The Curious Engineer

All blogs / Science

Everything Is Amazing

everythingisamazing.substack.com

A newsletter about ideas, wonder and hope - and a romp through the modern sciences in search of a good "wow!" you can feel down to your boots. Click to read Everything Is Amazing, by Mike Sowden, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

ScienceEssays / personal

’21’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
289 from 25 Jan 2021 to 29 Oct 2026
Posting
weekly (50 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://everythingisamazing.substack.com/feed

2026 44

  1. This Is Why You Write It Down
  2. Wait - There Are Mountains At The Centre Of The Earth?
  3. One Thousand, Somehow: Some Clueless But Enthusiastic Creative Advice
  4. “Just warming you up, that's all.”
  5. Let's Have A Great Conversation About Difficult Conversations
  6. Magnalia 04: If You Like It Then Go Stick Some Googly Eyes On It.
  7. How To Own An Island
  8. The New Powers Of Ten: 01 - Into The Grand Hierarchy
  9. A Conversation with Mike Sowden, Science Storyteller
  10. Trust Yourself And Sit On It
  11. Which is better: Imperial or Metric?
  12. The Horror Of Mr South's Brown Paper Fetish
  13. "We begin with a scene 1 meter wide..."
  14. Magnalia 03: Oh Hell, There's Something In The Fog
  15. The Horrifying Science Of Beaming You Up
  16. Why It's Fun To Actually *Do* Something
  17. Hey, Where's Our Next "Expanse"?
  18. Magnalia 02: Fun With The Sun
  19. Beyond Our Peripheral Vision: Part 1
  20. Magnalia 01: Does The Southern Ocean Have A Pulse?
  21. This Is Your Body If It Overheats.
  22. Nerdlings LIVE! A fun chat with Mike Sowden, Jodi Ettenberg, and Steve Kamb
  23. None Of This Is Normal, And That's Better News Than You Might Think
  24. Shields Up, Stupid.
  25. Rain, Flog Me Harder
  26. 12 Reasons You Have An Amazing Body
  27. Not So Fast, New York
  28. Wait, What's That Cold Blob Doing?
  29. Why Everything Is Such A Hoot Right Now.
  30. That Link To Meet The Idiot Writing This Newsletter
  31. Yet Again, Here's How To Meet The Idiot Writing This Newsletter
  32. Our Solar System Is Way Too Big
  33. Why Don't You Go Make Like A Tree
  34. All Hail The Consumers of Time and Occupiers of Space
  35. The Science Of Oh Hello There
  36. Open Thread: What Would You Teach Everyone?
  37. Something To Pass On
  38. The 350 Million Year Old Shriek
  39. How Not To Get Away From It All
  40. Drinking Ourselves Under the Table
  41. The Seas Under Our Oceans
  42. We're Going Back To The Moon And It's Kind Of Weird That Nobody Is Freaking Out?
  43. One Thing Becomes A Million Things
  44. January Supporters Update: A Book, A Podcast, An Anniversary Request

