Month: September 2016

During the summer, billions of bugs travel through the sky. They soar across invisible highways, thousands of feet above our heads—but in the video above, NPR science correspondent and Radiolab co-host Robert Krulwich provides us with an up-close look at the critters. Learn why they fly so high, what happens when the insects reach their final destination, and which bug was once spotted flying 19,000 feet above the ground. 

[h/t The Kid Should See This]

Banner image: iStock 

Know of something you think we should cover? Email us at tips@mentalfloss.com.

With hackers and data breaches making headlines around the world, protecting your sensitive personal and financial information is more important than ever. But safeguarding your name, birthday, Social Security number, passwords, and credit card numbers can be a big job. Here are eight smart ways to protect yourself against identity thieves who want to steal your information to rack up purchases, open accounts in your name, or file fraudulent tax returns.

1. SIGN UP FOR MOBILE BANKING ALERTS.

Besides regularly reviewing your credit card and banking monthly statements, sign up for alerts. Most financial institutions will contact you by email or text when an uncharacteristically large withdrawal or purchase above a certain amount occurs. Download your bank’s official mobile app so you can monitor your accounts from your phone. And if you spot any unauthorized purchases, contact your financial institutions immediately. 

2. MONITOR YOUR CREDIT REPORTS.

Every 12 months, you can get a free copy of your credit report from each of the three major credit reporting agencies. Read your credit reports to make sure that they don’t contain any incorrect addresses or accounts that you didn’t open. If you see something suspicious, contact the credit reporting agencies and your bank, stat.

3. DON’T BE LAZY ABOUT PASSWORDS.

Saving passwords to your computer’s password keychain may save you time, but doing so can make you vulnerable to a security breach. Besides using complex usernames and passwords (random strings of letters, numbers, and symbols), you should change your passwords regularly, especially for your banking logins. And only sign in to banking websites when you’re on a private, trustworthy Wi-Fi network.

4. BE WARY OF UNSOLICITED EMAILS.

Identity thieves can trick you by sending you an email that looks as if it came from a legitimate company with which you do business. If these phishers send you an unsolicited email from what appears to be your bank, be careful. Don’t click on any links in the email, or you run the risk of getting malware installed on your computer. Scammers may also call you, claiming to be an employee of your bank and asking you to reveal your account number, Social Security number, or other personal information. Instead of responding, contact your bank directly (using the number on the back of your card) to find out if the email or call is legitimate.

5. USE A CROSS-CUT SHREDDER.

The internet allows plenty of fun new opportunities for hackers to steal your identity, but low-tech identity thieves aren’t yet a thing of the past. Because these thieves steal your trash, looking for mail or other documents that contains your personal information, it’s important to get in the habit of using a cross-cut shredder. Before you throw them out, shred any credit card offers, bank statements, utility bills, receipts, and even the labels on your prescription pill bottles.

6. LIMIT WHAT YOU SHARE ON SOCIAL MEDIA.

Identity thieves love over-sharers. Whether you share your birthday on your LinkedIn profile, your phone number on Facebook, or your pet’s name on Twitter, you’re making yourself vulnerable to identity thieves who may be on the hunt for answers to your security questions. For all your social media accounts, make sure your privacy settings are strong, you aren’t friends or connections with people you don’t know, and you haven’t unknowingly shared too much personal information.

7. SECURE YOUR MAILBOX.

Some identity thieves steal mail from mailboxes, hoping to find bank or credit card statements, pre-approved credit card offers, and other sensitive documents. To safeguard yourself against this type of identity theft, put a lock on your mailbox and retrieve your mail as soon as possible after it’s delivered. If you have outgoing bills to send, drop them off at the post office (or a secured drop-off box) instead of leaving them in your unlocked mailbox. And when you leave town, get a mail hold from the post office so your mail doesn’t pile up.

8. KEEP IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS IN A SAFE.

Putting all your important documents in a safe can protect your information from getting into the wrong hands. Keep your Social Security card, passport, birth certificate, extra checks, copies of your health insurance cards, and a printed page of your important passwords in a safe. Just make sure to bolt your safe to the ground, otherwise a thief can take the safe with him.

Even if you diligently change your passwords every month and shred your documents before tossing them, identity theft can happen. Head to Allstate.com for the answers to questions you may have about adding identity restoration coverage to your policy.

The otherworldly creatures in Ridley Scott’s Alien franchise are some of the most elegant monsters in science fiction. That’s because they—and their whole world—were inspired by, and later designed by, the Swiss artist H.R. Giger, whose style is a kind of dark, hypersexualized, ghostly steampunk.

