The library

100 rabbit holes in 18 areas. New ones every week.

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New in the library

New
Science & SpaceThe deepest hole on EarthIn 1970 Soviet scientists started drilling near the Norwegian border to see how deep they could go. Nineteen years later they were more than 12 kilometres down. They found water where there shouldn’t be any, fossils of tiny plankton, and rock too hot to continue.2 stages · 9 min
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PsychologyUniverse 25, the mouse utopia1968. A scientist builds a paradise for mice: unlimited food and water, no predators, no disease. The colony grows fast, then strange things happen. Mothers abandon their young, some males stop doing anything but groom themselves. Within a few years the colony dies out.3 stages · 28 min
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ArtThe day the Mona Lisa disappearedParis, August 1911. On a Monday when the Louvre is closed, a former museum worker walks out with the Mona Lisa hidden under his smock. For more than two years nobody knows where it is. Crowds queue to stare at the empty wall.2 stages · 17 min
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Nature & AnimalsThe alien intelligence of the octopusAn octopus can open jars, escape from tanks and recognise individual people. Most of its neurons sit not in its head but in its eight arms. It evolved intelligence on a completely different branch of life from ours, which makes it the closest thing to meeting an alien mind.2 stages · 19 min
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War & SpiesThe man who never was1943. British intelligence dresses a dead man as a Royal Marines officer, chains a briefcase of fake secret letters to him and lets the sea carry him onto a Spanish beach. The letters say the Allies will not invade Sicily. Hitler believes them.3 stages · 25 min
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MoviesThe scream you’ve heard a hundred timesA man is dragged under water by an alligator in a 1951 western and lets out a short, strange scream. The recording goes into a studio sound library. Decades later it turns up in Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Toy Story and hundreds of other films. Once you hear it, you can’t stop hearing it.3 stages · 37 min
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PhilosophyAre we living in a simulation?In 2003 the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom published a short argument: if civilisations can run detailed simulations of their ancestors, and some want to, simulated minds would vastly outnumber real ones. So which are you more likely to be?3 stages · 47 min
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HistoryThe summer Strasbourg couldn’t stop dancingJuly 1518. A woman steps into a street in Strasbourg and starts to dance. She doesn’t stop for days. Within weeks dozens of people are dancing with her, and the city council’s answer is to hire musicians and build a stage.4 stages · 31 min
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True CrimeD. B. Cooper: the man who jumpedNovember 1971. A man in a suit hijacks a passenger jet with a briefcase he says is a bomb, collects $200,000 and four parachutes, and jumps out over the forests of Washington State at night. He was never seen again.4 stages · 1 h 10 min
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PeopleThe man who sold the Eiffel TowerParis, 1925. A well-dressed “government official” invites five scrap dealers to bid on the Eiffel Tower, which is about to be torn down. One of them pays. Then the official vanishes, and comes back to try it again.3 stages · 50 min

Crime & mystery

People & minds

Ideas & beliefs

World & science

Culture & money