina Coast, Is Belief," Great Falls [Mont.] Tribune, June 22, 1921. "Deering Skipper's Wife Caused Investigation," New York Times, June 22, 1921. "More Ships Added to Mystery List," New York Times, June 22, 1921. "Divided as to Theory About Missing Ships," New York Times, June 22, 1921. "Are Pirates Afloat in North Atlantic? Is Question Asked," Union [S.C.] Times, June 23, 1921. "Skipper's Daughter Holds Pirate Theory," New York Times, June 23, 1921. "London Isn't Thrilled by Ship Mysteries," New York Times, June 25, 1921. "Soviet Pirate Tale Declared a 'Fake,'" New York Times, Aug. 26, 1921. Shaila Dewan, "A Journey Back in Maritime," New York Times, July 4, 2008. Alyson Cunningham, "Schooner's Voyage Ends on Carolina Coast," [Salisbury, Md.] Daily Times, Feb. 26, 2014, 40. "The 'Ghost Ship' Mysteries Yet to be Solved," Telegraph, Jan. 23, 2014. Engineer James Steel took the above photograph of the Carroll A. Deering from the deck of the lightship off Cape Lookout, North Carolina, on Jan. 28, 1921. Listener mail: Wikipedia, "Self-Experimentation in Medicine" (accessed May 4, 2018). Wikipedia, "Max Joseph von Pettenkofer" (accessed May 4, 2018). Wikipedia, "Jesse William Lazear" (accessed May 4, 2018). Kiona N. Smith, "The Epidemiologist Who Killed Himself for Science," Forbes, Sept. 25, 2017. Neil A. Grauer, "'The Myth of Walter Reed,'" Washington Post, Aug. 26, 1997 Karin Brulliard, "Could a Bear Break Into That Cooler? Watch These Grizzlies Try," Washington Post, Nov. 29, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdOcrUtE-UQ This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listeners Neil de Carteret and Nala, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1932 a quartet of Bronx gangsters set out to murder a friend of theirs in order to collect his life insurance. But Michael Malloy proved to be almost comically difficult to kill. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review what one observer called "the most clumsily executed insurance scam in New York City history." We'll also burrow into hoarding and puzzle over the value of silence. Intro: In May 1856 Abraham Lincoln gave a fiery speech of which no record exists. Calvin S. Brown argued that Thomas De Quincey modeled the third part of his 1849 essay "The English Mail-Coach" deliberately on a musical fugue. Sources for our feature on Michael Malloy: Simon Read, On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Malloy, 2005. Deborah Blum, The Poisoner's Handbook, 2011. Karen Abbott, "The Man Who Wouldn't Die," Smithsonian, Feb. 7, 2012. Isabelle Keating, "Doctor and Undertaker Held in 'Murder Trust,'" Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 12, 1933. "Insurance Murder Charged to Five," New York Times, May 13, 1933. "4 Murder Attempts Cited in Weird Insurance Plot," Altoona (Pa.) Tribune, May 13, 1933. "Murder Plot Seen in Another Death," New York Times, May 14, 1933. "Murder Inquiry Is Widened by Foley," New York Times, May 16, 1933. "Six Are Indicted in Insurance Plot," [Washington D.C.] Evening Star, May 17, 1933. "Indicted as Slayers in Insurance Plot," New York Times, May 17, 1933. "4 on Trial in Bronx Insurance Slaying," New York Times, Oct. 5, 1933. "4 Men Go on Trial in Old Insurance Plot," Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Oct. 18, 1933. "Jury Weighs Fate of Four in Killing," New York Times, Oct. 19, 1933. "Four Men to Die for Bronx Killing," New York Times, Oct. 20, 1933. "Three Die at Sing Sing for Bronx Murder," New York Times, June 8, 1934. "Murphy Goes to the Chair," New York Times, July 6, 1934. "The Durable Mike Malloy," New York Daily News, Oct. 14, 2007. Max Haines, "Inept Gang of Murderers Found Barfly Michael Malloy Almost Indestructible," Kamloops [B.C.] Daily News, Feb. 23, 2008. Deborah Blum, "The Strange Death of Mike the Durable," Women in Crime Ink, March 23, 2010. Listener mail: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), American Psychiatric Association, 2013. Fugen Neziroglu, "Hoarding: The Basics," Anxiety and Depression Association of America (accessed April 27, 2018). Scott O. Lilienfeld and Hal Arkowitz, "Hoarding Can Be a Deadly Business," Scientific American, Sept. 1, 2013. Ferris Jabr, "Step Inside the Real World of Compulsive Hoarders," Scientific American, Feb. 25, 2013. Homer and Langley's Mystery Spot Antiques: This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener David Marrero, who sent these corroborating links (warning -- these spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1977, a young woman named Robyn Davidson set out to pursue what she called a "lunatic idea" -- to lead a group of camels 1,700 miles across western Australia, from the center of the continent to the Indian Ocean. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow Davidson's remarkable journey alone through the Outback and learn what it taught her. We'll also dive into the La Brea Tar Pits and puzzle over some striking workers. Intro: O.E. Young of Petersburg, Va., assembled a two-story house from the marble headstones of 2,000 Union soldiers. In 1946 Stan Bult began recording the faces of London clowns on eggshells. Sources for our feature on Robyn Davidson: Robyn Davidson, Tracks, 1980. Paul Smethurst, Travel Writing and the Natural World, 1768-1840, 2012. Robert Clarke, Travel Writing From Black Australia: Utopia, Melancholia, and Aboriginality, 2016. Amanda Hooton, "Travels of the Heart," Sydney Morning Herald, Feb. 8, 2014. Robyn Davidson, "Walk My Country," Mānoa 18:2 (Winter 2006), 7-17. "The Inspiration: Robyn Davidson," Australian Geographic 90 (April-June 2008), 112-112. Dea Birkett, "The Books Interview: Robyn Davidson -- Landmarks of an Accursed Art," Independent, Aug. 4, 2001, 9. Luke Slattery, "10 Questions: Robyn Davidson, Writer, Traveller, 59," Australian Magazine, Oct. 13, 2012, 10. Michele Field, "Robyn Davidson: A Literary Nomad," Publishers Weekly 243:46 (Nov. 11, 1996), 52-53. Cathy Pryor, "Tracks Author Robyn Davidson Reflects on a Changing Australia, 40 Years After Her Desert Trek," ABC News, Dec. 8, 2017. Richard Feloni, "16 Striking Photos of One Woman's 2,835km Trek Across the Australian Outback," Business Insider Australia, Feb. 15, 2015. Robyn Davidson, "Tracks: The True Story Behind the Film," Telegraph, April 19, 2014. Duncan Campbell, "Making Tracks: Robyn Davidson's Australian Camel Trip on the Big Screen," Guardian, April 21, 2014. "Indomitable Spirit," Canberra Times, Sept. 29, 2012, 8. Coburn Dukehart, "Rick Smolan's Trek With Tracks, From Australian Outback to Silver Screen," National Geographic, Sept. 19, 2014. Brad Wetzler, "Australian Camel Odyssey: A Voyage of Self Discovery," Kitchener-Waterloo Record, Jan. 2, 1993, E1. Eleanor Massey, "Women Who Discovered the World," Eureka Street 21:2 (Feb. 11, 2011), 1-2. Mary Warner Marien, "Desert Journeys With Women Are Anything But Dry," Christian Science Monitor, March 12, 1997. Jennifer H. Laing and Geoffrey I. Crouch, "Lone Wolves? Isolation and Solitude Within the Frontier Travel Experience," Geografiska Annaler, Series B, Human Geography 91:4 (December 2009), 325-342. Gary Krist, "Ironic Journeys: Travel Writing in the Age of Tourism," Hudson Review 45:4 (Winter 1993), 593-601. Robert Clarke, "Travel and Celebrity Culture: An Introduction," Postcolonial Studies 12:2 (June 2009), 145-152. Richard Snailham, "Tracks by Robyn Davidson," Geographical Journal 148:1 (March 1982), 116-117. Ihab Hassan, "Australian Journeys: A Personal Essay on Spirit," Religion & Literature 34:3 (Autumn, 2002), 75-90. Rachael Weaver, "Adaptation and Authorial Celebrity: Robyn Davidson and the Context of John Curran's Tracks (2013)," Adaptation 9:1 (March 2016), 12-21. Listener mail: Helen Lawson, "'My Job Stinks': The Diver Who Has to Swim Through Sewers to Unblock the Drains of Mexico City," Daily Mail, March 23, 2013. Michael Walsh, "It's A Dirty Job: Meet Mexico City'S Official Sewer Diver," New York Daily News, March 23, 2013. Eric Hodge, Phoebe Judge, and Rebecca Martinez, "Criminal: La Brea Dave's Deep Dive," WUNC, Dec. 18, 2015. Wikipedia, "La Brea Tar Pits" (accessed April 19, 2018). "FAQs," La Brea Tar Pits & Museum (accessed April 19, 2018). Andrew Blankstein, "Police Find Evidence Linked to Homicide in La Brea Tar Pits," Los Angeles Times, June 7, 2013. Wikipedia, "Grapheme-Color Synesthesia" (accessed April 19, 2018). Maggie Koerth-Baker, "Magnetic Letters Taught Us More Than How to Spell," National Geographic, March 9, 2016. "Synesthesia," Psychology Today (accessed April 19, 2018). Nathan Witthoft, Jonathan Winawer, and David M. Eagleman, "Prevalence of Learned Grapheme-Color Pairings in a Large Online Sample of Synesthetes," PLOS One 10:3 (March 4, 2015), e0118996. A.N. Rich, J.L. Bradshaw, and J.B. Mattingley, "A Systematic, Large-Scale Study of Synaesthesia: Implications for the Role of Early Experience in Lexical-Colour Associations," Cognition 98:1 (November 2005), 53-84. Wikipedia, "Synesthesia" (accessed April 19, 2018). Patricia Lynne Duffy, Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens: How Synesthetes Color Their Worlds, 2011. This week's lateral thinking puzzle is from Paul Sloane and Des MacHale's 2014 book Remarkable Lateral Thinking Puzzles. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any a

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the crew of an American seaplane were caught off guard near New Zealand. Unable to return across the Pacific, they were forced to fly home "the long way" -- all the way around the world. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the adventures of the Pacific Clipper on its 30,000-mile journey through a world engulfed in war. We'll also delve into the drug industry and puzzle over a curious case of skin lesions. Intro: In the 18th century Italian artist Giovanni Piranesi began to turn out etchings of fantastic prisons. Spanish philologist Valentín García Yebra contends that this six-word Portuguese poem can't be translated effectively into another language. Sources for our feature on the Pacific Clipper: Ed Dover, The Long Way Home, 2010. Archie Satterfield, The Day the War Began, 1992. C.V. Glines, "The China Clipper, Pan American Airways and Popular Culture," Aviation History 18:1 (September 2007), 69-70. C.V. Glines, "Clippers Circle the Globe," Aviation History 17:4 (March 2007), 34-43. John A. Marshall, "The Long Way Home," Air & Space Smithsonian 10:2 (June/July 1995), 18. Wolfgang Saxon, "Robert Ford, Clipper Pilot of 40's Who Circled Globe, Dies at 88," New York Times, Oct. 19, 1994. "World Travelers Pearl Harbor Turns a Routine Pan Am Clipper Flight Into a 31,500-Mile Odyssey," Chicago Tribune, Dec. 3, 2000. Byron Darnton, "Pacific Clipper, Racing War, Circles Globe, Lands Here," New York Times, Jan. 7, 1942. "Pacific Clipper at Noumea," New York Times, Nov. 11, 1941. "Pan Am's Pacific Clippers," Pacific Aviation Museum, Sept. 14, 2011. Robert van der Linden, "December 7, 1941 and the First Around-the-World Commercial Flight," Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Dec. 8, 2011. John A. Marshall, "Celebrating the 75th Anniversary: The 'Round The World Saga of the 'Pacific Clipper,'" Pan Am Historical Foundation (accessed April 1, 2018). Listener mail: Nicola Nosengo, "Can You Teach Old Drugs New Tricks?", Nature, June 14, 2016. James Rudd, "From Viagra to Valium, the Drugs That Were Discovered by Accident," Guardian, July 10, 2017. Thomas A. Ban, "The Role of Serendipity in Drug Discovery," Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience 8:3 (September 2006), 335–344. David W. Thomas et al., "Clinical Development Success Rates 2006-2015," BIO/Biomedtracker/Amplion, 2016. Charlie Sorrel, "The Bicycle Is Still a Scientific Mystery: Here's Why," Fast Company, Aug. 1, 2016. Michael Brooks, "We Still Don't Really Know How Bicycles Work," New Statesman, Aug. 6, 2013. Michael Brooks, "How Does a Bicycle Stay Upright?", New Scientist, Sept. 2, 2015. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Arabo Avanes. Here are two corroborating links (warning -- these spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