San Francisco-based YouTuber Kristian Williams, who makes video essays on pop culture, dives into everything Giger in his latest video, spotted by Boing Boing. His Alien (1979) designs, Williams says, are “everything we fear about ourselves, exaggerated to the point of surrealism.” Giger created most of the set pieces and costumes himself, making sure they stayed faithful to his unique, twisted vision.

The artist had a background in industrial design, and the logic and real-world functionality of his creations were carefully thought out during the production. The creatures needed to breathe without a nose, so there are tubes on their backs. Their blood is acidic, so they have an exoskeleton (made out of real bones). And it’s no surprise they look grotesquely human: They were made with real human skulls at the tip of their elongated heads.

Learn more about the brilliant design process of the monsters from Williams’s YouTube channel, kaptainkristian:

[h/t Boing Boing]

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STEM careers (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) aren’t what you think. Many take place outside of the laboratories, classrooms, and cubicles typically associated with the field. They’ll keep you on your feet (or treading water) most days. Here are a few likely to pique your interest.

1. BIOENERGY ENGINEER

Bioenergy engineers are focused on creating a cleaner, greener future by harnessing the power of living organisms. In some cases, that means taking waste—which might otherwise stick around landfills for decades—and converting it into renewable energy. These plants, often designed and operated by bio- or other kinds of environmental engineers, take in waste. When heated, the waste’s organic matter is converted into gas, which fuels a combustion engine to produce electricity.

2. NANOTECHNOLOGY ENGINEER

Nanotechnology experts work across scientific disciplines—and industries—to manipulate materials at the molecular or atomic level. The applications for nanotechnology are practically endless, from fabrics with stain-resistant weaves, to targeted drug therapy for patients facing life-threatening illnesses. One thing nanotech experts have in common? Excellent job prospects. According to forecasters, the value of products that use nanotechnology is expected to reach approximately $1 trillion—or 5 percent of the United States’ GDP—by 2020.

3. NUCLEAR MEDICINE TECHNOLOGIST

An important part of treating cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses is the ability to track their progress within the body. Nuclear medicine technologists play a key role here, injecting radioactive dyes that map out a disease’s progress (or lack thereof).

4. INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGIST

This specialty field focuses on how work environments impact employees, from recruitment practices to management philosophies. Industrial psychologists also address that eternal question, “What’s the best way to improve employee morale?” With more companies focusing on employee retention and wellness, industrial psychology is a burgeoning field with high employment rates.

5. FLAVOR TECHNOLOGIST

Behind every wow-worthy chip and fruit drink you’ve tried, there’s a flavor technologist meticulously working away. Combining high-level chemistry and biology, these scientists utilize natural and artificial ingredients to craft the flavors that tickle consumers’ taste buds. And the work’s not confined to the laboratory: Technologists often take field trips to study herbs, extracts, and other raw flavors in their natural habitat.

6. UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGIST

History’s treasures aren’t just buried beneath dry land. They’re also hidden at the bottom of lakes and rivers, and covered by rising oceans. That’s where underwater archaeologists come in, working for government agencies, research universities and in the private sector. In addition to the thrill of exploring shipwrecks and other unique finds, underwater archaeologists get to use some pretty high-tech gadgets, like nuclear-resonance magnometers and side-scan sonars.

7. SPACE AGENCY BIOSTATISTICIAN

There are still a ton of unknowns when it comes to the cosmos—including what effects space travel may have on the human body. To that end, NASA has a team of biostatisticians on hand, dedicated to studying how low- and no-gravity environments during far-flung missions affect human physiology—and figuring out the best ways to protect astronauts from harm.

8. ETHICAL HACKER

Nope—that isn’t an oxymoron. Ethical hackers are highly skilled (and often officially certified) computer scientists and programmers hired by financial institutions, government agencies, and major corporations to identify vulnerabilities in a network’s security system. That means anticipating—and finding fixes for—all the different ways potential criminals might be able to gain access to an organization’s digitized information.

Where else can an education in science, technology, engineering, or math take you? Lockheed Martin knows the sky’s the limit—which is why they support STEM students, from elementary school through college, in and out of the classroom. Visit Lockheed Martin’s STEM Education site to learn more about their outreach initiatives and commitment to diversity in the workplace.

Erik Sass is covering the events of the war exactly 100 years after they happened. This is the 249th installment in the series.  

