Sandeep had to turn in a school project on how mobile phones work and what makes them so versatile. He decided to turn to the web for help. The one site that attracted his attention was <http://www.howstuffworks.com>, one of the most popular resources for Science and Technology.
It opened up a floodgate of information, not just on mobile phones but literally anything one can think of— from the solar system to atoms, form ice cream to airplanes, from hypnosis to acupressure, from missiles to pizzas. He was amazed and wished that he had known about the site much earlier.
A ‘brain’ indeed!
The story about how the site came about is also very interesting. It started as a one-man-show. The brain behind it is Marshall Brain, born in May 1961 at Santa Monica, California. As a young boy Brain was a bundle of curiosity. He always wondered about the inner working of every thing around him. His hobby was to dismantle every toy or gadget and then put it together. His father worked for Apollo Moon Mission and had a fascination for mechanical gadgets. Brain says this had a great influence on him.
After graduating in electrical engineering and computer science, Brain taught at the North Carolina University. During this period he created his own website and started posting articles of interest to teenagers. “I would sit down and think about what I was curious about as a teenager” he says.
One of the first entries on the website was, “How a car engine works”. By word-of-mouth the site came to the attention of others and gradually snowballed into the favourite site for anybody curious about things around them.
Today Marshall Brain has a full staff of 20 writers, editors and artists. They have posted more than 650 articles on their website. He has authored more than a dozen books on the ‘how stuff works’ theme and publishes a magazine “How Stuff Works Express” that takes science and technology to millions of students and teachers.
Mass appeal
His most popular book is, Teenager’s Guide to the Real World. In addition, the site also features items like an online store, ‘Gadget of the Day’, ‘Question of the Day’, and so on to feed the curiosity of the visitors. Naturally, it has won many awards and acclamations. It won the “Cool Site of the year Award” for 1998. In 2002 many more awards and citations were presented: Time magazine named it as one of the “50 best websites” for 2002, Yahoo Internet Life Magazine’s 2002 Best Science and Technology Resource, PC magazine’s “2002 Top 100 Classical Websites”, Scientific American’s “2002 Sci/Tech Web Award”, and so on.
What makes the site so appealing is its broad coverage of topics— from science and technology to health and finance to entertainment— in an easy-to-understand style of writing and colourful illustrations.
In addition, the editorial staff constantly keeps upgrading the topics, covering current events. Whenever a big event occurs anywhere in the world ‘howstuffworks’ will research the why and how of it. For example when the Russian nuclear submarine, Kursk, sank in August 2000, the site posted an article within 24 hours on how a nuclear submarine works. Similarly, following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre, New York, the site wrote on why the WTC towers collapsed.
The staff regularly visits technology exhibitions and consumer electronics displays to learn the latest as feedback for more titles. In addition, more than 6000 e-mail requests a month from readers, discussions, expert reviews and opinions on articles all generate new topics.  
Today some three million people visit the site every month. This includes teachers, parents and professionals alike. If you are not one of them, it is time you enrich yourself.