When the English concert pianist Joyce Hatto died in 2006, she was remembered as a national treasure for the brilliant playing on her later recordings. But then doubts arose as to whether the performances were really hers. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review a surprising case of musical plagiarism, which touched off a scandal in the polite world of classical music. We'll also spot foxes in London and puzzle over a welcome illness. Intro: In 1964 a British meteorologist found an abandoned whaleboat on the most remote island in the world. Scores of dogs have jumped to their deaths from the bridge approaching Scotland's Overtoun House. Sources for our feature on Joyce Hatto: Richard Dyer, "After Recording 119 CDs, A Hidden Jewel Comes to Light," Boston Globe, Aug. 21, 2005. Richard Dyer, "Joyce Hatto, At 77; Pianist Was Prolific Recording Artist," Boston Globe, July 4, 2006. Jeremy Nicholas, "Joyce Hatto," Guardian, July 10, 2006. "Joyce Hatto," Telegraph, July 28, 2006. David Denton, "The Remarkable Story of Joyce Hatto, Part 2: An Overview Discography," Fanfare 30:2 (September 2006), 65-67. Ates Orga, "Joyce Hatto," Independent, Aug. 13, 2006. "Masterpieces or Fakes? The Joyce Hatto Scandal," Gramophone, Feb. 15, 2007. Alan Riding, "A Pianist's Recordings Draw Praise, But Were They All Hers?", New York Times, Feb. 17, 2007. Martin Beckford, "Pianist's Virtuosity Is Called Into Question," Telegraph, Feb. 17, 2007. Martin Beckford, "My Wife's Virtuoso Recordings Are Genuine," Telegraph, Feb. 20, 2007. Mike Musgrove, "Too Perfect Harmony: How Technology Fostered, and Detected, a Pianist's Alleged Plagiarism," Washington Post, Feb. 22, 2007. David Weininger, "Alleged Hatto Plagiarism Shakes Music World," Boston Globe, Feb. 23, 2007. Claudia Joseph and Adam Luck, "Revenge of the Phantom Pianist," Mail on Sunday, Feb. 25, 2007. Denis Dutton, "Shoot the Piano Player," New York Times, Feb. 26, 2007. Alan Riding, "Pianist's Widower Admits Fraud in Recordings Issued as His Wife's," New York Times, Feb. 27, 2007. Martin Beckford, "Yes, I Did Pass Off Piano CDs as Wife's Work, Says Widower," Telegraph, Feb. 27, 2007. Geoff Edgers, "Cherished Music Wasn't Hers," Boston Globe, Feb. 27, 2007. William Weir, "The Ivories Snow Job: Pianist Joyce Hatto's Recordings Found To Be Fakes," McClatchy-Tribune Business News, Feb. 28, 2007. "Joyce Hatto Recordings Queried," International Piano, March 1, 2007, 6. Pierre Ruhe, "Classical Notes: Our Nature Makes Fraud a Given," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 4, 2007. Ann McFerran, "Yes, I Lied About Joyce. Now I'll Face the Music," Sunday Times, March 4, 2007. Howard Reich, "Reviewers Not to Blame for Hatto Fraud," McClatchy-Tribune News Service, March 7, 2007. Esther Bintliff, "Grand Theft Piano," Newsweek 149:21 (May 28, 2007), 60. Mark Singer, "Fantasia for Piano," New Yorker, Sept. 17, 2007. Mark Singer, "Joyce Hatto: Notes on a Scandal," Telegraph, Nov. 10, 2007. Kenneth Walton, "How Simple Tinkering With Tempo Took in the Top Critics," Scotsman, July 29, 2009. Christopher Webber, "Hatto, Joyce Hilda," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Jan. 7, 2010. Eric Drott, "Fraudulence and the Gift Economy of Music," Journal of Music Theory 54:1 (Spring 2010), 61-74. Ewan Foskett, "Exclusive: Husband of Pianist in Recording Scandal Speaks to The Crow," Royston Crow, March 1, 2012. Frances Hubbard, "The Piano Genius Who Never Was," Daily Mail, April 4, 2012. Joyce Hatto Identifications and Scandal lists the identities of the artists whose work was stolen. Listener mail: China Miéville, "'Oh, London, You Drama Queen,'" New York Times Magazine, March 1, 2012. Murray Wardrop, "Fox Takes Tube Station Escalator," Telegraph, Dec. 8, 2009. "Project: Control of Pigeon Population," Effective Bird Control (accessed April 7, 2018). "Deep Learning, Blockchain, CRISPR, and Neural Networks, Explained with Food," Super Deluxe, Aug. 5, 2017. Jacob Brogan, "Out of the Loop," Slate, Aug. 9, 2017. "Try These Neural Network-Generated Recipes at Your Own Risk," AI Weirdness, Aug. 6, 2017. "Tech Talk," Futility Closet, March 13, 2018. "Candy Heart Messages Written by a Neural Network," AI Weirdness, Feb. 9, 2018. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Carsten Hamann, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

American geologist Clarence King led a strange double life in the late 1800s: He invented a second identity as a black railroad porter so he could marry the woman he loved, and then spent 13 years living separate lives in both white and black America. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll consider the extraordinary lengths that King went to in order to be with the woman he loved. We'll also contemplate the dangers of water and puzzle over a policeman's strange behavior. Intro: Artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster arrange household trash to cast shadow self-portraits. Participants 140 meters apart can hold an inaudible conversation across South Australia's Barossa Reservoir dam. Sources for our feature on Clarence King: Martha A. Sandweiss, Passing Strange, 2009. Bill Croke, "The Many Lives of Clarence King," American Spectator, Feb. 28, 2011. John Koster, "He Tried to Solve Earth's Mysteries And Left a Few Mysteries of His Own- Clarence King," Wild West, February 2014. William Grimes, "Recalling a Geologist, Adventurer and Raconteur Whom Henry Adams Looked Up to," New York Times, Feb. 22, 2006. David L. Beck, "A Geologist's Secret Life," St. Petersburg Times, April 12, 2009. William Howarth, "Sex, Lies and Cyanide," Washington Post, May 20, 1990. Michael K. Johnson, "Passing Strange," Western American Literature 44:4 (Winter 2010), 404-405. Martha A. Sandweiss, "Ada Copeland King," American National Biography (accessed March 23, 2018). Thurman Wilkins, "Clarence Rivers King," American National Biography (accessed March 23, 2018). "American Lives: The 'Strange' Tale of Clarence King," Morning Edition, National Public Radio, Aug. 18, 2010. Annette Gordon-Reed, "Color Blind," Washington Post, Feb. 22, 2009. Jennifer Greenstein Altmann, "Sandweiss Unearths a Compelling Tale of Secret Racial Identity," Princeton University, Dec. 17, 2009. Baz Dreisinger, "A Transracial Man," New York Times, March 5, 2009. "American Lives: The 'Strange' Tale of Clarence King," WBUR News, Aug. 18, 2010. Elinore Longobardi, "Two Lives," Columbia Journalism Review, Feb. 4, 2009. "King Peak," Antarctica: An Encyclopedia, 2011. Listener mail: Wikipedia, "Bhopal Disaster" (accessed March 23, 2018). Alan Taylor, "Bhopal: The World's Worst Industrial Disaster, 30 Years Later," Atlantic, Dec. 2, 2014. An example of a current safety manual warning of the dangers of rust in steel tanks, from Gillian Brent. "The Case of the Rusty Assassin," Maritime Accident Casebook (accessed March 25, 2018). Steve Selden, "Polar Bear Encounters on Rise in Churchill," Churchill Polar Bills, Feb. 29, 2016. A Colorado bear breaks into Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Scott Miller. Here's a corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In the 1930s, brothers Homer and Langley Collyer withdrew from society and began to fill their Manhattan brownstone with newspapers, furniture, musical instruments, and assorted junk. By 1947, when Homer died, the house was crammed with 140 tons of rubbish, and Langley had gone missing. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the strange, sad story of the Hermits of Harlem. We'll also buy a bit of Finland and puzzle over a banker's misfortune. Intro: When New Amsterdam governor Wilhelm Kieft tried to outlaw smoking in the 1630s, his citizens literally puffed him into submission. Residents of the Canary island La Gomera communicate over long distances using a unique whistled language. Sources for our feature on the Collyer brothers: Franz Lidz, Ghosty Men, 2003. Franz Lidz, "The Paper Chase," New York Times, Oct. 26, 2003. William Bryk, "The Collyer Brothers," New York Sun, April 13, 2005. Michael Kernan, "The Collyer Saga And How It Grew; Recalling the Men Who Turned Trash Into Legend," Washington Post, February 8, 1983, B1. "Strange Case of the Collyer Brothers," Life, April 7, 1947. Robert M. Jarvis, "The Curious Legal Career of Homer L. Collyer," Journal of Maritime Law and Commerce 38:4 (October 2007), 571-582. Keith P. Ronan, "Navigating the Goat Paths: Compulsive Hoarding, or Collyer Brothers Syndrome, and the Legal Reality of Clutter," Rutgers Law Review 64:1 (Fall 2011), 235-266. Kenneth J. Weiss, "Hoarding, Hermitage, and the Law: Why We Love the Collyer Brothers," Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 38:2 (June 2010), 251-257. Kenneth J. Weiss and Aneela Khan, "Hoarding, Housing, and DSM-5," Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 43:4 (December 2015), 492-498. Scott Herring, "Collyer Curiosa: A Brief History of Hoarding," Criticism 53:2 (Spring 2011), 159-188. Patrick W. Moran, "The Collyer Brothers and the Fictional Lives of Hoarders," Modern Fiction Studies 62:2 (Summer 2016), 272-I. Jackie McAllister, "The Collyer Brothers," Grand Street 14:2 (Fall 1995), 201. Joyce Carol Oates, "Love and Squalor," New Yorker, Sept. 7, 2009. "Collyer Mansion Keeps Its Secrets," New York Times, Sept. 30, 1942. Harold Faber, "Homer Collyer, Harlem Recluse, Found Dead at 70," New York Times, March 22, 1947. "Thousands Gape at Collyer House," New York Times, March 24, 1947. Harold Faber, "Police Fail to Find Collyer in House," New York Times, March 25, 1947. "The Collyer Mystery," New York Times, March 26, 1947. "Collyer Mansion Yields Junk, Cats," New York Times, March 26, 1947. "Langley Collyer Is Dead, Police Say," New York Times, March 27, 1947. Russell Owen, "Some for O. Henry: Story of the Collyers," New York Times, March 30, 1947. "3D Search Starts at Collyer House," New York Times, April 1, 1947. "53 Attend Burial of Homer Collyer," New York Times, April 2, 1947. "More Secrets Taken From Collyer Home," New York Times, April 4, 1947. Harold Faber, "Body of Collyer Is Found Near Where Brother Died," New York Times, April 9, 1947. "Langley Collier Dead Near Month," New York Times, April 10, 1947. "200 Bid Spiritedly for Collyer Items," New York Times, June 11, 1947. "Collyer Home 'Unsafe,'" New York Times, June 26, 1947. "Collyer Brothers Park," Atlas Obscura (accessed March 4, 2018). Andy Newman, "Origin Aside, 'Collyers' Mansion' Is Code for Firefighter Nightmare," New York Times, July 5, 2006, B1. Listener mail: Wikipedia, "Category:Drugs With Unknown Mechanisms of Action" (accessed March 16, 2018). Wikipedia, "Theories of General Anaesthetic Action" (accessed March 16, 2018). Wikipedia, "Paracetamol" (accessed March 16, 2018). Tanya Lewis, "Mystery Mechanisms," The Scientist, July 29, 2016. Bruce Schneier, "Harassment by Package Delivery," Schneier on Security, Feb. 22, 2018. Sean P. Murphy, "'I Just Want It To Stop': Women Get Sex Toys In Packages They Didn't Order," Boston Globe, Feb. 20, 2018. Sean P. Murphy, "This Couple Keeps Getting Mystery Packages From Amazon They Didn't Order," Boston Globe, Feb. 6, 2018. "Bow Tie - Every Buyer Gets 100 Square Feet of Scandinavian Forest - Hand Made in Finland from Finnish Curly Birch - By Woodinavia," Amazon UK (accessed March 16, 2018). Woodinavia. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Tommy Honton, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1905 Winchester Cathedral was in danger of collapsing as its eastern end sank into marshy ground. The surprising solution was to hire a diver, who worked underwater for five years to build a firmer foundation for the medieval structure. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of William Walker and his curious contribution to saving a British landmark. We'll also contemplate a misplaced fire captain and puzzle over a shackled woman. Intro: Anthony Trollope became a prolific author by simply demanding it of himself. Wyoming's North Two Ocean Creek drains into both the Atlantic and the Pacific. Sources for our feature on William Walker: Ian T. Henderson and John Crook, The Winchester Diver, 1984. Barry Shurlock, The Winchester Story, 1986. Frederick Bussby, William Walker, 1970. John Crook and Yoshio Kusaba, "The Transepts of Winchester Cathedral: Archaeological Evidence, Problems of Design, and Sequence of Construction," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 50:3 (September 1991), 293-310. Gwilym Roberts, "How a Diver Saved Winchester Cathedral, UK: And Today's Solution?" Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers -- Engineering History and Heritage 166:3 (August 2013), 164-176. "William Walker: The Diver Who Saved the Cathedral," Winchester Cathedral (accessed Feb. 25, 2018). "Images of History," Journal of Diving History 21:2 (Spring 2013), 40. John Crook, "William Robert Walker," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Sept. 23, 2004. "How a Diver Saved a Cathedral," Ohio Architect, Engineer and Builder 20:4 (October 1912), 61. "Foundations: The Use of Divers and the Grouting Machine," American Architect and Building News 93:1689 (May 6, 1908), 147. "Portland Cement in the Restoration of Winchester Cathedral," Cement 13:3 (July 1912), 84. "Winchester Cathedral," Journal of the Society of Estate Clerks of Works 19:222 (Dec. 1, 1906), 182. "Diving at Winchester Cathedral," American Architect 90:1607 (Oct. 13, 1906), 120. Charles William Domville-Fife, Submarine Engineering of To-Day, 1914. J.W. Overend, "Saving a Cathedral With a Diver," Scientific American 108:19 (May 10, 1913), 428. "Toilers Beneath the Sea," Popular Science 3 (1912), 1580. "Hidden Service," Expositor and Current Anecdotes 13:5 (February 1912), 302. "A Great Feat," Advance 62:2392 (Sept. 7, 1911), 303. David Newnham, "Statuesque Mistake," Times Educational Supplement, May 30, 2003, 5. Jonathan Petre and Hazel Southam, "Cathedral to Replace Statue of 'Wrong Man'," Telegraph, May 27, 2001. "Another Statue in Aid of Cathedral Hero," [Southampton] Southern Daily Echo, Dec. 21, 2001. "Croydon Man Helped to Save a Gothic Cathedral," Croydon Advertiser, May 15, 2014, 32. Andrew John Davies, "Site Unseen: 'Diver Bill', Winchester Cathedral," Independent, Oct. 4, 1996, L2. Sally A. Fall, "Winchester Cathedral Owes Debt to Diver," San Diego Union, June 26, 1988 G-3. "Diver Who Saved a Cathedral," New Zealand Herald, Nov. 1, 2011, C.4. In this diagram, from Popular Science, 1912, two men operate a large pump at ground level. Below them, standing on a platform just above the water level, the diver's assistant pulls in and pays out the diver's air and signal lines as he moves about the trench. Walker, at the bottom, holds a bag of concrete that's just been lowered to him. The trenches were generally longer and narrower than depicted here, and the water would have been impenetrably clouded with sediment. Listener mail: "Police Want Anyone Who May Have Seen Toronto Firefighter on His Journey Across U.S. to Come Forward," CBC News, Feb. 14, 2018. Jeff Farrell, "Skier Who Went Missing From New York Mountain Slopes Ends Up Six Days Later in California Still Wearing Ski Clothes," Independent, Feb. 15, 2018. "Skier Lost in New York Doesn't Know How He Got to California," Associated Press, Feb. 14, 2018. "Toronto Firefighter Who Disappeared in New York and Wound Up in California, May Have Travelled Across U.S. Thanks to Friendly Truck Driver," Toronto Star, Feb. 14, 2018. Sofia Tancredi, "Anorexia Through the Ages: From Sainthood to Psychiatry," E/I Balance, March 3, 2013. Muriel Darmon, Becoming Anorexic: A Sociological Study, 2016. Jane E. Brody, "HEALTH; Personal Health," New York Times, May 19, 1988. Fernando Espi Forcen, "Anorexia Mirabilis: The Practice of Fasting by Saint Catherine of Siena in the Late Middle Ages," American Journal of Psychiatry, April 1, 2013. Wikipedia, "Fasting Girl" (accessed March 10, 2018). "Sarah Jacobs: The Fasting Girl," BBC Wales, March 14, 2011. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Steven Jones. Here are two corroborating links (warning -- these spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per e