September 15, 1916: Rise Of The Tanks

Like the birth of some terrible demigod, tanks roared into the world to the awe of all who saw them amid the bloodbath of the Somme on September 15, 1916. The armored fighting vehicle has played a central role in modern conventional warfare ever since, with tanks and planes working in tandem to dominate the battlefield. But as their uneven debut at the Somme reflected, tanks had their shortcomings right from the start, due partly to short-term teething issues but also to a number of limitations intrinsic to the concept of a mobile fortress.

First conceived in February 1915 as a way to cancel out the defensive power of entrenched enemy machine guns, after 19 months of top-secret research and development in September 1916 the first Mark I tanks, in “male” and “female” versions, were delivered to the British Army. The male version was armed with two cannons and three machine guns, the female version with five machine guns; their armor and weaponry were intended to enable them to cross no-man’s-land in the face of enemy fire, destroy enemy strong points and cross trenches while also providing shelter to advancing British infantry. 

This experimental weapon received a relatively warm welcome thanks in large part to British Expeditionary Force commander Douglas Haig, who recognized its potential early on (the French were also developing a tank of their own). But they remained unproven and were viewed with understandable skepticism by rank and file alike. Moreover the tanks suffered all the inevitable technical glitches of a new machine: just eight years after the introduction of the first Ford Model T, the internal combustion engines that propelled the tanks were more reliable but hardly immune to breakdowns. And despite their special shape and motorized treads the vehicles could also still “ditch” or roll over to become (temporarily) useless. In fact, out of the first batch of 50 tanks sent to join the next big attack on the Somme on September 15, 1916, remembered as the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, only 36 actually arrived on the field of battle, as the rest fell prey to mechanical or navigational woes.

One British soldier, Reginald Grant, described the general reaction to their arrival behind the British lines immediately preceding the next “big push” (following previous Anglo-French efforts including Bazentin Ridge, Pozières, and Ginchy): 

I looked in the direction of the sound and presently there hove in sight a colossal something of behemoth proportions;–something the like of which I had never seen or heard of in all my life, and I was stricken dumb with amazement. A monstrous monstrosity climbed its way without let or hindrance, up, over, along and across every obstacle in its path. Presently it reached the top of Pozieres Ridge; every man who could see had his eyes glued on it…

Another eyewitness present for the tanks’ baptism of fire at the Somme on September 15, the cinematographer Geoffrey Malins, recorded a similar impression: 

For the life of me I could not take my eyes off it. The thing–I really don’t know how else to describe it–ambled forward, with slow, jerky, uncertain movements. The sight of it was weird enough in all conscience. At one moment its nose disappeared, then with a slide and an upward glide it climbed to the other side of a deep shell crater which lay in its path. I stood amazed and watched its antics… Big, and ugly, and awkward as it was, clumsy as its movements appeared to be, the thing seemed imbued with life, and possessed of the most uncanny sort of intelligence and understanding. 

Unfortunately the tanks’ experimental nature led British commanders to make some key errors during the attack on Flers-Courcelette on September 15. The biggest mistake was their decision to break up the “creeping barrage” laid down by British artillery in front of the advancing infantry, in order to leave safe corridors for the tanks to travel through. At first glance this appeared to make sense, since nobody knew just how long it would take for the tanks to advance over the pockmarked battlefield – but it also meant that if the tanks failed to reduce the German strongpoints in front of them, the infantry behind them would be left to attack defenders in virtually untouched enemy trenches. 

Nonetheless the British scored some notable successes at Flers-Courcelette, thanks to the strength of the artillery bombardment (where it was allowed). In the three days leading up to the attack, British artillery pounded the German lines with an incredible 828,000 shells, including counter-artillery fire directed by planes from the Royal Flying Corps. Lieutenant R. Lewis, a Canadian officer from Newfoundland, witnessed the attack on September 15 from the reserve trenches, recalling the moment when the final bombardment opened up at 6:20 a.m.: “Then all of a sudden the artillery with a mighty roar opened up the most terrific fire. It was a wonderful sight. Nothing could be seen all along the horizon in the rear but one mass of flame, where our guns were sending out shell after shell.”

Another observer, R. Derby Holmes, an American volunteer serving in the 22^nd London Battalion, Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment, left a frank account of his feelings during the final countdown to the tank and infantry attack: 

My ear drums ached, and I thought I should go insane if the racket didn’t stop. I was frightfully nervous and scared, but tried not to show it. An officer or a non-com must conceal his nervousness, though he be dying with fright… I looked over the top once or twice and wondered if I, too, would be lying there unburied with the rats and maggots gnawing me into an unrecognizable mass.

