[ newest at the top ]

• Jan 2026 : REGARDING RSS FEEDS : In order to try to cut down on the growing number of visits by parasitic bots, the site has implemented some measures which might adversely affect some standalone RSS readers. If you have any problems, please get in touch. Note that RSS feed readers which work via browser extensions should be unaffected.

• Dec 2025 : A milestone of 1,250 - or, if you prefer, 1¼ thousand - articles has been reached. Many thanks to all supporters and contributors.

• Aug 2025 : In a four year series of experiments, a team of investigators from the Hakai Institute and the University of British Columbia, CA., have identified a bacterial culprit called Vibrio pectenicida as the cause of Sea Star Wasting Disease (SSWD). The original Wikenigma pageplugin-autotooltip__plain plugin-autotooltip_bigSea Star Wasting Disease

resolved

The 'Resolved' category archives questions which have been answered since they were added to the site.

As of Aug. 2025, this entry is now moved to the 'Resolved' section.

In a four-year series of experiments, a team of investigators from the has now been moved to the ' Resolved ' section;

• July 2025 : Wikenigma now has a new feature - the Curator's Blogplugin-autotooltip__plain plugin-autotooltip_bigCurator's blog . . .

Latest posts . . .. The idea is to provide a platform for informal comments and opinions from the curator and editors.

• July 2025 : An important question regarding whether or not humans can grow new brain cells has been resolved - see Neural regenerationplugin-autotooltip__plain plugin-autotooltip_bigNeural regeneration

resolved

The 'Resolved' category archives questions which have been answered since they were added to the site.

As of Jul. 2025, this entry is now moved to the 'Resolved' section.

Work from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden has demonstrated that regeneration of human brain cells is not only possible, but appears to be a regular occurrence. Questions still remain however regarding exactly how the process works, and what the implications might be.

• June 2025 : The site has upgraded the core software to the latest Dokuwiki version. Please do get in touch if you come across any operational or stability issues!

• May 2025 : A milestone of 1,200 articles has been reached. Many thanks to all supporters and contributors.

• Feb 2025. The previous month was exceptional in terms of data traffic, when around 100,000 visitors requested a total of over 600,000 page-views. Many apologies for the short period when the site went offline due to this surge. But thanks again to all who linked here!

• Jan 2025. A new daily-readership milestone has been reached - with the site serving over 100,000 pages to more than 20,000 visitors in one day (26th Jan.) Many thanks to all who have linked to the site - and of course to the readers for their interest.

• Jan. 2025. The page about The Beeswax wreckplugin-autotooltip__plain plugin-autotooltip_bigThe Beeswax wreck

resolved

The 'Resolved' category archives questions which have been answered since they were added to the site.

This entry is now moved to the 'Resolved' section as the location of the wreck is widely regarded as having been found. See : Wikipedia has now been moved to the ´Resolved´ section. (Thanks to reader Mark Slater for tracking down the answer).

• Oct 2024 : In keeping with many other sites, Wikenigma has now cancelled and deleted its Twitter/X account.

• July 2024 : Wikenigma clarifies that the site's CC licence - which is used for all orignal content - expressly disallows any 'scraping' and re-use by AI systems. See : AI policy at Wikenigmaplugin-autotooltip__plain plugin-autotooltip_bigAI policy at Wikenigma

Avoiding AI-generated content

In the light of recent developments and proliferation of online and offline AI systems, it should be stressed that Wikenigma's current policy is that all of the content should be entirely of human authorship.

• March 2024 : The main core software - Dokuwiki - has been updated. The site should now work faster, and some aspects have been substantially simplified. If you experience any oddities with the new system, let us know.

• October 2023 : Wikenigma is introducing 'hashtags' for some articles. For example #Unknowableplugin-autotooltip__plain plugin-autotooltip_big#Unknowable

Pages with this tag are about concepts or entities which, by their nature, can never be accurately described.

See : for subjects which, by their nature, can definitely never be accurately answered. Or #Functionality unexplainedplugin-autotooltip__plain plugin-autotooltip_big#Functionality unexplained

These tags are for pages about man-made items or processes which are known to work, but by mechanisms which no-one yet completely understands.