The world's longest airplane flight took place in 1958, when two aircraft mechanics spent 64 days above the southwestern U.S. in a tiny Cessna with no amenities. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the aerial adventures of Bob Timm and John Cook as they set a record that still stands today. We'll also consider a derelict kitty and puzzle over a movie set's fashion dictates. Intro: The Pythagorean theorem can be demonstrated using tangrams. Sculptor Marc Quinn molded a self-portrait from nine pints of his own frozen blood. Sources for our feature on Bob Timm and John Cook: Peter Garrison, "Beyond Endurance," Flying 144:2 (February 2017), 80-81. Marc C. Lee, "A Skyhawk for Everyone: Cessna's Hit Airplane Keeps Getting Better With Age," Plane and Pilot 48:2 (March 2012), 26-30,32-33. "From the Editor's Desk," Cessna Pilot 34:2 (March/April 2014), 2. "Endurance Test, Circa 1958," News & Videos, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, March 1, 2008. Shaun McKinnon, "They Kept a Tiny Plane Aloft for Months," Arizona Republic, April 14, 2013, A1. Warren Bates, "Plane Used to Set Record to Land at Airport Museum," Las Vegas Review, Feb. 11, 1999, 1B. "Hall of Fame," SP's Aviation, July 2015. Gannett News Service, "Risk Takers Make Long Flights Into History," April 13, 2013. George C. Larson, "The Pressure's On," Air & Space Smithsonian 27:1 (April/May 2012), 84. "Museum Honors City," Las Vegas Review-Journal, April 21, 1997, 2D. Ginger Mikkelsen, "Aviation Museum Draws 400,000 Annual Visitors," Las Vegas Review-Journal, June 13, 2001, 20AA. Anders Clark, "The Flight Endurance World Record," Disciples of Flight, Jan. 20, 2015. "Robert E. Timm & John W. Cook, Sr.," Nevada Aerospace Hall of Fame (accessed Feb. 11, 2018). Barry Meek, "The Longest Flight In History - In a Cessna 172," Santa Clara County Airports (accessed Feb. 11, 2018). Shaun McKinnon, "Risk Takers Make Long Flights Into History," Arizona Republic, April 14, 2013. Rebecca Maksel, "Airborne for 64 Days," Air & Space Smithsonian, March 22, 2012. Fred Martin, A Reminiscence Over Old Airplanes, 2010. Listener mail: Helena Horton, "Battersea Has Been Trying to Get Parliament to Adopt a Cat Since 2014 -- and Has Two Which Are Perfect for Mousing," Telegraph, Aug. 17, 2017. Ben Glaze, "'Lazy' Larry the Cat Is So Bad at Killing Downing Street Mice That Pest Controllers Have Been Brought In," Mirror, Feb. 13, 2018. Wikipedia, "Ooka Tadasuke" (accessed March 2, 2018). Roman Cybriwsky, Historical Dictionary of Tokyo, 2011. Kerry Segrave, Lie Detectors: A Social History, 2003. Wikipedia, "Sky Burial" (accessed March 2, 2018). Meg Van Huygen, "Give My Body to the Birds: The Practice of Sky Burial," Atlas Obscura, March 11, 2014. The "Buzzard Lope" performed at the Berlin Blues Explosion 2017. This week's lateral thinking puzzle is based on an item that Sharon read in Dan Lewis' Now I Know newsletter (warning -- this link spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1856, an American clipper ship was approaching Cape Horn when its captain collapsed, leaving his 19-year-old wife to navigate the vessel through one of the deadliest sea passages in the world. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of Mary Patten and the harrowing voyage of the Neptune's Car. We'll also consider some improbable recipes and puzzle over a worker's demise. Intro: In 1943, the U.S. considered releasing glowing foxes in Japan to frighten Shintoists. Rice University chemist James Tour fashions stick figures from organic molecules. Sources for our feature on Mary Patten: Paul W. Simpson, Neptune's Car: An American Legend, 2018. Glenn A. Knoblock, The American Clipper Ship, 1845-1920, 2014. Sam Jefferson, Clipper Ships and the Golden Age of Sail, 2014. David Cordingly, Seafaring Women, 2010. Jane D. Lyon, The Great Clippers, 2016. Bill Caldwell, Rivers of Fortune, 2002. Julie Baker, "The Troubled Voyage of Neptune's Car," American History 39:6 (February 2005), 58-65. Raymond A. Rydell, "The California Clippers," Pacific Historical Review 18:1 (February 1949), 70-83. Ann Whipple Marr, "Mary Ann Brown Patten," Oxford Dictionary of American National Biography, Dec. 2, 1999. "Neptune's Car," Ships of the World, 1997, 356. Kenneth J. Blume, Historical Dictionary of the U.S. Maritime Industry, 2012. "Mary Patten, 19 and Pregnant, Takes Command of a Clipper Ship in 1856," New England Historical Society (accessed Feb. 2, 2018). "The Story of Mary Patten," National Sailing Hall of Fame (accessed Feb. 2, 2018). "Women in Maritime History," San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, National Park Service (accessed Feb. 2, 2018). Alan Flanders, "Clipper Neptune's Car Saved From Disaster by Quick-Learning Wife of Stricken Skipper," [Norfolk] Virginian-Pilot, Oct. 15, 2000, 3. George Tucker, "Woman's Touch Helped Clipper Ship Make History," [Norfolk] Virginian-Pilot, Nov. 14, 1999, B3. Joanne Lannin and Ray Routhier, "The Ladies of Maine," Portland Press Herald, March 13, 1996, 1C. "A Noble Woman," Sailor's Magazine, April 1857. "A Heroine of the Sea," Friends' Intelligencer 14 (1857), 46-47. "A Heroine Arrived -- The Young Wife Who Took Neptune's Car Around Cape Horn," New York Times, March 18, 1857. "A Wife Worth Having," New York Times, Feb. 21, 1857. "Report of the Select Committee on the Rights of Married Women," Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Ohio, 1857, 110. "Modern Female Heroism," Annual Register, March 1857. "The Heroic Mrs. Patten," Boston Evening Transcript, June 23, 1857. "Marine Matters," New York Times, March 24, 1857. "Neptune's Car," New York Times, July 27, 1857. "Funeral of Capt. Joshua A. Patten," New York Times, Aug. 31, 1857. "Personal," New York Times, Sept. 23, 1857. "Marine Matters," New York Times, March 20, 1857. "Personal," New York Times, March 20, 1861. Listener mail: Jeffrey Gettleman and Kai Schultz, "India's Punishment for Plant-Eating Donkeys: Jail Time," New York Times, Nov. 28, 2017. Faiz Siddiqui, "Donkeys Destroy Plants, 'Jailed' for 4 Days in Orai," Times of India, Nov. 28, 2017. "50,000 Meows by @hugovk," github, Nov. 1, 2014. "Delicious Recipes," scootah.com (accessed Feb. 23, 2018). Wikipedia, "Echo Answer" (accessed Feb. 23, 2018). Lindsay Flint sent this example of answering yes/no questions in Welsh. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Gillian Brent. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1835, settlers in Australia discovered a European man dressed in kangaroo skins, a convict who had escaped an earlier settlement and spent 32 years living among the natives of southern Victoria. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review the extraordinary life of William Buckley, the so-called "wild white man" of colonial Australia. We'll also try to fend off scurvy and puzzle over some colorful letters. Intro: Radar pioneer Sir Robert Watson-Watt wrote a poem about ironically being stopped by a radar gun. The programming language Ook! is designed to be understood by orangutans. Sources for our feature on William Buckley: John Morgan, Life and Adventures of William Buckley, 1852. R.S. Brain, Letters From Victorian Pioneers, 1898. Francis Peter Labillière, Early History of the Colony of Victoria, 1878. James Bonwick, Port Phillip Settlement, 1883. William Thomas Pyke, Savage Life in Australia, 1889. Marcus Andrew Hislop Clarke, Stories of Australia in the Early Days, 1897. John M. White, "Before the Mission Station: From First Encounters to the Incorporation of Settlers Into Indigenous Relations of Obligation," in Natasha Fijn, Ian Keen, Christopher Lloyd, and Michael Pickering, eds., Indigenous Participation in Australian Economies II, 2012. Patrick Brantlinger, "Eating Tongues: Australian Colonial Literature and 'the Great Silence'," Yearbook of English Studies 41:2 (2011), 125-139. Richard Broome, "Buckley, William," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Sept. 23, 2004. Marjorie J. Tipping, "Buckley, William (1780–1856)," Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1966. Reminiscenses of James Buckley Who Lived for Thirty Years Among the Wallawarro or Watourong Tribes at Geelong Port Phillip, Communicated by Him to George Langhorne (manuscript), State Library of Victoria (accessed Jan. 28, 2018). "William Buckley," Culture Victoria (accessed Jan. 28, 2018). Jill Singer, "Here's a True Hero," [Melbourne] Herald Sun, June 8, 2001, 22. "Australia's Most Brazen, Infamous Jailbreaks," ABC Premium News, Aug. 19, 2015. "Extraordinary Tale of Our Early Days," Centralian Advocate, April 6, 2010, 13. Bridget McManus, "Buckley's Story Revisited: Documentary," The Age, April 8, 2010, 15. Albert McKnight, "Legend Behind Saying 'You've Got Buckley's'," Bega District News, Oct. 21, 2016, 11. David Adams, "Wild Man Lives Anew," [Melbourne] Sunday Age, Feb. 16, 2003, 5. Leighton Spencer, "Convict Still a Controversial Figure," Echo, Jan. 10, 2013, 14. "Fed: Museum Buys Indigenous Drawings of Convict," AAP General News Wire, April 23, 2012. The drawing above is Buckley Ran Away From Ship, by the Koorie artist Tommy McRae, likely drawn in the 1880s. From Culture Victoria. Listener mail: Yoshifumi Sugiyama and Akihiro Seita, "Kanehiro Takaki and the Control of Beriberi in the Japanese Navy," Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 106:8 (August 2013), 332–334. Wikipedia, "Takaki Kanehiro" (accessed Feb. 9, 2018). Yoshinori Itokawa, "Kanehiro Takaki (1849–1920): A Biographical Sketch," Journal of Nutrition 106:5, 581–8. Alan Hawk, "The Great Disease Enemy, Kak'ke (Beriberi) and the Imperial Japanese Army," Military Medicine 171:4 (April 2006), 333-339. Alexander R. Bay, Beriberi in Modern Japan: The Making of a National Disease, 2012. "Scott and Scurvy," Idle Words, March 6, 2010. Marcus White, "James Lind: The Man Who Helped to Cure Scurvy With Lemons," BBC News, Oct. 4, 2016. Jonathan Lamb, "Captain Cook and the Scourge of Scurvy," BBC History, Feb. 17, 2011. Wikipedia, "Vitamin C: Discovery" (accessed Feb. 9, 2018). This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Miles, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

During World War II, the U.S. Army experimented with a bizarre plan: using live bats to firebomb Japanese cities. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe the crazy history of the bat bomb, the extraordinary brainchild of a Pennsylvania dentist. We'll also consider the malleable nature of mental illness and puzzle over an expensive quiz question. Intro: Ever since George Washington, American presidents have hated the job. Harpsichordist Johann Schobert composed a series of "puzzle minuets" that could be read upside down. Sources for our feature on the bat bomb: Jack Couffer, Bat Bomb, 1992. James M. Powles, "Lytle S. Adams Proposed One of America's Battiest Weapons," World War II 17:2 (July 2002), 62. Robert M. Neer, "Bats Out of Hell," MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 25:4 (Summer 2013), 22-24. C.V. Glines, "Bat & Bird Bombers," Aviation History 15:5 (May 2005), 38-44. Stephan Wilkinson, "10 of History's Worst Weapons," Military History 31:1 (May 2014), 42-45. "Holy Smokes, Batman!" Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 49:2 (March 1993), 5. Alexis C. Madrigal, "Old, Weird Tech: The Bat Bombs of World War II," Atlantic, April 14, 2011. Toni Kiser, "Bat Bomb Tests Go Awry," National WWII Museum, May 15, 2013. Joanne Grant, "Did They Have Bats in the Belfry? WWII Team Created Novel Bomb to Defeat Japan," [Bergen County, N.J.] Record, Oct. 27, 1996, A31. "Air Force Scrapped Top Secret 'Bat Bomb' Project in Carlsbad 70 Years Ago," Carlsbad [N.M.] Current-Argus, May 26, 2014. Curt Suplee, "Shot Down Before It Could Fly," Washington Post, Nov. 16, 1992, D01. T. Rajagopalan, "Birds and Animals in War and Peace," Alive 401 (March 2016), 92-93. Cara Giaimo, "The Almost Perfect World War II Plot To Bomb Japan With Bats," Atlas Obscura, Aug. 5, 2015. The total loss due to the Carlsbad fire was $6,838, nearly $100,000 today, and the cause was listed as "explosion of incendiary bomb materials." Base fire marshal George S. Young wrote to the base commander: "In-as-much as the work being done under Lt. Col. Epler was of a confidential nature, and everyone connected with this base had been denied admission, it is impossible for me to determine the exact cause of the fire, but my deduction is that an explosion of incendiary bomb material cause the fire." Listener mail: Ethan Watters, "The Americanization of Mental Illness," New York Times Magazine, Jan. 8, 2010. Neel Burton, "The Culture of Mental Illness," Psychology Today, June 6, 2012. J.J. Mattelaer and W. Jilek, "Koro -- The Psychological Disappearance of the Penis," Journal of Sexual Medicine 4:5 (September 2007), 1509-1515. Steven Johnson, Wonderland: How Play Shaped the Modern World, 2016. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Alexander Rodgers. Here are three corroborating links (warning -- these spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. This episode is supported by Dittach, a Chrome extension to browse, search, or manage your Gmail attachments. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