At 6:20 a.m. ten British Divisions from the Fourth Army and Reserve Army (including the Canadian Corps and New Zealand Division) plus elements from the French Sixth Army attacked a defensive force of roughly half their strength in the German First Army.  In some areas the tanks were employed in concentrated columns, while in others they were interspersed among the attacking troops – but at this early stage, with the benefit of surprise still on their side, even a lone tank could make a decisive difference. 

Indeed one famous tank, C-5, better known by its nickname “Crème de Menthe,” singlehandedly cleared a ruined sugar refinery of its German defenders, opening the way for the Canadians to advance into the rearward German trenches, eventually approaching the village of Courcellete. The Canadians managed to hold on to their gains here, fending off a number of fierce German counterattacks – but their success (and the tank’s) were hardly typical for the Allies that morning. 

Further to the east the 50^th Northumbrian Division succeeded in taking its first objective despite withering flanking fire from High Wood, the strategic heights that had been the object of so much bloodshed since mid-July. However they were battered back from their second objective, a German support trench, by a blistering enemy bombardment (one of many examples indicating British counter-artillery fire was insufficient). During the initial attack many soldiers sheltered behind the advancing tanks, but discovered this could be very slow going. Holmes, the American volunteer, recalled the progress of the tanks near High Wood: 

The tanks were just ahead of us and lumbered along in an imposing row. They lurched down into deep craters and out again, tipped and reeled and listed, and sometimes seemed as though they must upset; but they came up each time and went on and on. And how slow they did seem to move! Lord, I thought we should never cover that five or six hundred yards. 

Holmes and his comrades also realized that the tanks offered no protection against heavier fire: 

There was a tank just ahead of me. I got behind it. And marched there. Slow! God, how slow! Anyhow, it kept off the machine-gun bullets, but not the shrapnel. It was breaking over us in clouds. I felt the stunning patter of the fragments on my tin hat, cringed under it, and wondered vaguely why it didn’t do me in. Men in the front wave were going down like tenpins. Off there diagonally to the right and forward I glimpsed a blinding burst, and as much as a whole platoon went down… I don’t suppose that trip across No Man’s Land behind the tanks took over five minutes, but it seemed like an hour.

Towards the center of the British line the New Zealand Division, along with the 14^th and 41^st Divisions, was assigned the task of capturing Flers, assisted by eighteen tanks, of which a good number naturally broke down before or during the battle. Here the tanks showed up late, but then did a respectable job helping the attackers overcome secondary German defenses to capture Flers (another problem encountered across the Somme battlefield, and especially where there had been no creeping barrage, was the German practice of hiding machine gun nests in craters in front of their trenches in no-man’s-land). 

On the right the British attack by the Guards, 6^th, and 56^th Divisions turned into a complete debacle, including an unimpressive performance by the tanks, which all got lost on the battlefield or suffered mechanical mishaps. As this was one of the corridors spared the creeping bombardment during the early stages of the battle, the failure of the tanks to even make contact with the enemy in most places meant the infantry faced an impenetrable wall of machine gun and rifle fire. Making things even worse, one tank that did actually make it to the frontlines headed into no-man’s-land early, alerting the enemy to the coming attack before withdrawing under heavy fire.

The overall performance of the tanks across the Somme was therefore mixed, at best. One account by a British soldier, Bert Chaney, encapsulates the wildly differing fortunes of various tanks involved in the attack on September 15, along with some comic details: 

One of the tanks got caught up on a tree stump and never reached their front line and a second had its rear steering wheels shot off and could not guide itself… The third tank went on and ran through Flers, flattening everything they thought should be flattened, pushing down walls and thoroughly enjoying themselves… The four men in the tank that had got itself hung up dismounted, all in the heat of the battle, stretching themselves, scratching their heads, then slowly and deliberately walked round their vehicle inspecting it from every angle and appeared to hold a conference among themselves. After standing around for a few minutes, looking somewhat lost, they calmly took out from the inside of the tank a primus stove and, using the side of the tank as a cover from enemy fire, sat down on the ground and made themselves some tea. The battle was over as far as they were concerned.

Despite the tanks’ many failures on September 15, their isolated successes had proved what armored vehicles were capable of, at least to careful observers. One thoughtful chaplain with the Guards Division, T. Guy Rogers, mused: “Of course their virtues are exaggerated, but they are only in their infancy and did well – really well in some places. I would like to see them with double the horsepower; less impotent when they get sideways, and with some contrivance to reduce the noise.” 

Designers would indeed remedy these shortcomings and others revealed at the Somme, with wireless sets for example eventually enabling communication between commanders and tank crews. At the same time, tanks faced some basic constraints which still limit their use today, including their high fuel consumption (incredibly, many went into battle at the Somme covered with highly flammable fuel cans) and their inability to tackle certain kinds of terrain. 

