Two Aussie psychologists studied the 66-year-old testimony of 70 German sailors rescued after their boat sank. The ship which sank it, the HMAS Sydney, also sank ... taking 645 sailors with it.
After analyzing the stories the shrinks - knowledgeable in the vagaries of storytelling - found that the Germans weren't lying. They crowdsourced the stories, sat down together with a map of the Indian Ocean and ...
posted by Twang on Oct 1, 2011 - 21 comments

Lovely and haunting photographs of 25 Shipwrecks from around the world. [more inside]
posted by benzo8 on Apr 20, 2011 - 25 comments

In 2000, microbial ecologist Roy Cullimore and Charles Pellegrino (author of Ghosts of the Titanic) discovered that the Titanic was being eaten by an extremeophile super-organism, transforming the steel into huge pillars of rust. [Previously, regarding the Titanic.] [more inside]
posted by mephron on Apr 18, 2011 - 17 comments

Artificial Owl is a blog about about decommissioned/abandoned modern structures, from beautiful shipwrecks to abandoned factories that look like they're straight out of a Miyazaki movie. Each post even has the Google Maps location of the site, so you can plan your journey to your favorite site of modern decay.
posted by TheRoach on May 16, 2009 - 24 comments

Shipwrecks of Lake Superior- Some are famous, others are obscure but amazing.
posted by COBRA! on Oct 28, 2003 - 13 comments

In 1900 a sponge diver called Elias Stadiatos discovered the wreck of an ancient merchant ship off the tiny island of Antikythera near Crete. The corbita, dating from the first century B.C., was heavily laden with treasure of all kinds, original bronze life-size statues, marble reproductions of older works, jewelry, wine, fine furniture and one immensely complicated scientific instrument. The Antikythera mechanism was originally housed in a wooden box about the size of a shoebox with dials on the outside and a complex clockwork assembly of gears inscribed and configured to produce solar and lunar positions in synchronization with the calendar year. By rotating a handle on its side, its owner could read on its front and back dials the progressions of the lunar and synodic months over four-year cycles. The device has been estimated to be accurate to 1 part in 40,000. (more inside...)
posted by lagado on Sep 24, 2002 - 15 comments

Rodents will swim for fresh tuna? "Wrecked Taiwanese tuna vessel. Still had tons of tuna on board. Thousands of rats had taken over ship with relatively unlimited food supply." The boat is in open water. Maybe the rats sent out a reconnaisance team first? Do they really swim that well or could it be the tide goes down and they run for it? If they do swim that well, how did they get on to the boat?
posted by mmarcos on Sep 25, 2001 - 16 comments