The Bronx Zoo unveiled a controversial exhibit in 1906 -- a Congolese man in a cage in the primate house. The display attracted jeering crowds to the park, but for the man himself it was only the latest in a string of indignities. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review the sad tale of Ota Benga and his life in early 20th-century America. We'll also delve into fugue states and puzzle over a second interstate speeder. Intro: Finnegans Wake contains nine thunderclaps of precisely the same length. In 1928 a British steamer seemed to receive an SOS from a perfectly sound ship. Sources for our feature on Ota Benga: Pamela Newkirk, Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga, 2015. Phillips Verner Bradford and Harvey Blume, Ota: The Pygmy in the Zoo, 1992. Pascal Blanchard, et al., eds., Human Zoos: Science and Spectacle in the Age of Colonial Empires, 2008. Pascal Blanchard, Gilles Boëtsch, and Nanette Jacomijn Snoep, eds., Human Zoos: The Invention of the Savage, 2011. Rikke Andreassen, Human Exhibitions, 2016. Karen Sotiropoulos, "'Town of God': Ota Benga, the Batetela Boys, and the Promise of Black America," Journal of World History 26:1 (March 2015), 41-76. Sarah Zielinski, "The Tragic Tale of the Pygmy in the Zoo," Smithsonian, Dec. 2, 2008. Pamela Newkirk, "Bigotry on Display," Chronicle of Higher Education, May 26, 2015. Geoffrey C. Ward, "The Man in the Zoo," American Heritage 43:6 (October 1992), 12. Paul Raffaele, "The Pygmies' Plight," Smithsonian 39:9 (December 2008), 70-77. Pamela Newkirk, "The Man Who Was Caged in a Zoo," Guardian, June 3, 2015. "A Fresh Lens on the Notorious Episode of Ota Benga," New York Times, May 29, 2015. Pamela Newkirk, "When the Bronx Zoo Exhibited a Man in an Iron Cage," CNN, June 3, 2015. Michael Coard, "Ota Benga, an African, Caged in a U.S. Zoo," Philadelphia Tribune, March 19, 2016. Mitch Keller, "The Scandal at the Zoo," New York Times, Aug. 6, 2006. "Looking Back at the Strange Case of Ota Benga," News & Notes, National Public Radio, Oct. 9, 2006. Ann Hornaday, "A Critical Connection to the Curious Case of Ota Benga," Washington Post, Jan. 3, 2009. Eileen Reynolds, "Ota Benga, Captive: The Man the Bronx Zoo Kept in a Cage," NYU, Aug. 7, 2015. Samuel P. Verner, "The Story of Ota Benga, the Pygmy," Bulletin of the New York Zoological Society 19:4 (July 1916), 1377-1379. "The True Story of Ota Benga," Scrap Book 3:1 (March 1907), 61. "Pygmy Ota and His Pet Chimpanzee," McCook [Neb.] Tribune, Oct. 5, 1906, 8. "A Northern Outrage," Lafayette [La.] Advertiser, Oct. 10, 1906, 2. Harper Barnes, "The Pygmies in the Park," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Oct. 4, 1992, 1C. Listener mail: Wikipedia, "Fugue State" (accessed Jan. 25, 2018). "Dissociative Amnesia," Merck Manual (accessed Jan. 25, 2018). Steve Bressert, "Dissociative Fugue Symptoms," PsychCentral (accessed Jan. 25, 2018). Steve Bressert, "Dissociative Amnesia Symptoms," PsychCentral (accessed Jan. 25, 2018). Bill Donahue, "Fixing Diane's Brain," Runner's World 56:2 (February 2011), 56. Neel Burton, "Dissociative Fugue: The Mystery of Agatha Christie," Psychology Today, March 17, 2012. Stefania de Vito and Sergio Della Sala, "Was Agatha Christie's Mysterious Amnesia Real or Revenge on Her Cheating Spouse?", Scientific American, Aug. 2, 2017. Vanessa Thorpe, "Christie's Most Famous Mystery Solved at Last," Guardian, Oct. 14, 2006. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Martin Bentley. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In January 1888, after a disarming warm spell, a violent storm of blinding snow and bitter cold suddenly struck the American Midwest, trapping farmers in fields, travelers on roads, and hundreds of children in schoolhouses with limited fuel. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe the Children's Blizzard, one of the most harrowing winter storms in American history. We'll also play 20 Questions with a computer and puzzle over some vanishing vultures. Intro: In 1835 an assassin shot two good pistols at Andrew Jackson and both misfired. In 1958 Brooklyn College chemistry professor Homer Jacobson built a self-replicating model train. Sources for our feature on the Children's Blizzard: David Laskin, The Children's Blizzard, 2004. Mitchell Newton-Matza, ed., Disasters and Tragic Events, 2014. Steven L. Horstmeyer, The Weather Almanac, 2011. "The Pitiless Blizzard," Aurora Daily Express, Jan. 16, 1888. "Victims of the Storm," Bridgeport Morning News, Jan. 19, 1888. "In the Neighborhood," Deseret News, Jan. 24, 1888. "A Brave Girl," Gettysburg [Pa.] Compiler, Jan. 31, 1888. Edythe H. Dunn, "Not Even an Act of God," Phi Delta Kappan 30:7 (March 1949), 245-249. Jill Callison, "The Children's Blizzard," Argus Leader, Dec. 26, 2004. Maria Houser Conzemius, "That's Why They Call It the Children's Blizzard," Iowa City Press-Citizen, March 13, 2007. Steve Tracton, "Freak, Deadly Storm: Children's Blizzard of 1888," Washington Post, Jan. 14, 2011. Jeanie Mebane, "Blizzard!" Cobblestone 33:3 (March 2012). "One-Room Schoolhouse Lives," Argus Leader, Sept. 4, 2012. Beccy Tanner, "213 Schoolchildren Perished in the Great Plains Blizzard of 1888," Wichita Eagle, Dec. 31, 2012. Alyssa Ford, "125 Years Ago, Deadly 'Children's Blizzard' Blasted Minnesota," MinnPost, Jan. 11, 2013. Tom Lawrence, "Children's Blizzard Struck Great Plains 125 Years Ago," McClatchy-Tribune Business News, Jan. 12, 2013. Paula Quam, "Warm Weather Like This Week's Preceded 1888 Deadly Blizzard," Saint Paul Pioneer Press, Dec. 19, 2015. Sean Potter, "Retrospect: January 12, 1888: The Children's Blizzard," Weatherwise (accessed Jan. 6, 2018). Amber Pariona, "The Ten Deadliest Blizzards In History," World Atlas, April 25, 2017. Listener mail: "Hitler's Sunken Secret," NOVA, pbs.org. 20Q. Robin Burgener describes teaching a neural network to play a surprisingly accurate game of 20 Questions. Karen Schrock, "Twenty Questions, Ten Million Synapses," ScienceLine, July 28, 2006. "A Heroic Commando, A Deadly Mission to Sabotage Nazi Bomb -- and the Pregnant Widow He Left Behind," Cork Evening Echo Holly Bough, Christmas 2017. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Eugene Grabowski. Here are three corroborating links (warning -- these spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1703, London had a strange visitor, a young man who ate raw meat and claimed that he came from an unknown country on the island of Taiwan. Though many doubted him, he was able to answer any question he was asked, and even wrote a best-selling book about his homeland. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll consider the curious question of the man from Formosa. We'll also scrutinize a stamp forger and puzzle over an elastic Utah. Intro: In 1892 a legionnaire in West Africa met a rifle he'd owned 22 years earlier in France. Americans and Canadians can visit one another's territory through a Peace Arch on the border. Sources for our feature on George Psalmanazar: Michael Keevak, The Pretended Asian, 2004. Frederic J. Foley, The Great Formosan Impostor, 1968. Tobias B. Hug, Impostures in Early Modern England, 2010. George Psalmanazar, An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, 1704. George Psalmanazar, A Dialogue Between a Japonese and a Formosan, About Some Points of the Religion of the Time, 1707. George Psalmanazar, Essays on the Following Subjects ..., 1753. George Psalmanazar, An Enquiry Into the Objections Against George Psalmanaazaar of Formosa, 1710. Memoirs of ****. Commonly Known by the Name of George Psalmanazar, a Reputed Native of Formosa, 1764. "George Psalmanazar," National Magazine 6:1 (1859), 123-127. "George Psalmanazar," Dictionary of National Biography, 1896, 439-442. Benjamin Breen, "No Man Is an Island: Early Modern Globalization, Knowledge Networks, and George Psalmanazar's Formosa," Journal of Early Modern History 17:4, 391-417. Michael Keevak, "A World of Impostures," Eighteenth Century 53:2 (Summer 2012), 233-235. Donald Rayfield, "Forgiving Forgery," Modern Language Review 107:4 (October 2012), xxv-xli. C. Macfie Campbell, "A Note on the Imagination and Its Exploitation: Psalmanazar and Hélène Smith," Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 92:5 (November 1940), 605-613. Ben Downing, "Psalmanazar the Amazing," Yale Review 90:3 (July 2002), 46-74. Peter Mason, "Ethnographic Portraiture in the Eighteenth Century: George Psalmanaazaar's Drawings of Formosans," Eighteenth-Century Life 23:3 (November 1999), 58. Kembrew McLeod, "The Fake 'Asian' Who Fooled 18th-Century London," Atlantic, April 22, 2014. Benjamin Breen, "Illustrations From an 18th-Century Frenchman's Completely Made-Up Book About Taiwan," Slate, Nov. 6, 2013. Listener mail: Jessica Bineth, "Somerton Man: One of Australia's Most Baffling Cold Cases Could Be a Step Closer to Being Solved," ABC News, Jan. 1, 2018. Colin Gleadell, "Art Sales: The Finest Forger of All Time?" Telegraph, Jan. 9, 2007. Rosslyn Beeby, "The Rubens of Philately," Sydney Morning Herald, March 31, 2012. Elle Hunt, "New Zealand's New Flag: 15 Quirky Contenders," Guardian, May 14, 2015. "Are These The Craziest Designs for a New Flag?" TVNZ, July 15, 2015. "The Colourful Contenders for New Zealand's New Flag," BBC, May 15, 2015. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Michael Förtsch, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

Here are six new lateral thinking puzzles -- play along with us as we try to untangle some perplexing situations using yes-or-no questions. Here are the sources for this week's puzzles. In a few places we've included links to further information -- these contain spoilers, so don't click until you've listened to the episode: Puzzle #1 is adapted from an item that Sharon heard on the podcast No Such Thing as a Fish. Here are two corroborating links. Puzzle #2 is from listener Simon Grimes. Puzzle #3 is from listener Jean-Yves. Here's a corroborating link. Puzzle #4 is from Kyle Hendrickson's 1998 book Mental Fitness Puzzles. Puzzle #5 is from listener Alex Baumans. Puzzle #6 is adapted from W.S. Anglin's 1994 book Mathematics: A Concise History and Philosophy. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1924 two British mountaineers set out to be the first to conquer Mount Everest. But they never returned to camp, and to this day no one knows whether they reached the top. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review the case of George Mallory and Andrew Irvin, which has been called "one of the greatest unsolved adventure mysteries of the 20th century." We'll also learn what to do if attacked by a bear and puzzle over the benefits of a water shortage. Intro: Marshall Islanders navigated using "charts" of lashed sticks, threads, and shells. Jan Brueghel's 1617 painting Hearing immortalizes a well-traveled Australian cockatoo. Sources for our feature on George Mallory and Andrew Irvine: Wade Davis, Into the Silence, 2011. Jochen Hemmleb, Larry A. Johnson, and Eric R. Simonson, Ghosts of Everest, 1999. Peter Firstbrook, Lost on Everest, 1999. Ed Douglas, "Lifelong Secret of Everest Pioneer: I Discovered Mallory's Body in 1936," Guardian, Nov. 23, 2013. Nick Squires, "Mallory and Irvine's Everest Death Explained," Telegraph, Aug. 4, 2010. Secrets of the Ice. Jon Kelly, "Mallory and Irvine: Should We Solve Everest's Mystery?" BBC News Magazine, Oct. 3, 2011. United Press International, "Team Heads for Everest," Aug. 11, 1986. Associated Press, "2 Everest Climbers Killed Near Summit," June 21, 1924. Henry W. Bunn, "The Story the Week Has Told," Washington Evening Star, June 22, 1924, 3. David Holmstrom, "Going Up or Down, Mt. Everest Pioneer," Christian Science Monitor 92:26 (Dec. 30, 1999), 17. Audrey Salkeld and Jochen Hemmleb, "Did They or Didn't They?" Geographical 75:5 (May 2003), 120. Martin Varley, "It's Tough at the Top," Geographical 71:9 (September 1999), 32. Jerry Adler, "Ghost of Everest," Newsweek 133:20 (May 17, 1999), 68. Kevin Cook and Mark Mravic, "A Riddle on Top of the World," Sports Illustrated 90:19 (May 10, 1999), 28. Lost on Everest: The Search for Mallory & Irvine, BBC, 2000. N.E. Odell, "The Last Climb of Mallory and Irvine," Geographical Journal 64:6 (December 1924), 455-461. "The Mount Everest Expedition," Geographical Journal 64:1 (July 1924), 56-58. Gordon T. Stewart, "Tenzing's Two Wrist-Watches: The Conquest of Everest and Late Imperial Culture in Britain 1921-1953," Past & Present 149 (November 1995), 170-197. G.W. Kent Moore, John L. Semple, and Dev Raj Sikka, "Mallory and Irvine on Mount Everest: Did Extreme Weather Play a Role in Their Disappearance?" Weather 65:8 (August 2010), . "Mallory and Irvine Killed in Attempt to Conquer Everest," New York Times, June 21, 1924, 1. Christopher S. Wren, "New Insight Into Everest Mystery; Finding Mallory Elicits A Flurry of Theories," New York Times, Nov. 27, 1999. Christopher S. Wren, "A Body on Mt. Everest, a Mystery Half-Solved," New York Times, May 5, 1999. Agence France-Presse, "Discovery of Corpse Reopens Debate on Who First Climbed Everest," May 4, 1999. "Sees Everest Dash Failure for 1924," New York Times, June 22, 1924. E.F. Norton, "Everest Climbers Send the Story of Last Fatal Effort," New York Times, June 26, 1924. Listener mail: Diarmaid Fleming, "The Man Who Blew Up Nelson," BBC News, March 12, 2016. Wikipedia, "F.D.C. Willard" (accessed Dec. 22, 2017). "Cat as Coauthor," Futility Closet, Nov. 10, 2005. "F.D.C. Willard," P.I. Engineering (accessed Dec. 22, 2017). "Staying Safe Around Bears," National Park Service (accessed Dec. 22, 2017). This week's lateral thinking puzzle was inspired by an item in Dan Lewis's Now I Know newsletter. Here are two corroborating links (warning -- these spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In the 1870s, French gas fitter Albert Dadas started making strange, compulsive trips to distant towns, with no planning or awareness of what he was doing. His bizarre affliction set off a 20-year epidemic of "mad travelers" in Europe, which evaporated as mysteriously as it had begun. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll consider the parable of pathological tourism and its meaning for psychiatry. We'll also contemplate the importance of sick chickens and puzzle over a farmyard contraption. Intro: Ontario doctor Samuel Bean designed an enigmatic tombstone for his first two wives. The Pythagorean theorem can spawn a geometric tree. Sources for our feature on Albert Dadas: Ian Hacking, Mad Travelers: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illnesses, 2002. Carl Elliott, Better Than Well, 2004. Peter Toohey, Melancholy, Love, and Time, 2004. Petteri Pietikäinen, Madness: A History, 2015. Craig Stephenson, "The Epistemological Significance of Possession Entering the DSM," History of Psychiatry 26:3 (September 2015), 251-269. María Laura Martínez, "Ian Hacking's Proposal for the Distinction Between Natural and Social Sciences," Philosophy of the Social Sciences 39:2 (June 2009), 212-234. Dominic Murphy, "Hacking's Reconciliation: Putting the Biological and Sociological Together in the Explanation of Mental Illness," Philosophy of the Social Sciences 31:2 (June 2001), 139-162. Roy Porter, "Fugue-itive Minds and Bodies," Times Higher Education, October 15, 1999. Listener mail: Sarah Laskow, "How Sick Chickens and Rice Led Scientists to Vitamin B1," Atlantic, Oct. 30, 2014. "Christiaan Eijkman, Beriberi and Vitamin B1," nobelprize.org (accessed Dec. 16, 2017). Wikipedia, "Casimir Funk" (accessed Dec. 16, 2017). "Gerrit Grijns in Java: Beriberi and the Concept of 'Partial Starvation,'" World Neurology, March 19, 2013. The Winnie-the-Pooh monument in White River, Ontario, from listener Dan McIntyre: This week's lateral thinking puzzle was devised by Greg. Here are two corroborating links (warning -- these spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