2025 43

  1. There's Still Time Enough
  2. Where We're Going, We Still Need Idiots
  3. Fix Your Damn Insomnia With This Boring, Lousy, No-Good Hack
  4. Is The World Really Getting Less Colourful?
  5. Wet Legs At 5AM
  6. Why You Can't Look Down The Earth's Biggest Waterfall
  7. 48 Hours to Total Meltdown: This is Your Body on No Sleep
  8. Hey, What Are All These Books Doing To Us?
  9. Season 7 Is Done! What's Next? [Part Two]
  10. Season 7 Is Done! What's Next? [Part One]
  11. Let's All Remember When We Saved The World
  12. These Four Things Really Are Amazing
  13. What Everyday Wonders Do We Miss?
  14. Why Birds Don't Go *BANG*
  15. The News Is Okay, Actually
  16. "I Never Thought Of It That Way": Let's Have A Great Conversation About Difficult Conversations
  17. 14 Ways You're Not An AI
  18. The Sketchplanations Podcast: On Megafloods And Wonder In Science
  19. *TODAY*: A New Thing, According to Me
  20. In Search Of The Great Tree Of Fire
  21. Flight Of The Ultimate Navigator
  22. A Man Walks Into A Bar
  23. Clean Water For Everyone?
  24. That Time New York Fell For A Moon-Goat
  25. Breakfast Under The Bridge
  26. What's Your Latest Discovery?
  27. The Future Is Now #1: Floods, Pings & Regrowing Things
  28. How To Survive The Graveyard Of Ships
  29. An Idiot's Guide To Not Being Trolled
  30. Substack Live: Brendan and Mike Talk Stories
  31. For Nine Days, The Earth Rang Like A Bell
  32. Now We Are 30,000: More Clueless But Well-Meant Advice For Writers, Artists And Fellow Idiots
  33. How To See An Impossible Colour
  34. How To Meet The Idiot Writing This Newsletter
  35. A Beginner's Guide To Slowing Down Time
  36. The Man Who Mistook His Life For A Memory
  37. Let's Agree To Disagree Better
  38. Is There Life In The Clouds?
  39. Open Thread: What are your most helpful ideas for difficult times?
  40. It's Only Ice (Like Nothing You've Ever Seen)
  41. Thanks But I'll Walk, Scotty
  42. The Balloon That Wouldn't Come Down
  43. The Curious About Everything Newsletter #46

2024 50

  1. Twice Brewed, For No Damn Reason
  2. For Christmas I Got A Brand New Phobia
  3. Why Everywhere We Look, There We Are
  4. Hooked On A Feeling
  5. A Course To Make Them Care
  6. How To 'See' The World Like Daredevil
  7. I Promise I Am Not Trying To Distract You Today
  8. Am I doing this right?
  9. Now Hear This
  10. Let's Look Up Together
  11. A Hundred Thousand Words Later
  12. Our Future Without Continents
  13. Nothing Lies Like Your Own Memory
  14. Discussing "On Looking" (Chapters 3 & 4)
  15. The Boys Who Didn't Kill Each Other (and other true stories)
  16. Why, Boredom, Why?
  17. When The Bubbles Go Downwards
  18. Discussing "On Looking" (Chapters 1 & 2)
  19. How To Remember Every Day Of Your Life
  20. Open Thread: What are you feeling hopeful about?
  21. It's Only A Cloud (But Hey, *What* A Cloud)
  22. How Do You Own An Island?
  23. How To Un-Discover An Island
  24. Maybe It's Good We Get This Attached
  25. 5 Wild, Weird Ideas From Science Fiction
  26. It's Week 1 of the Big Amazing Read
  27. “Like Egg White As It Boils”: This Is Your Body Overheating
  28. It's Okay To Not Know
  29. Why Everyone Wants What's Under The North Pole
  30. Click & Read, Read & Click
  31. Why We'll Never Hike Our Planet's Greatest Mountain Range
  32. How To Thoroughly Walk Home
  33. Open Thread: Which book changed your life?
  34. Why Reading Is So Amazing
  35. Let's Have A Big Amazing Read
  36. You're Not As Random As You Think
  37. How To Live With A Worm In Your Ear
  38. Our Nothing-Lands 2: How To Make A Mint
  39. Why The Sun Never Sets Over San Serriffe
  40. Our Nothing-Lands 1: The Long Con Of The Great Indoors
  41. Why Go Imperial In A World Gone Metric?
  42. How To Turn Yourself Into A Lion
  43. This Is Your Body On No Sleep
  44. Embracing Uncertainty
  45. Why It Might Not Sink In Until You've Written It Down
  46. 10 Mostly Useless Tips For Going Viral On Social Media
  47. The Stars, Our Destination?
  48. Why It's Good To Say It's Not Bad
  49. Open Thread: What Are You Choosing To Be Enthusiastic About This Year?
  50. Here's What Happens When You Get Too Cold

