1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 07/01/2026Atmospheric Diving Suit allows us to use human dexterity 1000' below the surface. 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 06/01/2026An article from "Everyday Science & Mechanics" (June, 1933) explores why vacuum dirigibles are impossible with then (and current) material technology. 020
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 22/09/2025John Schoenherr's art for Space Viking. Where else would a self-respecting viking go, but the final frontier? 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 17/09/2025We don't have to choose between the fantastical and the technological. Why not both? Art by Finnian MacManus. 020
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 16/09/2025Ozempic (semaglutide), mounjaro (tirzepatide), retatrutide etc. were derived from molecules isolated in Gila monster venom by an "eccentric biochemist," Jean-Pierre Raufman. He asked the insane question others didn't, "can venom help humans?" 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 26/08/2025There's been a cognitive aging-related breakthrough, "an increase in [..] iron-associated protein ferritin light chain 1 (FTL1) [..] in the hippocampus of aged mice, [..correlate] with cognitive decline." "Targeting neuronal FTL1 in [..] aged mice improves [..] cognitive impairments" 010
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 25/08/2025In 1979, children's books publisher, Usborne Publishing, worked with an aerospace engineer, Kenneth Gatland, and artist, David Jefferis, to create an illustrated guide to the future. Here is their page on Ristos – computers on our wrist. Imagine that. 020
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 20/08/2025Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Rembrandt van Rijn. 1633. Rembrandt's only seascape was stolen from a Boston museum in 1990. Its location is currently unknown. 001
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 14/08/2025Early Space Shuttle concepts were uncannily similar to Starship. Example, #51,223 A shuttle for Mars departing Earth. Art by Renato Moncini. 020
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 06/08/2025Early Space Shuttle concepts were uncannily close to SpaceX's Starship - part: 1,241,022 In this Grumman Shuttle proposal, the Shuttle is designed around a ‘lifting body’ design, similar to Starship, with the idea (most likely) being a similar re-entry profile. 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 24/07/2025Just your regularly scheduled reminder that in the 1950s, the US designed & planned to mass manufacture giant Mach 3 airplanes. 2.4k mi (3.9k km) in 90 min. Or, NYC to LA in 90 min. 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 23/07/2025Top of the morning to you! Mayhaps we can create a better world today? 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 23/07/2025we're in the business of making alchemists obsolete. eat it Newton. Congrats on the breakthrough Marathon Fusion, Kyle Schiller & Adam Rutkowski 010
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 15/07/2025At 1517, we're proud supporters of the new Vat-to-Agar movement. via 1517 Medici grantee @x - divyan_b ps - if you're a wily teen between 18 & 14 who'd like to join the cause; apply to 2E! Deadline is August 3rd, 2025! 1517.smapply.us/prog/2e2025/ 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 07/07/2025"At the controls of an aircraft of the future," which would be a rocket (of course). Popular Mechanics, 1932. 010
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 03/07/2025Casting bronze at home, May 1932. Don't forget the asbestos! 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 30/06/2025The Kowloon Walled City used to be an actual walled city - a fortress. Historical accidents turned it into a world of its own with 700+ factories / industrial premises and hundreds of unlicensed schools, medical clinics, doctors and dentists. 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 24/06/2025Table of fortifications from Ephraim Chamber's 1728 Cyclopædia. Or, "An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences; containing the Definitions of the Terms, and Accounts of the Things signify'd thereby, in the several Arts, both Liberal and Mechanical, and the several Sciences, Human and Divine [..]" 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 23/06/2025Early Space Shuttle concepts were uncannily similar to SpaceX's Starship. This proposal from the 1971 was proposed by Grumman Aerospace & Boeing for NASA's "Alternate Space Shuttle Concept[s]" study. It had a modified Saturn V first stage w/ a shuttle-like vehicle on top. 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 20/06/2025How we used to live. Cutaways of a roundhouse from the Bronze Age. "[Their] layout [..mirrored modern homes with space] for cooking, sleeping, and textile production. [Residents ate] porridge, cereals, honey, and stews made with beef, mutton, and fish" 010