In the short term, tanks remained secondary: as always, the heavy lifting on the battlefields of the First World War was done by infantry and artillery, with newer weapons like tanks and planes playing a subsidiary, sometimes experimental role. 

For the infantrymen who suffered the brunt of the fighting in the trenches, conditions at the Somme were something close to infernal. Paul Hub, a German officer, recounted a typical trauma in a letter to his wife dated September 20, 1916:

My dear Maria, I had just taken up my position when a heavy mortar hit the wall, burying me and two of my company under the rubble. I can’t describe what it felt like to be buried alive under such a mass of earth without being able to move a muscle… When someone called out asking if there was anyone underneath, we shouted ‘Yes!’ and they started digging us out right away. They thought they would have to free the others before they could reach me, but in the end they pulled me out at the same time. I felt as if my legs had been chopped off… The weight of the earth had pushed my head forward and torn my back muscles. 

See the previous installment or all entries.

To say the name “Claude Monet” is to conjure images of water lilies, bridges, and ponds in soft greens, pinks, blues and purples. The French Impressionist painter is as tied to that series as Edgar Degas is to ballerinas.

In this silent 1915 short film, Monet is seen in his garden at Giverny—first talking with a man as dogs frolic in the background, and then at his canvas painting with a cigarette dangling from his lips. The sight of the world-famous garden is arresting, though it’s stripped of its signature hues in the black-and-white footage. 

It’s also incredible to watch Monet work en plein air, creating one of the 250 oil paintings showcasing the lilies that, in the 100 years since, have become artistic icons in their own right.

[h/t Kottke]

When Marcel Duchamp’s 1912 painting Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 debuted, it sparked one of the greatest uproars the art world has ever known. But after facing scads of rejection, mockery, and even a presidential put-down, this provocative piece rose to the ranks of masterpiece.

1. Duchamp’s Cubist contemporaries rejected the Cubist piece. 

Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 reimagines the human form through a mechanized and monochromatic lens in keeping with Cubism, and in the century since its completion, it has repeatedly been displayed in Cubist art exhibits. However, Duchamp’s use of 20 different static positions created a sense of motion and visual violence that Cubists claimed made this piece more Futurist than a true example of their avant-garde art movement. 

2. Duchamp’s brothers tried to censor the piece. 

The French artist had hoped to debut the painting in the Salon des Indépendants’s spring exhibition of Cubist works. However, the tantalizing title Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 was roundly rejected by the hanging committee, which included Duchamp’s brothers Jacques Villon and Raymond Duchamp-Villon. The pair visited the painter in his Neuilly-sur-Seine studio, where they entreated him to either withdraw the work, or change/paint over its title. The Salon committee agreed with Duchamp’s brothers, insisting, “A nude never descends the stairs—a nude reclines.” 

3. Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 sparked a family rift. 

Despite his brothers’s reservations, Marcel Duchamp flat out refused to change his piece. He later recounted, “I said nothing to my brothers. But I went immediately to the show and took my painting home in a taxi. It was really a turning point in my life, I can assure you. I saw that I would not be very much interested in groups after that.” 

Nonetheless, the Salon d’Or (a group of Cubist artists which included Duchamp’s brothers) accepted the unchanged Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 for its fall exhibition. But the Duchamp brothers’ bond was forever fractured. 

4. Its original title can be spotted on the canvas. 

In the lower left hand corner, you’ll find “NU DESCENDANT UN ESCALIER,” painted in all caps. The name Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 came later.

5. Timelapse photography was an inspiration. 

Photographers were studying the motion of man and beast using this photographic technique, and art historians draw a direct connection between Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 and the photo series Woman Walking Downstairs, which can be found in Eadweard Muybridge’s 1887 book Animal Locomotion. 

6. The painting earned scathing reviews at its American premiere.

In 1913, a massive exhibit of avant-garde pieces, the International Exhibition of Modern Art (known today as The Armory Show), was held at the National Guard 69th Regiment Armory in New York. The show included Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 in its stateside debut, and critics and crowds accustomed to more realistic and naturalistic forms were quick to mock it as a symbol of all that was ridiculous about modern European art.

The New York Times wryly re-named it “Explosion in a Shingle Factory.” A cartoonist famously parodied it with “The Rude Descending the Staircase (Rush Hour at the Subway).” American Art News even made a contest out of “the conundrum of the season,” promising a $10 prize to whoever could find the nude in Duchamp’s unusual work. 

7. Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 defied the tradition of nude studies. 

Duchamp’s brothers weren’t the only ones riled by the artist’s take on the nude tradition. Looking back on the Armory Show’s impact on its 100th anniversary, curator Marilyn Kushner explained, “If you saw a female nude, in art, in sculpture or painting, it was very classical. And it was the idea of this perfect, classical beauty.” To see a nude woman fractured and in motion in such a way was beyond jarring to the 1913 crowds who flocked to gawk at the exhibition. 

8. Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 stole the spotlight from Cézanne’s and Gauguin’s works. 

Artist Walt Kuhn had predicted the Armory Show would make waves by challenging Americans’s perception of art with the groundbreakers of the European scene. But no one predicted that out of 1400 pieces on display, Duchamp’s would be the most talked about. The scandal over Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 helped attract 87,000 visitors to the show. 

9. Teddy Roosevelt was not a fan. 

For the March 29, 1913 issue of Outlook, the former president wrote a piece about the Armory Show called “A Layman’s View of an Art Exhibition.” In it, he described Cubists as the “lunatic fringe” of the latest art movements, and mocked Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2. while misidentifying it: 

“Take the picture which for some reason is called ‘A naked man going down stairs.’ There is in my bathroom a really good Navajo rug which, on any proper interpretation of the Cubist theory, is a far more satisfactory and decorative picture. Now if, for some inscrutable reason, it suited somebody to call this rug a picture of, say, ‘A well-dressed man going up a ladder,’ the name would fit the facts just about as well as in the case of the Cubist picture of the ‘Naked man going down stairs.’ From the standpoint of terminology, each name would have whatever merit inheres in a rather cheap straining after effect; and from the standpoint of decorative value, of sincerity, and of artistic merit, the Navajo rug is infinitely ahead of the picture.” 

10. The uproar thrilled Duchamp. 

Far from deterred by the negative press, Duchamp was delighted by the American response to his work. It inspired him to move to New York soon after the show. Fifty years after the painting’s American debut, Duchamp looked back on the Armory Show, wistfully saying, “There’s a public to receive [Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2] today that did not exist then. Cubism was sort of forced upon the public to reject it … Instead, today, any new movement is almost accepted before it started. See, there’s no more element of shock anymore.”

11. Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 didn’t make Duchamp famous. 

While Americans didn’t know what to make of the mind-bending image paired with a provocative title, they weren’t paying much attention to the man who made it. Or, as Duchamp put in an interview later in life, “The painting was known, but I wasn’t.” 

His anonymity was hammered home years later when Duchamp visited the Cleveland Museum of Art to see Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 on display. The proud painter was stunned to find its caption card claimed he had died three years before. 

12. Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 sold for a shockingly low price.  

Records show the piece was acquired for $324, of which Duchamp received $240. Today this price would translate to about $7800, with the artist’s cut coming in at $5777. But it was still a steal for San Francisco dealer Frederic C. Torrey, whose thirst to own the talk of the art world drove him to buy the Armory Show’s most controversial work. 

Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 was prominently displayed in Torrey’s Berkeley, California home for six years, at which point he wrote to art critic Walter Pach asking, “Counting the present high price of gasoline do you think that any one would pay a thousand dollars for the Nu Descendant?” He found a willing buyer in American art collector and Duchamp friend Walter Conrad Arensberg (but made sure to have a full-sized photographic copy made for himself first).

13. The polarizing piece earned prestige through public display. 

In 1950, Louise and Walter Arensberg bequeathed their art collection to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Among the pieces were several works by Duchamp, including Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, The, Fania (Profile), and With Hidden Noise. Since then, the painting has gained esteem for its genre-blending and a place in history for the passionate reactions it has provoked. 

14. It inspired many other nudes-on-staircase works. 

Homages to Duchamp’s pioneering piece include Gerard Richter’s Ema (Nude on a Staircase), Joan Miró’s Naked Woman Climbing a Staircase, Chuck Jones’s Nude Duck Descending A Staircase, and even a Calvin and Hobbes strip where the last panel has the rebellious young hero lamenting, “Nobody understands art.” 

15. Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 was the first of many times Duchamp‘s work caused a controversy. 

The Armory Show hubbub fueled Duchamp’s rebellion against established art standards. Within a few years, he embraced Dadaism and began presenting his “readymades,” found objects like a bicycle wheel, a bottle rack, and a urinal. The last of these he exhibited as “Fountain,” causing another outrage in 1917. Again, history was kinder to Duchamp than his peers had been. In 2004, that readymade was dubbed the “most influential modern art work of all time” by a poll of 500 art experts.