See :

----------

Note: A significant number of medicinal drugs have unknown 'Mechanisms of Action' - see the Medicine/ Drugs section in the main menu. for man-made devices etc which clearly work, but no-one knows exactly how.

• September 2023 : It's quite a slow process, but every now and again a Wikenigma question gets answered. Such is the case with the Antimatter and Gravity problemplugin-autotooltip__plain plugin-autotooltip_bigAntimatter and gravity

resolved

The 'Resolved' category archives questions which have been answered since they were added to the site.

As of Sep. 2023, this entry is now moved to the 'Resolved' section.

A recent set of experiments at CERN, which created thousands of 'antihydrogen' atoms (anti-protons with orbiting positrons), and then 'dropped' them down a 3m high column, have proved for the first tiime that the anti-atoms Resolved!

• September 2023 : Many thanks again to The British Library, which is now archiving the entire Wikenigma site several times a year (latest update July 2023 )..

• Aug. 2023 : In the light of recent developments and proliferation of online AI systems, this is to re-affirm that all of the content of Wikenigma is entirely human edited. It's perhaps inevitable that some AI generated content will eventually be featured - as even some 'peer-reviewed' scientific papers are now appearing with auto-generated content. The current editorial policy is to remove any content known to be AI generated.

• June 2023 : A milestone of 1,000 articles has been reached. Many thanks to all supporters and contributors.

• May 2023 : To complement the upcoming 1,000th article post, Wikenigma has a new logo. The achromatic interrogative cuboid (a black-box with question marks).

• March 2023 : Wikenigma has started a Twitter feed for curator's pick of the moment.

• Feb 2023 : Gearing up for the British Library's yearly site archiving.

• Aug 2022 : A milestone of 900 unknown articles has been reached.

• July 2022 The site was offline for a few days at the end of the month due to overstretched demand. Many apologies.

• Apr 2022 : Moved to new server. Faster page response times.

• Feb 2022 : To support , Wikenigma is introducing a new strategy to mark external links to 'Open Access' reference papers as such. The green icon denotes that the entire reference is fully open for all readers, free of any charges.

• Oct 2021 : A milestone of 800 unknown articles has been reached.

• Sept. 2021 : Currently beta-testing an 'auto-translation' engine.

As always with auto-translation, it's a very long way from being perfect . . . but could be of help in attractiing a wider global audience . . .

• July 2021 : A milestone of 700 unknown articles has been reached.

• May 2021 : A milestone of 650 unknown articles has been reached.

• Mar. 2021 : Many thanks to the The British Library, which has now begun permanently archiving the contents of Wikenigma.

• Jan. 2021 : A milestone of 600 unknown articles has been reached.

• Oct. 2020 : A milestone of 500 unknown articles has been reached.

• Aug. 2020 : Currently (beta) testing the new 'WYSIWYG' (What You See Is What You Get) page editor. It greatly simplifies the editing process, avoiding the need to learn the Wiki syntax. (Note: it's currently not 100% stable)

• Aug 2020 : A milestone of 400 unknown articles has been reached.

• Aug 2020 : There are credible rumours of a 'WYSIWYG' (What You See Is What You Get) editing system to help make it easier to create and edit pages without having to use the (quite eccentric) 'Wiki' syntax code. The plugin isn't quite stable enough for general use yet. But when it is, it should make editing pages much more straightforward.

• July 2020 : the core software has been updated - hopefully faster and more stable.

• Apr 2019, there are now around 260 articles.

+ Many thanks to 'No Such Thing as a Fish' and 'QI' who recently tweeted about the site ! The response was so strong the site had to get a server upgrade !

• As of June 2017, there are now around 220 articles detailing real-world, fully documented observations and phenomena which no-one, anywhere, has yet been able to explain. Thanks to our contributors and supporters.

• As of April 2017, there are now around 170 articles detailing items which are as yet unknown to humanity. Thanks to our contributors and supporters.

• March 2017 . . . now out of beta.

• 6th Sep 2016. Moved server to wikenigma.org.uk - and now in beta version.

• Alpha launch nearing