When Everett Knowles hitched a ride on a Boston train, he expected to make it home in a few minutes. But the result was the final leg of a medical history journey more than 30,000 years in the making when Eddy Knowles’ doctors turned tragedy into a medical miracle.

The path from accident to surgery required an almost impossible set of conditions to line up perfectly, and then it actually had to work. On the day of the accident, the wild scramble to harness expertise and to weigh calculated risks make for an engaging story of science and human ingenuity — but the truth is that the same exact process of discovery and daring is what forged the centuries of scientific knowledge that Eddy’s doctors used to save his arm.

Scientific triumphs and medical miracles happen every day. They just take thousands of generations to be born.

#medical #history #science #popularscience

When a 40-year old Ohio man named John fell in the bathroom and hit his head on the tub, no one expected it to change how the entire world approached space exploration. But John Glenn wasn’t just a business traveler in a hotel room, and the medical mystery that followed changed NASA and the space program of the USSR.

Was John Glenn’s vertigo the result of his orbit of the Earth during his Mercury Atlas 6 mission? Was it all just an accident, or did it come from his intense World War II and Korean War pilot service? And could the balance, dizziness, and nausea be prevented for future astronauts?

The resulting research into what went wrong with John Glenn, Alan Shepard, and other astronauts and cosmonauts who experienced debilitating illnesses after spaceflight pioneered the spaceflight to the Moon and beyond — and it all started when a man slipped on a rug.

#space #spaceexploration #nasa #science

The 80s may have been the golden age for both toys and kids’ TV. He Man, Thundercats, GI Joe… it was the best time in history for action and action figures. Mattel had a grand idea to combine the two into one experience: Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future would not only present a futuristic drama, but also allow the kids watching the show to participate in real-time with interactive toys.

At least… that was the idea.

The reality of Captain Power was a disastrous mismatch of concepts for the Captain Power toys and the show itself. Was the show made for kids or adults? Yes! Was it CGI or live action? Yes! Were the toys awesome, interfacing seamlessly with a television show that would be the next big thing for giant toy-maker Mattel?

No — a resounding no.

Our Captain Power documentary enters the worlds of retro gaming, 80’s toys, and television lore to find out what went so wrong… and what ended up going very, very right.

Special thanks to Captain Disillusion, German Banda, Tom Lieber and Peter Paltridge.

#RetroGaming #80s #Science #technology