During World War II, the Allies feared that Germany was on the brink of creating an atomic bomb. To prevent this, they launched a dramatic midnight commando raid to destroy a key piece of equipment in the mountains of southern Norway. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll remember Operation Gunnerside, "one of the most daring and important undercover operations of World War II." We'll also learn what to say when you're invading Britain and puzzle over the life cycle of cicadas. Intro: Hundreds of students overlooked an error in a Brahms capriccio; a novice found it. Hesiod's Theogony gives a clue to the distance between earth and heaven. Sources for our feature on Operation Gunnerside: Ray Mears, The Real Heroes of Telemark, 2003. Knut Haukelid, Skis Against the Atom, 1954. John D. Drummond, But for These Men, 1962. Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress, 2016. Thomas B. Allen, "Saboteurs at Work," MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 26:2 (Winter 2014), 64-71. Ian Herrington, "The SIS and SOE in Norway 1940-1945: Conflict or Co-operation?" War in History 9:1 (January 2002), 82-110. Neal Bascomb, "Saboteurs on Skis," World War II 31:2 (July/August 2016), 58-67,6. Hans Børresen, "Flawed Nuclear Physics and Atomic Intelligence in the Campaign to Deny Norwegian Heavy Water to Germany, 1942-1944," Physics in Perspective 14:4 (December 2012), 471-497. "Operation Gunnerside," Atomic Heritage Foundation, July 28, 2017. Ray Mears, "Norwegian Resistance Coup," NOVA (accessed Nov. 19, 2017). Simon Worrall, "Inside the Daring Mission That Thwarted a Nazi Atomic Bomb," National Geographic, June 5, 2016. Andrew Han, "The Heavy Water War and the WWII Hero You Don't Know," Popular Mechanics, June 16, 2016. Gordon Corera, "Last Hero of Telemark: The Man Who Helped Stop Hitler's A-Bomb," BBC News, April 25, 2013. Tim Bross, "Sabotage Slowed Nazi's Pursuit of Atomic Power, Author Writes," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 1, 2016, D.7. Andrew Higgins, "WWII Hero Credits Luck and Chance in Foiling Hitler's Nuclear Ambitions," New York Times, Nov. 20, 2015. "Colonel Jens-Anton Poulsson," Times, Feb. 17, 2010, 65. Richard Bernstein, "Keeping the Atom Bomb From Hitler," New York Times, Feb. 12, 1997, 17. Howard Schneider, "Defusing the Nazi Bomb," Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2016. "Norwegian Resistance Hero Helped Halt Nazi Bomb Plans," Ottawa Citizen, Feb. 13, 2003, A6. E.W. Fowler, "Obituary: Heroic Saboteur Knut Anders Haukelid," Guardian, March 15, 1994. "War Hero Was Last Kon-Tiki Survivor," Edmonton Journal, Jan. 10, 2010, E.7. Listener mail: Modern mudlarkers, from listener Tom Mchugh: Wikipedia, "Petroleum Warfare Department" (accessed Dec. 9, 2017). Sir Donald Banks, Flame Over Britain: A Personal Narrative of Petroleum Warfare, 1946. Wikipedia, "KRACK" (accessed Dec. 9, 2017). James Sanders, "KRACK WPA2 Protocol Wi-Fi Attack: How It Works and Who's at Risk," TechRepublic, Oct. 16, 2017. Brad Chacos and Michael Simon, "KRACK Wi-Fi Attack Threatens All Networks: How to Stay Safe and What You Need to Know," PCWorld, Nov. 8, 2017. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Sam Long. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

Marvin Hewitt never finished high school, but he taught advanced physics, engineering, and mathematics under assumed names at seven different schools and universities between 1945 and 1953. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll trace the curious career of an academic impostor, whose story has been called "one of the strangest academic hoaxes in history." We'll also try on a flashproof scarf and puzzle over why a healthy man would check into a hospital. Intro: Between 1950 and 1995, mathematician Marion Tinsley took first place in every checkers tournament he played in. The Hoover Dam contains a map of our sky so that future historians can date its creation. Sources for our feature on Marvin Harold Hewitt: Herbert Brean, "Marvin Hewitt, Ph(ony) D.," Life 36:15 (April 12, 1954), 144. "Honest Career for a Ph(ony) D.," Life 42:3 (Jan. 21, 1957), 57. "A Bogus Professor Is Unmasked," New York Times, March 6, 1954, 1. Michael L. James, "Bogus Professor Expects Job Bids," New York Times, March 7, 1954. "Ousted 'Professor' Gets Offer of a Job," Associated Press, April 11, 1954, 63. Helene Deutsch, "The Impostor: Contribution to Ego Psychology of a Type of Psychopath," Psychoanalytic Quarterly 80:4 (October 2011), 1005-1024. Ian Graham, Ultimate Book of Impostors, 2013. Maria Konnikova, The Confidence Game, 2017. Listener mail: One of the hard-won 1911 penguin eggs, now at London's Natural History Museum (thanks to listener Dave Lawrence). An anti-paparazzi scarf (thanks to Kevin Cedrone). Natural History Museum, "Treasures in the Cadogan Gallery" (accessed Nov. 30, 2017). Audio guide to the Cadogan Gallery (the penguin egg is at 26:14). Tiana Attride, "Celebrities Are Obsessed With This 'Paparazzi-Proof' Clothing Brand That Makes Them Impossible to Photograph," Business Insider, March 17, 2017 (contains video of anti-flash photography clothing). Mark Molloy, "This Genius 'Paparazzi-Proof' Scarf Can Make You 'Invisible' in Photos," Telegraph, June 30, 2016. Timothy Revell, "Glasses Make Face Recognition Tech Think You're Milla Jovovich," New Scientist, Nov. 1, 2016. Mahmood Sharif et al., "Accessorize to a Crime: Real and Stealthy Attacks on State-of-the-Art Face Recognition," Proceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, 2016. "Snow Prints Spark 'Devil' Mystery," BBC News, March 13, 2009. "Ancient Legend of Satan's Visit Reawakened by Footprints in the Snow," Telegraph, March 13, 2009. Centre for Fortean Zoology: "Mysterious Footprints in Woolsery." This week's lateral thinking puzzle was devised by Sharon. Here's a corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

Everett Ruess and Barbara Newhall Follett were born in March 1914 at opposite ends of the U.S. Both followed distinctly unusual lives as they pursued a love of writing. And both disappeared in their 20s, leaving no trace of their whereabouts. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe the brief lives of two promising young authors and the mystery that lingers behind them. We'll also patrol 10 Downing Street and puzzle over when a pigeon isn't a pigeon. Intro: In the 1890s, tree-sized corkscrews were unearthed in Nebraska. Pyrex vanishes when immersed in oil. Sources for our feature on Everett Ruess and Barbara Newhall Follett: W.L. Rusho, Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty, 1983. Philip L. Fradkin, Everett Ruess: His Short Life, Mysterious Death, and Astonishing Afterlife, 2011. David Roberts, "Finding Everett Ruess," National Geographic Adventure 11:3 (April/May 2009), 75-81,101-104. Howard Berkes, "Mystery Endures: Remains Found Not Those of Artist," Weekend Edition Saturday, National Public Radio, Oct. 24, 2009. Susan Spano, "Not Finding the Lost Explorer Everett Ruess," Smithsonian, Nov. 4, 2011. Thomas H. Maugh II, "The Mystery of Everett Ruess' Disappearance Is Solved," Los Angeles Times, May 2, 2009. Jodi Peterson, "Everett Ruess Redux," High Country News, April 30, 2013. Peter Fish, "The Legend of Everett Ruess," Sunset 200:2 (February 1998), 18-21. Bruce Berger, "American Eye: Genius of the Canyons," North American Review 274:3 (September 1989), 4-9. Kirk Johnson, "Solution to a Longtime Mystery in Utah Is Questioned," New York Times, July 5, 2009, 13. Kirk Johnson, "Bones in a Desert Unlock Decades-Old Secrets for 2 Families," New York Times, May 1, 2009, A14. "A Mystery Thought Solved Is Now Renewed," New York Times, Oct. 22, 2009, A25. "Lost Artist Believed Living With Sheepmen," Los Angeles Times, March 10, 1935, 15. "Artist Believed Murder Victim," Los Angeles Times, Aug. 27, 1935, 9. "Burros Found in Snow Spur Hunt for Artist," Los Angeles Times, March 5, 1935, A10. "Flyer-Miner Joins Hunt for Artist Lost in Hills," Los Angeles Times, March 3, 1935, 3. Norris Leap, "Utah Canyons Veil Fate of L.A. Poet: Everett Ruess' Literary, Artistic Promise Lost in His Beloved Wilderness 18 Years Ago," Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1952, B1. Ann Japenga, "Loving the Land That Engulfed Him: New Interest in Young Man Who Vanished 53 Years Ago," Los Angeles Times, March 15, 1987, F1. Harold Grier McCurdy, ed., Barbara: The Unconscious Autobiography of a Child Genius, 1966. Paul Collins, "Vanishing Act," Lapham's Quarterly 4:1 (Winter 2011). "Barbara Newhall Follett, Disappearing Child Genius," Weekend Edition Saturday, National Public Radio, December 18, 2010. "Girl Novelist Held in San Francisco," New York Times, Sept. 21, 1929, 40. Floyd J. Healey, "Freedom Lures Child Novelist," Los Angeles Times, Sept. 21, 1929, A8. "Child Writer in Revolt," Los Angeles Times, Sept. 22, 1929, 8. Listener mail: Jane Mo, "Woman Wakes Up to Find 3 Bears Inside Her Car," KUSA, Oct. 4, 2017. Sara Everingham, "Town Under Siege: 6,000 Camels to Be Shot," ABC News, Nov. 26, 2009. Wikipedia, "10 Downing Street: Front Door and Entrance Hall" (accessed Nov. 25, 2017). Molly Oldfield and John Mitchinson, "QI: Quite Interesting Facts About 10 Downing Street," Telegraph, May 29, 2012. Wikipedia, "Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office" (accessed Nov. 25, 2017). "Larry, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office," gov.uk (accessed Nov. 25, 2017). "Purr-fect Ending Fur Humphrey!" BBC News, Nov. 25, 1997. "'Pro-Cat Faction' Urges Downing Street Rat Rethink," BBC News, Jan. 25, 2011. "No. 10 Has Its First Cat Since Humphrey," Reuters, Sept. 12, 2007. Andy McSmith, "Farewell to the Original New Labour Cat," Independent, July 28, 2009. Lizzie Dearden, "George Osborne's Family Cat Freya Sent Away From Downing Street to Kent," Independent, Nov. 9, 2014. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Doug Shaw, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

Here are six new lateral thinking puzzles to test your wits and stump your friends -- play along with us as we try to untangle some perplexing situations using yes-or-no questions. Here are the sources for this week's puzzles. In a few places we've included links to further information -- these contain spoilers, so don't click until you've listened to the episode: Puzzle #1 is adapted from the 2000 book Lateral Mindtrap Puzzles. Puzzle #2 was contributed by listener Dave Lawrence. Puzzle #3 was devised by Greg. Here are three corroborating links. Puzzle #4 is from listener Andrea Crinklaw. Here are two corroborating links. Puzzle #5 is from Greg. Here are three corroborating links. Puzzle #6 was inspired by an item on the podcast No Such Thing as a Fish. Here are three corroborating links. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

