Futility Closet

In 1898, two lions descended on a company of railway workers in British East Africa. For nine months they terrorized the camp, carrying off a new victim every few days, as engineer John Patterson struggled to stop them. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll track the "man-eaters of Tsavo" and learn what modern science has discovered about their motivations. We'll also consider more uses for two cars and puzzle over some prolific penguins. Intro: MIT drops a piano off a building every year. French architect Étienne-Louis Boullée proposed honoring Isaac Newton with a sarcophagus inside a 500-foot globe. Sources for our feature on the Tsavo man-eaters: John Henry Patterson, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo, 1907. J.H. Patterson, "The Man-Eaters of Tsavo: The Lions That Stopped a Railway," Wide World Magazine 10:55 (October 1902), 3-12; 10:56 (November 1902), 112-118. J.H. Patterson, "The Man-Eating Lions of Tsavo," Field Museum of Natural History, 1926. Philip Caputo, Ghosts of Tsavo, 2002. Bruce