2023 45

  1. We Can't Live On Rockall (But For Some Reason We Keep Trying)
  2. It Really Is Different If We're Really There
  3. Five Weird Ways To Enjoy Witching Week
  4. Look. Look. *Look*. [Dreaded Lurgi Edition]
  5. "Now...Where Was I?"
  6. Unruly Interviews: Mike Sowden
  7. A Room With An Impossible View (Redux)
  8. How The Modern World Lost & Found Its Newest Continent
  9. Is Wikipedia Reliable? (2023 Redux)
  10. How To Go For An Increasingly Awful Walk
  11. How I Learned To Read Books Again
  12. How Would We Know If We're Not Alone?
  13. "20,000": COMPLETE IDIOT UPDATE
  14. 20,000, Somehow: Some Clueless But Enthusiastic Creative Advice
  15. A Wave Big Enough To Slow The World
  16. A Call To Enchantment
  17. Maybe You Have To Be There
  18. I Can't Speak So Here Is A Sign Saying "Hi"
  19. How Can I Get My Memories Back?
  20. Season 5 Is Done! What's Next? [Part Two]
  21. Season 5 Is Done! What's Next? [Part One]
  22. Oh, How Our Cities Will Shimmer
  23. The (Mostly) Forgotten Battle For American Independence...in Yorkshire.
  24. Open Thread: What Would You Do With Your Nerdiest Year?
  25. Why It's Great News That The Earth Sucks
  26. The Green That Poisoned Britain
  27. The snack that shows how the world breaks
  28. Why The Sky Smells Great
  29. Science Fiction Helps Us Ask The Hardest Questions
  30. This Is How You Create Stuff And Sell Lots Of Books
  31. The Fun Is Why
  32. Plastic Rocks And Technofossils: Why New Geology Is Getting Weird
  33. Paid Supporters Only: The ICYMI Edition
  34. Making Them Laugh, Making Them Think
  35. Beware The Thousand Invisible Hands
  36. What If We Could Change The Colour Of *Everything*?
  37. Well, They Actually Did It.
  38. The Magic Of Everything Everywhere All At Once
  39. How To See Impossible Colours
  40. The Curious Idea That Ancient People Weren't Dimwits
  41. Open Thread: What do you wish more people were curious about?
  42. Did This Tree Of Fire Break Our World Apart?
  43. Why Pink Has Absolutely *Everything* To Say
  44. Why Space Is Watery (And So Very Far Away)
  45. Walking The Great Mountain Trail Of Deep Time

2022 46

  1. Five Weird Ways To Enjoy Witching Week
  2. How To Invent Your Own Colour
  3. Rare Skies And Turning Tides
  4. To Make A Mountain - 2: The Science Of Feeling It
  5. “Don’t Start A Newsletter” & Other Advice For Newsletter Writers
  6. The Blue Of Distance, Hope And - Mars?
  7. A Future Of Kindness: Redux
  8. Three Ways That Kindness Fixes Everything
  9. Behold The White Cliffs Of Megaflood
  10. Come Read Colours With Me
  11. Antonia Malchik Is Exploring How We Own The Land
  12. Why Classical Greece Looked Like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory
  13. To Make A Mountain - 1: Why Nobody Has The Time
  14. Look. Look. *Look*.
  15. A Hundred Million Ways To See
  16. Welp, That's No Fun. (No Newsletter Today! 😭)
  17. How To Build A Rainstorm
  18. Six Impossible Things For Breakfast
  19. Why We Need More Goats On The Moon
  20. Original Storytelling Course Access
  21. Bananas.
  22. Greek Shelves & Colourful Questions
  23. Greek Shelves & Colourful Questions
  24. Season 4 Is Done! What Now?
  25. The Worst Dam Idea In The World
  26. Welcome! Start Here.
  27. Why Kindness Works
  28. A Hard Pass On Rapture
  29. The Science Of Keeping Going
  30. Brendan Leonard Is Throwing Himself At All The Things
  31. The Mountains At The Bottom Of The World - 2: Atlantis, A Lost City, And...Alien Life?
  32. Yes, You're Doing Research
  33. The Mountains At The Bottom Of The World - 1: Massif Attack
  34. Gulp! The Science Of Breathing Liquid
  35. 50 Stupid Ways To Discover The Unknown
  36. Europe's Lost World (And The Megaflood That Ended It)
  37. Taking Stock For A Hot Minute
  38. Reading Burke, Part 1: Why Read The Science Classics?
  39. Curiosity In The Age Of WTF
  40. In Search Of A Flood Like No Other
  41. From The Ridiculous To The Sublime
  42. Taking The Road Less Februaried
  43. It's A Wrap! Here's What's Next.
  44. The Room With An Impossible View
  45. Now In Conversation...
  46. 4 Stupid Ways To Have A Better 2022