New York's Citicorp Tower was an architectural sensation when it opened in 1977. But then engineer William LeMessurier realized that its unique design left it dangerously vulnerable to high winds. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe the drama that followed as a small group of decision makers tried to ward off a catastrophe in midtown Manhattan. We'll also cringe at an apartment mixup and puzzle over a tolerant trooper. Intro: A surprising number of record releases have been made of sandpaper. In high school, Ernest Hemingway wrote a poem composed entirely of punctuation. Sources for our feature on the Citicorp Tower: Joseph Morgenstern, "The Fifty-Nine-Story Crisis," New Yorker, May 29, 1995. "All Fall Down," The Works, BBC, April 14, 1996. Eugene Kremer, "(Re)Examining the Citicorp Case: Ethical Paragon or Chimera?" Arq: Architectural Research Quarterly 6:3 (September 2002), 269-276. Joel Werner, "The Design Flaw That Almost Wiped Out an NYC Skyscraper," Slate, April 17, 2014. Sean Brady, "Citicorp Center Tower: How Failure Was Averted," Engineers Journal, Dec. 8, 2015. Michael J. Vardaro, "LeMessurier Stands Tall: A Case Study in Professional Ethics," AIA Trust, Spring 2013. P. Aarne Vesilind and Alastair S. Gunn, Hold Paramount: The Engineer's Responsibility to Society, 2010. Caroline Whitbeck, Ethics in Engineering Practice and Research, 1998. Ibo van de Poel and Lambèr Royakkers, Ethics, Technology, and Engineering: An Introduction, 2011. Matthew Wells, Skyscrapers: Structure and Design, 2005. Gordon C. Andrews, Canadian Professional Engineering and Geoscience: Practice and Ethics, 2009. "William J. LeMessurier," American Society of Civil Engineers, July 1, 2007. David Langdon, "Citigroup Center / Hugh Stubbins + William Le Messurier," ArchDaily, Nov. 5, 2014. Vanessa Rodriguez, "Citicorp Center - New York City (July 1978)," Failures Wiki (accessed Oct. 28, 2017). Jason Carpenter, "The Nearly Fatal Design Flaw That Could Have Sent the Citigroup Center Skyscraper Crumbling," 6sqft., Aug. 15, 2014. Stanley H. Goldstein and Robert A. Rubin, "Engineering Ethics," Civil Engineering 66:10 (October 1996), 40. "Selected Quotes," Civil Engineering 66:10 (October 1996), 43. "Readers Write," Civil Engineering 66:11 (November 1996), 30. James Glanz and Eric Lipton, "A Midtown Skyscraper Quietly Adds Armor," New York Times, Aug. 15, 2002. "F.Y.I.," New York Times, Feb. 2, 1997, CY2. Anthony Ramirez, "William LeMessurier, 81, Structural Engineer," New York Times, June 21, 2007, C13. Henry Petroski, "Engineering: A Great Profession," American Scientist 94:4 (July-August 2006), 304-307. Richard Korman, "LeMessurier's Confession," Engineering News-Record 235:18 (October 30, 1995), 10. Richard Korman, "Critics Grade Citicorp Confession," Engineering News-Record 234:21(Nov. 20, 1995), 10. Listener mail: Wikipedia, "Relative Hour (Jewish Law)" (accessed Nov. 11, 2017). "The Jewish Day," chabad.org (accessed Nov. 11, 2017). "Hours," chabad.org (accessed Nov. 11, 2017). "Zmanim Briefly Defined and Explained," chabad.org (accessed Nov. 11, 2017). Wikipedia, "Twenty Questions" (accessed Nov. 11, 2017). "Two Types: The Faces of Britain," BBC Four, Aug. 1, 2017. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Kelly Bruce. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1914, Canadian Army veterinarian Harry Colebourn was traveling to the Western Front when he met an orphaned bear cub in an Ontario railway station. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the adventures of Winnie the bear, including her fateful meeting with A.A. Milne and his son, Christopher Robin. We'll also marvel at some impressive finger counting and puzzle over an impassable bridge. Intro: At least two British television series have included Morse code in their theme music. A map of the American Midwest depicts an elf making chicken. Sources for our feature on Winnie the bear: Ann Thwaite, A.A. Milne, 1990. Val Shushkewich, The Real Winnie, 2005. Christopher Milne, The Enchanted Places, 1974. A.R. Melrose, ed., Beyond the World of Pooh, 1998. Paul Brody, In Which Milne's Life Is Told, 2014. Jackie Wullschläger, Inventing Wonderland, 1995. Gary Dexter, Why Not Catch-21?, 2008. Anna Tyzack, "The Story of Winnie the Pooh Laid Bare," Telegraph, Dec. 20, 2015. Lindsay Mattick, "The Story of How Winnie the Pooh Was Inspired by a Real Bear -- in Pictures," Guardian, Nov. 24, 2015. Tessa Vanderhart, "Winnie The Pooh Story Turns 99," Winnipeg Sun, Aug. 25, 2013. Jim Axelrod, "The Story of the Real Winnie the Pooh," CBS News, March 21, 2016. The Real Winnie, Ryerson University (accessed Oct. 22, 2017). "The True Tale of Winnie the Pooh, an Unlikely First World War Legacy," CBC Radio, Nov. 11, 2015. Christopher Klein, "The True Story of the Real-Life Winnie-the-Pooh," history.com, Oct. 13, 2016. Sean Coughlan, "The Skull of the 'Real' Winnie Goes on Display," BBC News, Nov. 20, 2015. "Winnie and Lieutenant Colebourn, White River, 1914," Canadian Postal Archives Database (accessed Oct. 22, 2017). Michael Palmer, "Artefact of the Month: Winnie the Bear and Lt. Colebourn Statue," Zoological Society of London, Nov. 28, 2014. "Winnie-the-Pooh: Inspired by a Canadian Bear," Canada Post Corporation (accessed Oct. 22, 2017). "Major Harry Colebourn," Canadian Great War Project (accessed Oct. 22, 2017). "The Real-Life Canadian Story of Winnie-the-Pooh," CBC Kids (accessed Oct. 22, 2017). Christopher Robin Milne feeding Winnie in her enclosure at the London Zoo in the 1920s. Listener mail: A demonstration of a binary or base 2 finger-counting method. Wikipedia, "Benford's Law" (accessed Nov. 3, 2017). "Counting," QI (accessed Nov. 3, 2017). "Sumerian/Babylonian Mathematics," The Story of Mathematics (accessed Nov. 3, 2017). Wikipedia, "Sexagesimal" (accessed Nov. 3, 2017). Wikipedia, "Chisanbop" (accessed Nov. 3, 2017). "Math Lesson Plan: Chisanbop (Korean Counting to 99)," LessonThis (accessed Nov. 3, 2017). A 3-year-old doing arithmetic using the Chisanbop method. A kindergartener doing more complicated arithmetic using the Chisanbop method. Older kids doing very fast, advanced arithmetic using a mental abacus. Wikipedia, "Mental Abacus" (accessed Nov. 3, 2017). Alex Bellos, "World's Fastest Number Game Wows Spectators and Scientists," Guardian, Oct. 29, 2012. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Jack McLachlan. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1835, a Native American woman was somehow left behind when her dwindling island tribe was transferred to the California mainland. She would spend the next 18 years living alone in a world of 22 square miles. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the poignant story of the lone woman of San Nicolas Island. We'll also learn about an inebriated elephant and puzzle over an unattainable test score. Intro: As construction began on Scotland's Forth Bridge, engineers offered a personal demonstration of its cantilever design. In the 1880s, Manhattan's rationalist "Thirteen Club" held a dinner on the 13th of each month to flout superstition. Sources for our feature on the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island: Sara L. Schwebel, ed., Island of the Blue Dolphins: The Complete Reader's Edition, 2016. William Henry Ellison, ed., The Life and Adventures of George Nidever, 1937. Robert F. Heizer and Albert B. Elsasser, eds., "Original Accounts of the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island," in Aboriginal California: Three Studies of Cultural History, University of California Archaeological Research Facility, 1963. Travis Hudson, "Recently Discovered Accounts Concerning the 'Lone Woman' of San Nicolas Island," Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 3:2 (1981), 187-199. Marla Daily, "The Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island: A New Hypothesis on Her Origin," California History 68:1/2 (Spring-Summer 1989) 36-41. Jon M. Erlandson, Lisa Thomas-Barnett, René L. Vellanoweth, Steven J. Schwartz, and Daniel R. Muhs, "From the Island of the Blue Dolphins: A Unique Nineteenth-Century Cache Feature From San Nicolas Island, California," Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 8:1 (2013), 66-78. Amira F. Ainis, et al. "A Cache Within a Cache: Description of an Abalone 'Treasure-Box' from the CA-SNI-14 Redwood Box Cache, San Nicolas Island, Alta California," California Archaeology 9:1 (2017), 79-105. Eighth California Islands Symposium, National Park Service, Oct. 25, 2012. Steve Chawkins, "Island of the Blue Dolphins' Woman's Cave Believed Found," Los Angeles Times, Oct. 29, 2012. S.J. Schwartz, "Some Observations on the Material Culture of the Nicoleño," in Proceedings of the Sixth California Island Symposium 2005, 83–91. Ron Morgan, "An Account of the Discovery of a Whale-Bone House on San Nicolas Island," Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 1:1 (1979), 171-177. Louis Sahagun, "With Island Dig Halted, Lone Woman Still a Stinging Mystery," Los Angeles Times, March 5, 2015. "The Woman of San Nicolas Island," [Lake Providence, La.] Banner-Democrat, Dec. 28, 1901. Associated Press, "Traces of Prehistoric People are Found on Pacific Island," Dec. 14, 1940. Robert L. Carl, "The Lost Woman of San Nicolas Island," Western Folklore 11:2 (April 1952), 123-124. "A Female Crusoe," London Journal 69:1785 (April 26, 1879), 268-268. Ron Givens, "Island of Blue Dolphins Revisited," American History 48:1 (April 2013), 10. Emma C. Hardacre, "Eighteen Years Alone," Century Magazine, September 1880, 657-663. L.L. Hanchett, Lennox Tierney, and Austin E. Fife, "The Lost Woman of San Nicolás," California Folklore Quarterly 3:2 (April 1944), 148-149. C.F. Holder, "The Wind-Swept Island of San Nicolas," Scientific American 81:15 (Oct. 7, 1899), 233-234. Margaret Romer, "The Last of the Canalinos," Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly 41:3 (September 1959), 241-246. Clement W. Meighan and Hal Eberhart, "Archaeological Resources of San Nicolas Island, California," American Antiquity 19:2 (October 1953), 109-125. "On an Isle of Skulls," New York Times, Dec. 1, 1895, 29. "Relics of Vanished Race Found on a Desert Isle," New York Times, May 1, 1927, XX4. "Relic Hunt in the Pacific," New York Times, June 22, 1897, 1. "Old California Islanders," New York Times, June 16, 1897, 2. Gladwin Hill, "California's Little-Known Offshore Island," New York Times, Jan. 12, 1958, XX22. "Sea Lion Herds Bask on Island," Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1949, A1. S.J. Mathis, "The Lone Woman of San Nicolas," Los Angeles Times, Jan. 8, 1899, B11. Harold Orlando Wright, "San Nicolas -- Abode of Demons," Los Angeles Times, Nov. 29, 1931, K6. "Indians Once Lived on Channel Islands," Los Angeles Times, July 9, 1951, 2. "Centerpiece: Once Upon a Time There Was a Little Girl Stranded on a Channel Island," Los Angeles Times, Dec. 13, 1990, VCJ1. William Crosby Bennett, "Mrs. Robinson Crusoe," Los Angeles Times, Aug. 9, 1936, I3. William S. Murphy, "5,000-Year-Old Mystery Probed," Los Angeles Times, Dec. 20, 1970, C1. "Story of Lost Woman Retold," Los Angeles Times, Feb. 28, 1928, A14. Listener mail: Wikipedia, "Pasilalinic-Sympathetic Compass" (accessed Oct. 27, 2017). Toby Howard, "Progress at Snail's Pace," Skeptic, 1995. Daniel Hahn, The Tower Menagerie, 2004. Isabelle Janvrin and Catherine Rawlinson, The French in London, 2016. Laura Bannister, "Rare Beasts, Birds, and the Calaboose," Paris Review, Sept. 22, 2016. This week's lateral