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 20/06/2025The artist in his room at the Villa Medici, Léon Cogniet. 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 17/06/2025What are you launching off the plane of the ecliptic today? 010
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 12/06/2025If you're focused on what matters, then who cares if you're the leading strand or an Okazaki fragment. In life, as in molecular biology, results matter more. 010
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 12/06/2025Reconstructed Iron age Hillfort from ~500BC. "several important finds [were found in the fort like] a [Bronze Age] cup-and-ring marked rock [&] Pictish slab [showing] an incised bull." Reconstruction by Bob Marshall commissioned by Fife Coast & Countryside Trust, 2015. 011
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 12/06/2025The 4-second mile; infographic, 1964. Describing Donald Campbells' project to break the sound barrier on land. Breaking speed records was a Campbell family tradition. Donald's father, Malcolm Campbell built 3 cars & 2 boats to break records. Donald, 1 car & 2 boats. 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 11/06/2025'Build a house' by Gorg. 2017. According to the artist, "What's so hard about building a house? We'll just draw one and live in it!" 020
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 11/06/2025Vintage ads used to be so colorful! Zenith watches was the first American-style Swiss mass-scale watch manufacturer. 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 11/06/2025'Enceladus is inhabited' by Gorg, 2024. via the artist, "Your cottage on your own little island in the clear waters of the endless ocean of the terraformed Enceladus." 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 11/06/2025Vasily Polenov's 'An Olive Tree in the Garden of Gethsemane.' Painted, 1882. Called the “Knight of Beauty,” Polenov believed, “art should promote happiness and joy.” 001
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 10/06/2025Until the 1940s, we didn't know that magnetic poles move. The discovery was an outgrowth of the American exploration of the arctic (Project Polaris). Compass readings across 100s of flights were used to find the magnetic north pole. Plotting our wandering magnetic pole via aircraft. Pop Mech 1945 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 10/06/2025You can brick your visual system. Celeste McCollough noticed in 1962 that when exposed to gratings of certain colors, people's brains would transpose the colors. The effect persisted for over 2 mo. 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 06/06/2025A study of fish genetics. Before we could read genomes, we used model organisms to render the invisible visible. Mendel had his peas. Erich von Tschermak's wheat-rye & oats, Hugo de Vries' evening primroses and Carl Correns' four o'clock flower. 020
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 06/06/2025Science. The best drug ever. Are you taking a hit of science today? 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 05/06/2025The first raster image ever made — a "portrait of Jacquard was woven in silk on a Jacquard loom and required 24,000 punched cards to create (1839)." 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 04/06/2025"World's greatest anthropologist predicts [that humans of the future will have] no hair! No teeth!! Four toes!!! Bulgy foreheads!!!! [And a] Baby Jaw!!" Clearly, this man was a visionary. 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 04/06/2025Edward Jenner's first inoculation. A lithograph by Gaston Mélingue. Ca. 1894. On May 17th, 1796, Jenner inoculated the 8-years-old James Phipps against smallpox. "Phipps [became] immune [..to] smallpox [..as did several other children..] including [Jenner's] 11-month-old son." 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 03/06/2025Scientists weren't always seen as cold, rational disinterested outsiders. Once, scientists - like Louis Pasteur - were seen as saints. In 1885, he gave boy badly mauled by a rabid dog his new vaccine at "personal risk [as] he was not a licensed physician" The boy survived. He was fêted as a saint. 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 02/06/2025Jacques-Yves Cousteau dreamed of the day humanity lived under the sea. In the early-60s, Cousteau helped design and launch Precontinent I (Conshelf One) & Precontinent II to make an underwater village. These are some of the photos from that experiment. 000
1517 Fund @1517.bsky.social · 29/05/2025An oblique view of Southern California's coastline. USGS, 1970. 000