Manhattan is getting its very own staircase to nowhere. Innovative British designer Thomas Heatherwick, known for his design for the 2012 London Olympic torch as well as for the city’s controversial plant-laden Garden Bridge, recently announced plans to build a monstrous staircase installation. The piece will be located at Hudson Yards, an extensive redevelopment project currently being built over a working rail yard within spitting distance of the Hudson River. The 16-story staircase sculpture, called Vessel, will cost around $150 million, The Telegraph reports.

The massive climbable sculpture will be the centerpiece of the Hudson Yards development. There will be 154 interconnected staircases with 2400 steps in total, allowing the public to climb a mile’s worth of stairs in one place. Shaped like a giant latticed vase, it will be 150 feet tall and get wider as you climb, stretching 150 feet across at its highest point.

The painted steel and concrete pieces that make up the staircase maze are currently being fabricated in Italy, and will be shipped to New York and put together sometime next year. It’s scheduled to open to the public in 2018.

In its design, Heatherwick Studio says it hopes to create “a landmark every inch of which could be climbed and explored. Vessel will lift the public up, offering new ways to look at New York, Hudson Yards and each other.” At the very least, it’ll be a really great public gym.

[h/t The Telegraph]

All images by Forbes Massie courtesy Heatherwick Studios

With over two billion copies of her books in print, British novelist Agatha Christie (1890-1976) has kept countless readers up into the early morning hours. Occasionally, the mystery surrounding her personal life—including a high-profile disappearance in the 1920s—has rivaled the best of her fiction. On what would have been her 126th birthday, let’s take a look at some of the verifiable details of the famed crime writer’s life and times.

1. HER MOTHER DIDN’T WANT HER TO LEARN TO READ.

Before becoming a bestselling novelist, Christie was in real danger of growing up an illiterate. Her mother was said to be against her daughter learning how to read until age eight (Christie taught herself), insisting on home schooling her and refusing to let her pursue any formal education until the age of 15, when her family dispatched her to a Paris finishing school.

2. HER FIRST NOVEL WAS WRITTEN ON A DARE.

After an adolescence spent reading books and writing stories, Christie’s sister, Madge, dared her sibling to attack a novel-length project. Christie accepted the challenge and penned The Mysterious Affair at Styles, a mystery featuring a soldier on sick leave who finds himself embroiled in a poisoning at a friend’s estate. The novel, which featured Hercule Poirot, was rejected by six publishers before being printed in 1920.

3. HERCULE POIROT WAS BASED ON A REAL PERSON.

The dapper Poirot, a mustachioed detective who took a gentleman’s approach to crime-solving, might be Christie’s best-known creation. Christie was said to have been inspired when she caught sight of a Belgian man deboarding a bus in the early 1910s. He was reportedly a bit odd-looking, with a curious facial hair style and a quizzical expression. His fictional counterpart’s debut in The Mysterious Affair at Styles would be the first of more than 40 appearances.

4. SHE ONCE DISAPPEARED FOR 10 DAYS.

In 1926, Christie—who was already garnering a large and loyal fan base—left her home in London without a trace. It could’ve been the beginning of one of her sordid stories, particularly since her husband, Archie, had recently disclosed he had fallen in love with another woman and wanted a divorce. A police manhunt ensued, although it was unnecessary: Christie had simply driven out of town to a spa, possibly to get her mind off her tumultuous home life. The author made no mention of it in her later autobiography; some speculated it was a publicity stunt, while others believed the family’s claim that she had experienced some kind of amnesic event.

5. SHE WASN’T BIG ON VIOLENCE.

While a murder is typically needed to set a murder mystery in motion, Christie’s preferred methodology for slaying her characters was poison: She had worked in a dispensary during war time and had an intimate knowledge of pharmaceuticals. Rarely did her protagonists carry a gun; her two most famous detectives, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, were virtual pacifists.

6. SHE HAD AN ALIAS.

Not all of Christie’s work had a mortality rate. Beginning in 1930 and continuing through 1956, she wrote six romance novels under the pen name Mary Westmacott. The pseudonym was a construct of her middle name, Mary, with Westmacott being the surname of her relatives.

7. SHE LOVED SURFING.

The image of Christie as a matronly author of mystery is the one most easily recognized by readers, but there was a time when Christie could be found catching waves. Along with her husband, Archie, Christie went on a traveling spree in 1922, starting in South Africa and winding up in Honolulu. At each step, the couple got progressively more capable riding surfboards; some historians believe they may have even been the first British surfers to learn how to ride standing up.