In 1940, Germany was sending vital telegrams through neutral Sweden using a sophisticated cipher, and it fell to mathematician Arne Beurling to make sense of the secret messages. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe the outcome, which has been called "one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of cryptography." We'll also learn about mudlarking and puzzle over a chicken-killing Dane. Intro: In 1836, three boys discovered 17 tiny coffins entombed near Edinburgh. On his 1965 album A Love Supreme, John Coltrane "plays" a poem on the saxophone. Sources for our feature on Arne Beurling: Bengt Beckman, Codebreakers: Arne Beurling and the Swedish Crypto Program During World War II, 1996. David Kahn, The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing, 1967. David Joyner, ed., Coding Theory and Cryptography, 2000. Bengt Beckman and Jonathan Beard, "Codebreakers: Arne Beurling and the Swedish Crypto Program During World War II," Intelligence and National Security 18:4 (January 2004), 206-207. Lars Ulfving, "The Geheimschreiber Secret: Arne Beurling and the Success of Swedish Signals Intelligence," in Bo Hugemark and Probus Förlag, eds., I Orkanens Öga, 1941 -- Osäker neutralitet, 1992. Louis Kruh, "Arne Beurling and Swedish Crypto," Cryptologia 27:3 (July 2003), 231. John Wermer, "Recollections of Arne Beurling," Mathematical Intelligencer 15:3 (January 1993), 32–33. Jurgen Rohwer, "Signal Intelligence and World War II: The Unfolding Story," Journal of Military History 63:4 (October 1999), 939-951. Bo Kjellberg, "Memories of Arne Beurling, February 3, 1905–November 20, 1986," Mathematical Intelligencer 15:3 (January 1993), 28–31. Håkan Hedenmalm, "Codebreakers: Arne Beurling and the Swedish Crypto Program During World War II," Mathematical Intelligencer 28:1 (December 2006), 57–59. Craig Graham McKay, "Swedish Cryptanalysis and the Saga of Arne Beurling: A Book Review," Cryptologia 23:3 (July 1999), 257. Louis Kruh, "Swedish Signal Intelligence History," Cryptologia 27:2 (April 2003), 186-187. "How Sweden Cracked the Nazi Code," Swedish History, Jan. 22, 2017. Lars Ahlfors and Lennart Carleson, "Arne Beurling In Memoriam," Acta Mathematica 161 (1988), 1-9. John Borland, "Looking Back at Sweden's Super-Code-Cracker," Wired, Aug. 11, 2007. "Arne Carl-August Beurling," MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive (accessed Oct. 8, 2017). "Arne Beurling," Mathematics Genealogy Project (accessed Oct. 8, 2017). "Joins Advanced Study School," New York Times, Oct. 10, 1954. "Arne Beurling," Physics Today, February 2015. Listener mail: "Two Types: The Faces of Britain," BBC Four, Aug. 1, 2017. "Who Are the Mudlarks?", Thames Museum (accessed 10/21/2017). Lara Maiklem, "London's History in Mud: The Woman Collecting What the Thames Washes Up," Guardian, Sept. 14, 2016. Military High Command Department for War Maps and Communications, German Invasion Plans for the British Isles, 1940. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Carsten Hamann, who sent these corroborating links (warning -- these spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1911, three British explorers made a perilous 70-mile journey in the dead of the Antarctic winter to gather eggs from a penguin rookery in McMurdo Sound. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the three through perpetual darkness and bone-shattering cold on what one man called "the worst journey in the world." We'll also dazzle some computers and puzzle over some patriotic highways. Intro: In 2014, mathematician Kevin Ferland determined the largest number of words that will fit in a New York Times crossword puzzle. In 1851, phrenologist J.P. Browne examined Charlotte Brontë without knowing her identity. Sources for our feature on Apsley Cherry-Garrard: Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World, 1922. Sara Wheeler, Cherry: A Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard, 2007. "Scott Perishes Returning From Pole," Salt Lake Tribune, Feb. 11, 1913. Paul Lambeth, "Captain Scott's Last Words Electrify England and World by Their Pathetic Eloquence," San Francisco Call, Feb. 12, 1913. Hugh Robert Mill, "The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic, 1910-1913," Nature 111:2786 (March 24, 1923), 386-388. "Cherry-Garrard, Explorer, Dead," New York Times, May 19, 1959. "Obituary: Apsley Cherry-Garrard," Geographical Journal 125:3/4 (September-December 1959), 472. James Lees-Milne, "From the Shavian Past: XCII," Shaw Review 20:2 (May 1977), 62. W.N. Bonner, "British Biological Research in the Antarctic," Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 14:1 (August 1980), 1-10. John Maxtone-Graham, "How Quest for Penguin Eggs Ended," New York Times, Oct. 2, 1994. Gabrielle Walker, "The Emperor's Eggs," New Scientist 162:2182 (April 17, 1999), 42-47. Gabrielle Walker, "It's Cold Out There," New Scientist 172:2315 (Nov. 3, 2001), 54. Edward J. Larson, "Greater Glory," Scientific American 304:6 (June 2011), 78-83. "When August Was Cold and Dark," New York Times, Aug. 8, 2011, A18. Robin McKie, "How a Heroic Hunt for Penguin Eggs Became 'The Worst Journey in the World,'" Guardian, Jan. 14, 2012. Matilda Battersby, "Cache of Letters About Scott Found as Collection of His Possessions Acquired for the Nation," Independent, July 19, 2012. Karen May, "Could Captain Scott Have Been Saved? Revisiting Scott's Last Expedition," Polar Record 49:1 (January 2013), 72-90. Karen May and Sarah Airriess, "Could Captain Scott Have Been Saved? Cecil Meares and the 'Second Journey' That Failed," Polar Record 51:3 (May 2015), 260-273. Shane McCorristine and Jane S.P. Mocellin, "Christmas at the Poles: Emotions, Food, and Festivities on Polar Expeditions, 1818-1912," Polar Record 52:5 (September 2016), 562-577. Carolyn Philpott, "Making Music on the March: Sledging Songs of the 'Heroic Age' of Antarctic Exploration," Polar Record 52:6 (November 2016), 698-716. Listener mail: Robinson Meyer, "Anti-Surveillance Camouflage for Your Face," Atlantic, July 24, 2014. Adam Harvey, "Face to Anti-Face," New York Times, Dec. 14, 2013. "How to Find a Spider in Your Yard on a Tuesday at 8:47pm." This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Petr Smelý, who sent these corroborating links (warning -- these spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1848, five years before Japan opened its closed society to the West, a lone American in a whaleboat landed on the country's northern shore, drawn only by a sense of mystery and a love of adventure. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow Ranald MacDonald as he travels the length of Japan toward a destiny that will transform the country. We'll also remember a Soviet hero and puzzle over some security-conscious neighbors. Intro: In 1794, two French Hussars began an episodic duel that would last until 1813. In 1945, the Arkansas legislature accidentally repealed every law in the state. Sources for our feature on Ranald MacDonald: Frederik L. Schodt, Native American in the Land of the Shogun, 2003. Jo Ann Roe, Ranald MacDonald: Pacific Rim Adventurer, 1997. William S. Lewis and Naojiro Murakami, Ranald MacDonald: The Narrative of His Early Life on the Columbia Under the Hudson's Bay Company's Regime, 1990. Herbert H. Gowen, Five Foreigners in Japan, 1936. Gretchen Murphy, Shadowing the White Man's Burden: U.S. Imperialism and the Problem of the Color Line, 2010. Joel E. Ferris, "Ranald MacDonald: The Sailor Boy Who Visited Japan," Pacific Northwest Quarterly 48:1 (January 1957), 13-16. Benjamin MacDonald, "Narrative of Benjamin MacDonald," Washington Historical Quarterly 16:3 (July 1925), 186-197. David N. Cooper, "Behind the Bamboo Curtain: A Nineteenth-Century Canadian Adventurer in Japan," Manitoba History 74 (Winter 2014), 40-44. Gretchen Murphy, "'A Home Which Is Still Not a Home': Finding a Place for Ranald MacDonald," American Transcendental Quarterly 15:3 (September 2001), 225-244. Frederik L. Schodt, "The Chinook Who Paved the Way for Perry: Ranald MacDonald's Adventure in Japan, 1848-1849," Whispering Wind 33:3 (June 30, 2003), 20. Frederik L. Schodt and Shel Zolkewich, "Ranald MacDonald's Excellent Adventure," The Beaver 83:4 (August/September 2003), 29-33. "When Japan Was a Secret: Japanese Sea-Drifters," Economist 385:8560 (December 22, 2007), 93. Jeffrey Dym, "Native American in the Land of the Shogun: Ranald MacDonald and the Opening of Japan [review]," Canadian Journal of History 39:2 (August 2004), 446-448. F.G. Notehelfer, "Native American in the Land of the Shogun: Ranald MacDonald and the Opening of Japan [review]," Journal of Asian Studies 63:2 (May 2004), 513-514. Gordon B. Dodds, "Ranald MacDonald: Pacific Rim Adventurer [review]," Journal of American History 85:2 (September 1998), 663-664. Stephen W. Kohl, "Ranald MacDonald: Pacific Rim Adventurer [review]," Pacific Historical Review 68:1 (February 1999), 103-104. Herman J. Deutsch, "Ranald MacDonald: Adventurer by Marie Leona Nichols [review]," Pacific Historical Review 10:2 (June 1941), 231-232. Listener mail: "Stanislav Petrov, Who Averted Possible Nuclear War, Dies at 77," BBC News, Sept. 18, 2017. Associated Press, "Stanislav Petrov, 'The Man Who Saved the World' From Nuclear War, Dies at 77," Sept. 21, 2017. Roland Oliphant, "Stanislav Petrov, the 'Man Who Saved the World' Dies at 77," Telegraph, Sept. 18, 2017. Kristine Phillips, "The Former Soviet Officer Who Trusted His Gut -- And Averted a Global Nuclear Catastrophe," Washington Post, Sept. 18, 2017. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Mike Davis. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In the 1860s, San Francisco's most popular tourist attraction was not a place but a person: Joshua Norton, an eccentric resident who had declared himself emperor of the United States. Rather than shun him, the city took him to its heart, affectionately indulging his foibles for 21 years. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll consider the reign of Norton I and the meaning of madness. We'll also keep time with the Romans and puzzle over some rising temperatures. Intro: Amazon customers have been reviewing a gallon of milk since 2005. G.W. Blake patented a flyswatter pistol in 1919. Sources for our feature on Joshua Norton: William Drury, Norton I: Emperor of the United States, 1986. William M. Kramer, Emperor Norton of San Francisco, 1974. Catherine Caufield, The Emperor of the United States of America and Other Magnificent British Eccentrics, 1981. Benjamin E. Lloyd, Lights and Shades in San Francisco, 1876. Fred Dickey, "Norton I: Ruler of All He Imagined," American History 41:4 (October 2006), 65-66,68,70,6. Robert Ernest Cowan, "Norton I: Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico (Joshua A. Norton, 1819-1880)," California Historical Society Quarterly 2:3 (October 1923), 237-245. Eric Lis, "His Majesty's Psychosis: The Case of Emperor Joshua Norton," Academic Psychiatry 39:2 (April 2015), 181–185. Gary Kamiya, "How Emperor Norton Rose to Power," San Francisco Chronicle, April 1, 2017. "Street Characters of San Francisco," Overland Monthly 19:113 (May 1892), 449-459. "Death of an American Emperor," Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper 49:1271 (Feb. 7, 1880), 428-429. "Emperor Norton," Sacramento Daily Record-Union, Jan. 26, 1880, 1. "Collections: The Emperor's Cane," California History 82:2 (2004), 3, 59. Alejandro Lazo and Daniel Huang, "Who Is Emperor Norton? Fans in San Francisco Want to Remember," Wall Street Journal, Aug. 13, 2015. David Warren Ryder, "The Strange Story of Emperor Norton," Saturday Evening Post 218:6 (Aug. 11, 1945), 35-41. Julian Dana, "San Francisco's Fabulous Fools," Prairie Schooner 27:1 (Spring 1953), 45-49. Jed Stevenson, "Notes Issued by the Self-Crowned Emperor of the United States Have Become Collector's Items," New York Times, Dec. 9, 1990, 84. "Death of an Eccentric Californian," New York Times, Jan. 10, 1880, 5. Listener mail: Leonhard Schmitz, "Hora," in William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1875. Wikipedia, "Roman Timekeeping" (accessed Sept. 23, 2017). "A Brief Guide to Roman Timekeeping and the Calendar," World History (accessed Sept. 23, 2017). Wikipedia, "Finger-Counting" (accessed Sept. 23, 2017). Aditya Singhal, "Math Teachers Should Encourage Their Students to Count Using Fingers," Math Blog, July 20, 2016. Nancy Szokan, "Think Counting on Your Fingers Is Dumb? Think Again," Washington Post, July 30, 2016. An Indian 5-year-old doing mental sums. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Sofia Hauck de Oliveira, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Get a free audiobook with a 30-day trial at Audible. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1770, Hungarian engineer Wolfgang von Kempelen unveiled a miracle: a mechanical man who could play chess against human challengers. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll meet Kempelen's Mechanical Turk, which mystified audiences in Europe and the United States for more than 60 years. We'll also sit down with Paul Erdős and puzzle over a useful amateur. Intro: Lewis Carroll sent a birthday wish list to child friend Jessie Sinclair in 1878. An octopus named Paul picked the winners of all seven of Germany's World Cup games in 2010. Sources for our feature on the Mechanical Turk: Tom Standage, The Turk, 2002. Elizabeth Bridges, "Maria Theresa, 'The Turk,' and Habsburg Nostalgia," Journal of Austrian Studies 47:2 (Summer 2014), 17-36. Stephen P. Rice, "Making Way for the Machine: Maelzel's Automaton Chess-Player and Antebellum American Culture," Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Third Series, 106 (1994), 1-16. Dan Campbell, "'Echec': The Deutsches Museum Reconstructs the Chess-Playing Turk," Events and Sightings, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 26:2 (April-June 2004), 84-85. John F. Ohl and Joseph Earl Arrington, "John Maelzel, Master Showman of Automata and Panoramas," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 84:1 (January 1960), 56-92. James W. Cook Jr., "From the Age of Reason to the Age of Barnum: The Great Automaton Chess-Player and the Emergence of Victorian Cultural Illusionism," Winterthur Portfolio 30:4 (Winter 1995), 231-257. W.K. Wimsatt Jr., "Poe and the Chess Automaton," American Literature 11:2 (May 1939), 138-151. Peggy Aldrich Kidwell, "Playing Checkers With Machines -- From Ajeeb to Chinook," Information & Culture 50:4 (2015), 578-587. Brian P. Bloomfield and Theo Vurdubakis, "IBM's Chess Players: On AI and Its Supplements," Information Society 24 (2008), 69-82. Nathan Ensmenger, "Is Chess the Drosophila of Artificial Intelligence? A Social History of an Algorithm," Social Studies of Science 42:1 (February 2012), 5-30. Martin Kemp, "A Mechanical Mind," Nature 421:6920 (Jan. 16, 2003), 214. Marco Ernandes, "Artificial Intelligence & Games: Should Computational Psychology Be Revalued?" Topoi 24:2 (September 2005), 229–242. Brian P. Bloomfield and Theo Vurdubakis, "The Revenge of the Object? On Artificial Intelligence as a Cultural Enterprise," Social Analysis 41:1 (March 1997), 29-45. Mark Sussman, "Performing the Intelligent Machine: Deception and Enchantment in the Life of the Automaton Chess Player," TDR 43:3 (Autumn 1999), 81-96. James Berkley, "Post-Human Mimesis and the Debunked Machine: Reading Environmental Appropriation in Poe's 'Maelzel's Chess-Player' and 'The Man That Was Used Up,'" Comparative Literature Studies 41:3 (2004), 356-376. Kat Eschner, "Debunking the Mechanical Turk Helped Set Edgar Allan Poe on the Path to Mystery Writing," Smithsonian.com, July 20, 2017. Lincoln Michel, "The Grandmaster Hoax," Paris Review, March 28, 2012. Adam Gopnik, "A Point of View: Chess and 18th Century Artificial Intelligence," BBC News, March 22, 2013. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21876120 Ella Morton, "The Mechanical Chess Player That Unsettled the World," Slate, Aug. 20, 2015. "The Automaton Chess Player," Scientific American 48:7 (February 17, 1883), 103-104. Robert Willis, An Attempt to Analyse the Automaton Chess Player, of Mr. de Kempelen, 1821. "The Automaton Chess-Player," Cornhill Magazine 5:27 (September 1885), 299-306. Edgar Allan Poe, "Maelzel's Chess-Player," Southern Literary Messenger, April 1836, 318-326. You can play through six of the Turk's games on Chessgames.com. Listener mail: Nicholas Gibbs, "Voynich Manuscript: The Solution," Times Literary Supplement, Sept. 5, 2017. Annalee Newitz, "The Mysterious Voynich Manuscript Has Finally Been Decoded," Ars Technica, Sept. 8, 2017. Natasha Frost, "The World's Most Mysterious Medieval Manuscript May No Longer Be a Mystery," Atlas Obscura, Sept. 8, 2017. Sarah Zhang, "Has a Mysterious Medieval Code Really Been Solved?" Atlantic, Sept. 10, 2017. Annalee Newitz, "So Much for That Voynich Manuscript 'Solution,'" Ars Technica, Sept. 10, 2017. "Imaginary Erdős Number," Numberphile, Nov. 26, 2014. Oleg Pikhurko, "Erdős Lap Number," Mathematics Institute, University of Warwick (accessed Sept. 15, 2017). This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Alex Baumans, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any question

