Animated survival stories · real science
Stick figure survival stories told one day at a time. You're trapped in a hospital when the dead take the city, or stuck 60 floors up when the lights go out. The monsters are made up. Every survival rule is real, and every one is sourced.
Coming soonThree lights blink across the river, nine minutes after your engine starts. Noor's insulin is running out, the bridge is jammed with stalled cars and the dead, and the only way across is an ambulance that has sat in the bay for 300 days. You get five tries to start it.
You're the night engineer at a 180 bed hospital when the outbreak hits just before midnight. Stretch the diesel, drain water from dead pipes, keep the insulin cold, and figure out who keeps pulling the fire alarm on a sealed floor.
You're in a window washer's cradle 60 floors up when every window in the city goes dark. Pale green lamps take anything that glows. Survive 60 days at the top of a dead skyscraper with one water tank and four rules in chalk.
11:01You're the night engineer at a 180 bed hospital when the outbreak reaches the emergency department just before midnight. By morning the grid is gone, the dead are on the wards above you, and you have one diesel generator, one lit floor and a fuel gauge you can't fully trust.
12:56The generator is dead, the yard is empty for the first time, and the fire panel reports a pull station on the sealed fourth floor. You and Noor need another 100 days with no grid, very little diesel and insulin that only lasts 28 days without cold.
11:44For 80 days the alarm at station two went off nine minutes after every engine run, and you logged it as a fault. It was a hand. Getting night nurse Ravi out of sealed 4 East means your first real contact with the dead in 217 days, while winter waxes up the diesel.
Coming soonThree lights blink across the river, nine minutes after your engine starts. Noor's insulin is running out, the bridge is jammed with stalled cars and the dead, and the only way across is an ambulance that has sat in the bay for 300 days. You get five tries to start it.
12:53At 9:40 on a Thursday night you're in a window washer's cradle 60 floors up when a light comes out of the clouds and every window in the city goes dark. Pale green lamps sweep the streets, and anything that glows gets taken. You have one water tank and rules written in chalk.
Episode 2 is in production. The story picks up on day 61, right where the cradle left you. Subscribe so you don't miss it.
A standalone zombie outbreak story told hour by hour instead of day by day. Same rule as the series: the monsters are made up, the survival science is real.
The zombies and the aliens are made up. The survival science isn't. Every move in the stories is checked against codes, health agencies and engineering references, and each episode lists its sources. A few of our favorites:
Hospital emergency power must come back within 10 seconds of a grid failure, under NFPA 110 and NFPA 99.
Source: NFPA 110 ↗Window glass reflects the long wave infrared a heat camera sees, so it shows a mirror image, not what's behind the glass.
Source: Firehouse ↗One inch of rain on 1,000 square feet of roof is about 623 gallons. Treat it before you drink it.
Source: USGS ↗Sound moves through steel at about 5,940 meters a second, about 17 times faster than through air.
Source: Engineering ToolBox ↗Out of the fridge most insulin labels give it 28 days, and insulin that has frozen must be thrown out.
Source: FDA ↗A flame indoors makes carbon monoxide, which has no smell and no color. Never use a camp stove indoors or burn charcoal inside.
Source: CDC ↗Before the story series, the channel built a library of physics first guides for cooling, heating and powering a home on the cheap. All of it stays free right here.
How a $30 sealed warm room held on your own body heat beats a $3,000 generator when the power dies. Read it, then grab the free printable checklist.
Read →Three frozen bottles hold about two million joules of cooling. Here's the melt budget the viral clips leave out.
Read →The reading that predicts collapse better than any porch thermometer, and the sealed room playbook that keeps you alive.
Read →Two old physics tricks dump a baking attic's heat with no motor. Here's what it really does, and what it can't.
Read →Six feet down the ground sits near 55°F all year. Run your air through it and you get free pre cooling.
Read →Ranked by what the building science data actually shows, radiant barriers, night flush, evaporative, and more.
Read →Subscribe and turn on notifications so you catch every new day.