8. SHE DIDN’T LIKE TAKING AN AUTHOR’S PHOTO.

Although not explicitly camera-shy—Christie took frequent photos while traveling—she appeared to dislike having her photo appear on the dust jackets of her novels and once insisted they be issued without a likeness attached. It’s likely Christie preferred not to be recognized in public.

9. SHE TOOK AN OATH OF DETECTIVE WRITING.

Founded in 1928 by writer Anthony Berkeley, the London Detection Club, or Famous Detection Club, was a social assembly of the notable crime writers in England. Members “swore” (tongue mostly in cheek) to never keep vital clues from their readers and to never use entirely fictional poisons as a plot crutch. Christie was a member in good standing, and took on the role of honorary president in 1956 on one condition: She never wanted to give any speeches.

10. SHE TRIED HER BEST TO TAKE UP SMOKING.

While it would shortly gain a reputation for killing its devotees, smoking was once so revered that it seemed unusual not to take a puff. Shortly after the end of the first world war, Christie was quoted as saying she was disappointed she couldn’t seem to adopt the habit even though she had been trying.

11. SHE WROTE A PLAY THAT MAY NEVER STOP RUNNING.

The curtain was first raised on Mousetrap in London’s West End in 1952. More than 60 years later, it’s still being performed regularly and passed the 25,000 show mark in 2012. The play—about a group of people trapped in a snowbound cabin with a murderer among them—was originally a radio story, Three Blind Mice, that was written at the behest of Queen Mary in 1947. 

12. SHE LOVED ARCHAEOLOGY. 

After divorcing alleged cad Archie, Christie married archaeologist Max Mallowan in 1930 and joined him for regular expeditions to Syria and Iraq. In 2015, HarperCollins published Come, Tell Me How You Live, the author’s long-forgotten 1946 memoir of her experiences traveling. Although she assisted her husband on digs, she never stopped working: Their preferred method of transport was frequently the Orient Express, a fact that likely inspired her Murder on the Orient Express. 

13. AT LEAST ONE “VICTIM” WAS INSPIRED BY A REAL-LIFE NUISANCE.

When Mallowan married Christie, he was assistant to renowned archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley. This fact upset Woolley’s wife, who refused to let Christie stay in a Mesopotamia digging camp; Mallowan was forced to take a train into Baghdad every night to see her. Christie soon wrote Murder in Mesopotamia: The victim was the wife of an archaeology field director who was bludgeoned with an antique mace. Christie dedicated the book to the Woolleys, who never joined Mallowan on an expedition again.

14. YOU CAN RENT HER OLD HOME.

If you feel like inhabiting the same real estate as Christie is a bucket-list travel opportunity, her former home in Devonshire, England is available for rent. The centuries-old home was Christie’s summer getaway in the 1950s; portions of it are rented out to individuals or groups for $500 a night. Some furniture and a piano that once belonged to the author remain in residence. 

15. HERCULE POIROT GOT A NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARY WHEN HE “DIED.”

Like Arthur Conan Doyle before her, Christie eventually grew tired of her trademark character and set about having Hercule Poirot perish in the 1975 novel Curtain. The reaction to his demise was so fierce that The New York Times published a front-page “obituary” for the character on August 6. Christie died the following year.

The next time you’re bouncing around a Manhattan nightclub and feeling no pain, you might want to stop and consider that as far as the city is concerned, dancing is a privilege and not a right.

In a scenario straight out of Footloose, there’s a tricky law on the books that requires any business serving food or drinks to acquire what’s known as a Cabaret License in order to allow customers to dance. The mandate stems from a 1926 policy introduced by then-mayor Jimmy Walker to help curb what some residents believed to be “altogether too much running wild” in the Jazz Age clubs of the era (it’s also possible that the law was meant to prevent interracial coupling). City officials have regularly enforced the law in the proceeding century, with some clubs even cutting off music—or switching to country—when inspectors arrive unannounced.

Several proprietors have attempted to challenge the law over the years, calling it archaic. In 2014, bar owner and attorney Andrew Muchmore filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court claiming that the restriction was outdated and obtaining the license was a laborious process. To approve an application, the city’s Department of Consumer affairs has to verify a venue has security cameras; owners have to attend regular board conferences. The cost of the license can range from $300 to $1000, depending on the area’s capacity and, for some unfathomable reason, whether it’s an even or odd year.

Muchmore’s suit is still ongoing in federal court. Some feel it will be an uphill battle due to allegations the city uses the law as a tool to help shut down problematic night spots. For now, Muchmore says his tavern avoids booking musical acts that “would tend to elicit dancing.”