Ships need a reliable way to know their exact location at sea -- and for centuries, the lack of a dependable method caused shipwrecks and economic havoc for every seafaring nation. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll meet John Harrison, the self-taught English clockmaker who dedicated his life to crafting a reliable solution to this crucial problem. We'll also admire a dentist and puzzle over a magic bus stop. Intro: Working in an Antarctic tent in 1908, Douglas Mawson found himself persistently interrupted by Edgeworth David. In 1905, Sir Gilbert Parker claimed to have seen the astral body of Sir Crane Rasch in the House of Commons. Sources for our feature on John Harrison: Dava Sobel and William H. Andrews, The Illustrated Longitude, 1995. William J.H. Andrewes, ed., The Quest for Longitude, 1996. Katy Barrett, "'Explaining' Themselves: The Barrington Papers, the Board of Longitude, and the Fate of John Harrison," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 65:2 (June 20, 2011), 145-162. William E. Carter and Merri S. Carter, "The Age of Sail: A Time When the Fortunes of Nations and Lives of Seamen Literally Turned With the Winds Their Ships Encountered at Sea," Journal of Navigation 63:4 (October 2010), 717-731. J.A. Bennett, "Science Lost and Longitude Found: The Tercentenary of John Harrison," Journal for the History of Astronomy 24:4 (1993), 281-287. Arnold Wolfendale, "Shipwrecks, Clocks and Westminster Abbey: The Story of John Harrison," Historian 97 (Spring 2008), 14-17. William E. Carter and Merri Sue Carter, "The British Longitude Act Reconsidered," American Scientist 100:2 (March/April 2012), 102-105. Robin W. Spencer, "Open Innovation in the Eighteenth Century: The Longitude Problem," Research Technology Management 55:4 (July/August 2012), 39-43. "Longitude Found: John Harrison," Royal Museums Greenwich (accessed Aug. 27, 2017). "John Harrison," American Society of Mechanical Engineers (accessed Aug. 27, 2017). J.C. Taylor and A.W. Wolfendale, "John Harrison: Clockmaker and Copley Medalist," Notes and Records, Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, Jan. 22, 2007. An Act for the Encouragement of John Harrison, to Publish and Make Known His Invention of a Machine or Watch, for the Discovery of the Longitude at Sea, 1763. John Harrison, An Account of the Proceedings, in Order to the Discovery of the Longitude, 1763. John Harrison, A Narrative of the Proceedings Relative to the Discovery of the Longitude at Sea, 1765. Nevil Maskelyne, An Account of the Going of Mr. John Harrison's Watch, at the Royal Observatory, 1767. John Harrison, Remarks on a Pamphlet Lately Published by the Rev. Mr. Maskelyne, 1767. An Act for Granting to His Majesty a Certain Sum of Money Out of the Sinking Fund, 1773. John Harrison, A Description Concerning Such Mechanism as Will Afford a Nice, or True Mensuration of Time, 1775. Steve Connor, "John Harrison's 'Longitude' Clock Sets New Record -- 300 Years On," Independent, April 18, 2015. Robin McKie, "Clockmaker John Harrison Vindicated 250 Years After 'Absurd' Claims," Guardian, April 18, 2015. Listener mail: Charlie Hintz, "DNA Ends 120 Year Mystery of H.H. Holmes' Death," Cult of Weird, Aug. 31, 2017. "Descendant of H.H. Holmes Reveals What He Found at Serial Killer's Gravesite in Delaware County," NBC10, July 18, 2017. Brian X. McCrone and George Spencer, "Was It Really 'America's First Serial Killer' H.H. Holmes Buried in a Delaware County Grave?", NBC10, Aug. 31, 2017. Daniel Hahn, The Tower Menagerie, 2004. James Owen, "Medieval Lion Skulls Reveal Secrets of Tower of London 'Zoo,'" National Geographic News, Nov. 3, 2005. Richard Davey, Tower of London, 1910. Bill Bailey reads from the Indonesian-to-English phrasebook Practical Dialogues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZZv6D4hpK8 A few photos of Practical Dialogues. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Oskar Sigvardsson, who sent these corroborating links (warning -- these spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In March 1913, Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson threw the most beautiful typeface in the world off of London's Hammersmith Bridge to keep it out of the hands of his estranged printing partner. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll explore what would lead a man to destroy the culmination of his life's work -- and what led one modern admirer to try to revive it. We'll also scrutinize a housekeeper and puzzle over a slumped child. Intro: Gustav Mahler rejected the Berlin Royal Opera because of the shape of his nose. In 1883, inventor Robert Heath enumerated the virtues of glowing hats. Sources for our feature on the Doves Press: Marianne Tidcombe, The Doves Press, 2002. The Journals of Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson, 1926. "The Doves Press" -- A Kelmscott Revival," New York Times, Feb. 16, 1901, BR9. "The Revival of Printing as an Art," New York Tribune, Sept. 14, 1901, 11. "The Doves Press Bible," Guardian, March 10, 1904. "The Doves Press," Athenaeum, Jan. 12, 1907, 54-54. "The Doves Press," Athenaeum, June 13, 1908, 729-730. Dissolution of the partnership, London Gazette, July 27, 1909, 5759. "Doves Press Type in River: Memoirs of T.C. Sanderson Tell How He Disposed of It," New York Times, Sept. 8, 1926, 27. Arthur Millier, "Bookbinding Art Proves Inspiration: Doves Press Exhibit Reveals Devotion to Lofty Ideals," Los Angeles Times, April 2, 1933, A2. Charles B. Russell, "Cobden-Sanderson and the Doves Press," Prairie Schooner 14:3 (Fall 1940), 180-192. Carole Cable, "The Printing Types of the Doves Press: Their History and Destruction," Library Quarterly 44:3 (July 1974), 219-230. Marcella D. Genz, "The Doves Press [review]," Library Quarterly 74:1 (January 2004), 91-94. "Biographies of the Key Figures Involved in the Doves Press," International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, Dec. 22, 2009. "The Doves Type Reborn," Association Typographique Internationale, Dec. 20, 2010. "The Fight Over the Doves," Economist, Dec. 19, 2013. Justin Quirk, "X Marks the Spot," Sunday Times, Jan. 11, 2015, 22. Rachael Steven, "Recovering the Doves Type," Creative Review, Feb. 3, 2015. Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan, "The Gorgeous Typeface That Drove Men Mad and Sparked a 100-Year Mystery," Gizmodo, Feb. 16, 2015. Rich Rennicks, "The Doves Press Story," New Antiquarian, Feb. 24, 2015. "One Man's Obsession With Rediscovering the Lost Doves Type," BBC News Magazine, Feb. 25, 2015. "15 Things You Didn't Know About the Doves Press & Its Type," Typeroom, Oct. 20, 2015. "An Obsessive Type: The Tale of the Doves Typeface," BBC Radio 4, July 28, 2016. Sujata Iyengar, "Intermediating the Book Beautiful: Shakespeare at the Doves Press," Shakespeare Quarterly 67:4 (Winter 2016), 481-502. "The Doves Type," Typespec (accessed Aug. 20, 2017). "Raised From the Dead: The Doves Type Story," Typespec (accessed Aug. 20, 2017). "History of the Doves Type," Typespec (accessed Aug. 21, 2017). "Doves Press," Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum (accessed Aug. 20, 2017). "Doves Press Collection," Bruce Peel Special Collections, University of Alberta (accessed Aug. 20, 2017). Listener mail: Becky Oskin, "Yosemite Outsmarts Its Food-Stealing Bears," Live Science, March 3, 2014. Kristin Hohenadel, "Vancouver Bans Doorknobs," Slate, Nov. 26 2013. Jeff Lee, "Vancouver's Ban on the Humble Doorknob Likely to Be a Trendsetter," Vancouver Sun, Nov. 19, 2013. Jonathan Goodman, The Slaying of Joseph Bowne Elwell, 1987. "Housekeeper Admits Shielding Woman by Hiding Garments in Elwell Home," New York Times, June 17, 1920. "Elwell Crime Still Mystery," Los Angeles Times, June 19, 1920. "Housekeeper Gives New Elwell Facts," New York Times, June 25, 1920. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Dean Gootee. Please visit Littleton Coin Company to sell your coins and currency, or call them toll free 1-877-857-7850. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In May 1920, wealthy womanizer Joseph Elwell was found shot to death alone in his locked house in upper Manhattan. The police identified hundreds of people who might have wanted Elwell dead, but they couldn't quite pin the crime on any of them. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review the sensational murder that the Chicago Tribune called "one of the toughest mysteries of all times." We'll also learn a new use for scuba gear and puzzle over a sympathetic vandal. Intro: The Dodgers, Yankees, and Giants played a three-way baseball game in 1944. Avon, Colorado, has a bridge called Bob. Sources for our feature on Joseph Elwell: Jonathan Goodman, The Slaying of Joseph Bowne Elwell, 1987. Joseph Bowne Elwell, Bridge, Its Principles and Rules of Play, 1903 "J.B. Elwell, Whist Expert and Race Horse Owner, Slain," New York Times, June 12, 1920, 1. "Seek Young Woman in Elwell Mystery," New York Times, June 13, 1920, 14. "Scour City Garages for Elwell Clue," New York Times, June 14, 1920, 1. "'Woman in Black' at the Ritz Enters Elwell Mystery," New York Times, June 16, 1920, 1. "Two Men and Women Hunted in New Trail for Slayer of Elwell," New York Tribune, June 16, 1920, 1. "Housekeeper Admits Shielding Woman by Hiding Garments in Elwell Home," New York Times, June 17, 1920, 1. "Mrs. Elwell Bares Divorce Project," New York Times, June 17, 1920, 1. "Swann Baffled at Every Turn in Elwell Mystery," New York Times, June 19, 1920, 1. "'Mystery Girl in Elwell Case Is Found," Washington Times, June 19, 1920, 1. "Elwell, Discarding Palm Beach Woman, Revealed Threats," New York Times, June 20, 1920, 1. "Elwell, the Man of Many Masks," New York Times, June 20, 1920, 12. "Elwell Traced to Home at 2:30 on Day of Murder," New York Times, June 21, 1920, 1. "'Unwritten Law' Avenger Sought in Elwell Case," New York Times, June 22, 1920, 1. "Think Assassin Hid for Hours in Elwell Home," New York Times, June 23, 1920, 1. "Admits Breakfasting With Von Schlegell," New York Times, June 23, 1920, 3. "Officials Baffled by Contradictions Over Elwell Calls," New York Times, June 24, 1920, 1. "Housekeeper Gives New Elwell Facts," New York Times, June 25, 1920, 1. "Pendleton, Amazed Awaiting Inquiry in Elwell Case," New York Times, June 28, 1920, 1. "'Bootlegger' Clue in Elwell Case Bared by Check," New York Times, June 29, 1920, 1. "Elwell Rum Ring Bared by Shevlin," New York Times, July 2, 1920, 14. "Viola Kraus Again on Elwell Grill," New York Times, July 3, 1920, 14. "The People and Their Daily Troubles," Los Angeles Times, July 6, 1920: II2. "Says Witness Lied in Elwell Inquiry," New York Times, July 7, 1920, 11. "Whisky Is Seized in Elwell Mystery," New York Times, July 10, 1920, 10. "New Elwell Clue Found by Police," New York Times, July 11, 1920, 16. "'Beatrice,' New Witness Sought in Elwell Case," New York Tribune, July 11, 1920, 6. "Says He Murdered Elwell," New York Times, July 14, 1920, 17. "Quiz Figueroa Again in Elwell Mystery," New York Times, July 17, 1920, 14. "Chauffeur Quizzed in Elwell Mystery," New York Times, July 20, 1920, 8. "Elwell Evidence Put Up to Whitman," New York Times, April 2, 1921, 11. "Confesses Murder of Elwell and Says Woman Paid for It," New York Times, April 7, 1921, 1. "Admits Elwell Murder," Los Angeles Times, April 7, 1921, I1. "Confessed Elwell Slayer Identifies Woman Employer," New York Times, April 8, 1921, 1. "Confessed Slayer of Elwell Is Sane, Alienist Declares," New York Times, April 9, 1921, 1. "Harris Admits His Elwell Murder Tale Was All a Lie," New York Times, April 11, 1921, 1. "Elwell and Keenan Slayers Are Known," Fort Wayne [Ind.] Sentinel, Oct. 17, 1923, 1. "Elwell's Slayer Known to Police," New York Times, Oct. 21, 1923, E4. "Fifth Anniversary of the Elwell Murder Finds It Listed as the Perfect Mystery," New York Times, June 12, 1925, 21. "Elwell Cut Off," New York Times, April 12, 1927, 19. "Murder of Elwell Recalled in Suicide," New York Times, Oct. 15, 1927, 21. "Joseph Elwell Murder in 1920 Still Mystery," Chicago Tribune, Feb. 21, 1955. David J. Krajicek, "Who Would Want to Kill Joe Elwell?" New York Daily News, Feb. 13, 2011. Douglas J. Lanska, "Optograms and Criminology: Science, News Reporting, and Fanciful Novels," in Anne Stiles et al., Literature, Neurology, and Neuroscience: Historical and Literary Connections, 2013. Kirk Curnutt, "The Gatsby Murder Case," in Alfred Bendixen and Olivia Carr Edenfield, eds., The Centrality of Crime Fiction in American Literary Culture, 2017. Listener mail: Paul Rubin, "Burning Man: An Attorney Says He Escaped His Blazing Home Using Scuba Gear; Now He's Charged with Arson," Phoenix New Times, Aug. 27, 2009. Michael Walsh, "Autopsy Shows Michael Marin, Arizona Man Who Was Former Wall Street Trader, Killed Self With Cyanide After Hearing Guilty Verdict," New York Daily News, July 27, 2012. "Michael Marin Update: Canister Labeled 'Cyanide' Found in Arsonist's Vehicle, Investigators Say," CBS News/Associated Press, July 1

After Japan invaded the Philippines in 1941 two American servicemen hatched a desperate plan to sail 3,000 miles to Allied Australia in a 20-foot wooden fishing boat. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll join Rocky Gause and William Osborne as they struggle to avoid the Japanese and reach safety. We'll also tell time in Casablanca and puzzle over a towing fatality. Intro: H.M. Small patented a hammock for railway passenger cars in 1889. The clock face on the Marienkirche in Bergen auf Rügen, Germany, has 61 minutes. Sources for our feature on Damon Gause: Damon Gause, The War Journal of Major Damon "Rocky" Gause, 1999. William L. Osborne, Voyage into the Wind, 2013. Stephan Wilkinson, "10 Great POW Escapes," Military History 28:4 (November 2011), 28-33,5. "Two U.S. Officers Flee Philippines By a 159-Day Journey to Australia," New York Times, Oct. 20, 1942, 6. "Bataan-to-Australia Escape Takes 159 Days," Los Angeles Times, Oct. 20, 1942, 1. "U.S. Officers in Australia After Fleeing Philippines," New York Times, Oct. 24, 1942, 5. "Angry Officer Who Fled Luzon Tells Odyssey," Los Angeles Times, Nov. 4, 1942, A1. "Crash Kills Gause, Who Fled Bataan," New York Times, March 17, 1944, 7. Mark Pino, "Bataan Survivors Meet, Share Stories of Strength," Orlando Sentinel, May 4, 1997, 1. Tunku Varadarajan, "Bidding War for Diary of Great Escape," Times, May 8, 1998, 20. David Usborne, "Hero's Voyage Ends in Hollywood," Independent, May 9, 1998, 13. Don O'Briant, "Georgia Officer's Great Escape to Get Hollywood Treatment," Atlanta Constitution, March 4, 1999, 1. Mark Pino, "War Hero's Tribute Marching On," Orlando Sentinel, April 21, 1999, 1. Bill Baab, "Journal Documents Great Escapes During War," Augusta Chronicle, Jan. 16, 2000, F5. Christopher Dickey, "The Great Escape," New York Times, Jan. 23, 2000. Don O'Briant, "Veterans Day: Sons Relive WWII Tale of Perilous Getaway," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Nov. 11, 2001, 1. "The Firsthand Account of One of the Greatest Escapes of World War II," Book TV, CSPAN2, 2000. Robert E. Hood, "The Incredible Escape," Boys' Life, May 2002. Chris Petrikin and Benedict Carver, "Miramax Escapes With 'War Journal,'" Variety, Feb. 9, 1999. Listener mail: Telling time in Casablanca. We discussed English as She Is Spoke in Episode 58. Deb Belt, "Chesapeake Bay Lighthouse Is the Right House for $15K," Baltimore Patch, Aug. 1, 2017. Beth Dalbey, "5 Historic Great Lakes Lighthouses for Sale in Michigan," Baltimore Patch, July 28, 2017. A Maryland lighthouse for sale by the General Services Administration. To see all the lighthouses currently at auction, search for "lighthouse" on this page. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener David Pruessner. Please visit Littleton Coin Company to sell your coins and currency, or call them toll free 1-877-857-7850. Get your free trial set from Harry's, including a handle, blade, shave gel, and travel blade cover, by visiting http://harrys.com/closet. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!