2021 61

  1. Deep Breath, Look Up
  2. The Troubling Science Of What Happens Next
  3. The Best Virtual Lightshow You'll Ever (Not) See
  4. Lola Akinmade Åkerström Is Telling The Right Stories
  5. How To Reconnect: A November Challenge
  6. "Like Tripping Without The Drugs": The Science Of Extreme Staring
  7. Fooling With Certainty: The Impossibly Real Worlds Of MC Escher
  8. The Metaverse Sounds Hauntingly Awful
  9. Why Everywhere We Look, There We Are
  10. What A Weird Way To Write A Book
  11. What Did You Discover This Year?
  12. The Science Of Seeing What Isn't There
  13. A Map Of The Internet, Part 2: Going The Wrong Way
  14. Here's Why You Won't Read This Newsletter
  15. A Map Of The Internet, Part 1: The Lies Of The Land
  16. Forward Into The Upside-Down
  17. Do It Because It's Fun
  18. How To Have An Awesome Life
  19. The Story So Far (Season 2 Recap) - And An Announcement
  20. Four Amazing Ways To Live A Super-Awful Life
  21. The Case For Imperial In A World Gone Metric
  22. Do The Done Things
  23. Why All Our Maps Are The Wrong Way Round
  24. Dunks & Walks, Sleeps & Snacks
  25. The Privilege of Curiosity
  26. The Imaginary Town That Refused To Stay Fake
  27. Jonny Miller Is Questioning Everything
  28. How To Hang Onto A Submarine
  29. How To Un-Discover An Island
  30. Ruins, Maps, Roofs, Antiques, Neighbours
  31. Mind (In) The Gap
  32. Week 2-2: Is Wikipedia Reliable?
  33. Is This The Home Of Curiosity In The Brain?
  34. Week 2-1: Charting Nonsense-Land
  35. The Story So Far (Season 1 Recap)
  36. And Your Week 8+9 Challenges Are...
  37. The Unexamined News Is Not Worth Believing
  38. Why Coffee Smells So Good & Tastes So Bad
  39. And Your Week 6+7 Challenges Are...
  40. Sophie Stephenson Is Teaching Attention
  41. Week 7: Why Does It Taste So Bad When It Smells So *Good*?
  42. When I Grow Up, I Want To Be A Carrot
  43. Week 6: How To Actually Talk For A Change
  44. And Your Week 4+5 Challenges Are...
  45. How To Remember What Really Matters
  46. Week 5: And Your Name Is...?
  47. Intermission: On Reading And 'Woah!'
  48. Candace Rose Rardon Is Exploring Stillness
  49. Week 4: How To Listen Up
  50. And Your Week 3 Challenges Are...
  51. Avoid Reading Clickbait Hogwash With This One Curious Trick
  52. Week 3: Why We Never See Eye To Eye
  53. And Your Week 2 Challenges Are...
  54. Anna Brones Is Living A Curious Life
  55. Week 2: Finding The Shape Of Home
  56. And Your Week 1 Challenges Are...
  57. In Search Of A Prince Of Serendip
  58. Week 1: The Idiot Question Edition
  59. OK, How Does This Thing Work?
  60. Oh, To See, To Truly See
  61. Welcome to Freshers Week!