Making Your Blood Boil

How well do you cope with being under pressure? Does it make your blood boil? Do you keep calm like a Soviet astronaut pulling a cool move out of The Martian?

 

From Polynesian pearl diving taravana and the discovery of Boyle’s Law, Horrific History co-hosts Eric Slyter and Curtis Bender uncork the most explosive and gory details of decompression sickness in history. To help you acclimate to the increased squeam-atmospheres of pressure, they begin with animal experimentation, caisson disease, Nazi Germany experiments involving (live?) human brain dissection and […]

How could we have missed the radioactive boar phenomenon in our episode For a Healthy Glow, about radiation poisoning? Better late than never! Of course, given the nature of the subject matter, we’ll be reporting on Fukushima for a long time to come. Remember, #NoSqueamAllowed!

Blog post photo credit (from article): Toru Hanai/Reuters

Slideshow photo credit: Cloudtail the Snow Leopard Wild boar via photopin (license)

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Black Broth & Broken Vines

What would you suffer or risk to become a full member of your community? Would you jump from extreme heights with only a vine to catch you? Would you allow your body to be surgically and permanently changed without the benefits of modern medicine like anesthesia? Would you kill?

 

Co-hosts Eric Slyter and Curtis Bender discuss real historical rites of passage in this Horrific History episode, covering documented examples from Spartans to more modern accounts of land diving from Papua New Guinea. From extreme heights (and horrible deaths), to murder and ending with genital mutilation we’re covering some of the rituals you may be glad you don’t have to do for your life milestones, right down to the penile subincision. As always: No squeam allowed! […]