Man-Made Horrors: December 2025 - The Mummia Edition

‘Tis the season once more! The holidays are fast approaching and we’re all looking forward to passing the longest night of the year to a time of slowly lengthening days! At least on this side of the planet, we hope our southern hemisphere fans aren’t melting yet! Either way, we hope that whatever festive food extravaganza awaits you, you’ll still fit in that pair of jeans you ordered! 

We’re holding a holiday sale from the 1st of December to the 15th, just use the coupon code Holiday_Extravaganza_2025 at checkout or click on the link below! As per usual with the Newsletter the 10% subscriber discount will remain active for the whole month, though both sales don't stack. Have a good old Canadian Sorry for that.

On the tariff situation, we've been able to revise our estimates downwards for those of the American persuasion.

In more lab focused news, we bought ourselves a small propane forge and an anvil. Definitely helps keep you nice and toasty with our Canadian winters, and bonus we get to knock some of the frustration out to boot! As much as we’re all over the place, this does have applications to some of our long term projects, so stick around for some hot trash can action!

From the Cutting Room Floor

I don’t believe we’ve ever shared publicly exactly why we decided to make a mummy… and taste it. Obviously this channel has mostly focused on biotechnology and physics with a smattering of chemistry to make things work, and so this historical recreation may feel like it came out of nowhere. So for your pleasure here is our madness:

We were playing Call of Cthulhu during the holidays, as one does and describing the scene the investigators came across had me trying to describe the stench of a dry desiccated corpse… Well as worldly as yours truly is, most of the mummies and preserved corpses I had ever seen were either behind glass under protective atmospheres or immersed in formaldehyde or some glycerine preservatives. The only desiccated “corpses” I’ve otherwise run into are cured meats like prosciutto, hams and sausages, but these are all spiced and scented to cover the surface decay that may arise. And thankfully, everyone else at the table drew a blank on what a mummified corpse would actually smell like. We’d all smelled some decayed animal like a mouse or rodent that had died in some crevice where it could rot away without some scavenger making a meal out of it. But that’s the putrid smell of rot, it’s sickly sweet and we humans are naturally repulsed by it, yay evolution, but that’s not what a desiccated corpse smells like, right!?

This could have just been some innocuous question left unanswered and satisfied with a wave of the narrative hand: “It’s a smell that vaguely reminds you of cured meats, but leaves you with an uneasy feeling that it's not quite that.” But, oh no, this was not meant to be. Nat, the designer of our merch, chirped in with: “Did you know the Victorians used mummies as medicine?” As Pandora who once opened the jar, there was no putting this evil back under the lid. The idea would not die, it could not be put to rest. Not only did we need to know what a mummy smells like, but what can it possibly taste like?!? 

This led us down a 10 month long rabbit hole where we learned about why and how Egyptians mummified their dead, the extensive trade network spanning the Mediterranean, the silk road and the Indian Ocean and the horrifying history of the pillaging of mummies for their magical restorative properties. Which ended with us, facing a camera, shot glass in hand tasting the ingredients used in mummification. Because though some merchants sold the desiccated corpse, the most discerning medieval doctors preferred the tar like substance that covered mummies and filled their internal cavities. And as we mentioned in the video, there was a bit of rot in our mummy, and there was no way we would subject ourselves to that level of danger.

So the question remains, how bad does mumia taste. BAD! It’s one of these tastes that just clears conscious thoughts from your mind and leaves you with a blue screen and a forced reboot. Much like smelling salts, it’s overpowering and all encompassing. There are aftertastes of cinnamon, pine, lemon lip balm and incense all accompanied with the burn of the alcohol the mixture was dissolved into. But the initial hit is just an overpowering blank bad taste that is hard to explain. So yeah, don’t try this at home kids, we’re what you’d call “professionals”!

In The Works

Oh look it’s already months end… We actually still have 1 banked video awaiting the sponsor to put up on YouTube but you can check it out on Nebula and we also have 2 videos currently on the editing bench. As we mentioned last month, our new process is allowing us to pump out more content. But as with any change in pipelines, there have been some kinks to iron out and our schedule has slipped by a couple weeks. So December’s looking up folks. There should be more Man-Made Horrors for your pleasure coming your way for the Holidays and the next year.

Neat Finds

3D printing is what mosquitoes are good for?

Rats catching bats, a vector of infection for humans?

Mayan civilizational collapse requires more explanation?