On the evening of May 17, 1884, New Yorkers witnessed a sight strange enough to compete with the bridge beneath it. A procession of circus animals moved across the East River from Manhattan toward Brooklyn: camels, elephants and, among them...
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Few sights make the Moon seem more theatrical than an early-autumn moonrise. A huge amber disk appears behind trees, rooftops or distant hills, looking far larger than the Moon we see later...
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The James Webb Space Telescope is often introduced through spectacular pictures: glowing stellar nurseries, delicate shells of gas, galaxies from the young universe and strange worlds orbiti...
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Every September, the technology calendar suddenly becomes crowded. New phones appear within days of one another. Operating systems move from summer previews to public releases. Chipmakers an...
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Stand on a beach and the ocean looks almost two-dimensional: a glittering surface stretching to the horizon. The reality underneath is closer to an inverted mountain world. Plains, ridges, v...
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If someone asks when World War II ended, the safest short answer is 1945. If they ask for the exact date, history becomes more interesting. Was it May 8, when Nazi Germany's defeat ended the...
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You check your phone and it is 4:44. Later, a receipt ends in $4.44. That evening, three fours appear in an address or a license plate. After the third encounter, coincidence can start to fe...
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“Why does my stomach hurt?” sounds like a simple question, but medically it is one of the broadest questions a person can ask. What we casually call the stomach is often the entire abdomen,...
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On a clear Arctic night, the sky can begin almost imperceptibly. A pale band appears above the horizon, faint enough to be mistaken for a cloud. Then it brightens. The band folds into curtai...
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Three years after Godzilla Minus One transformed a relatively modest Japanese monster movie into an international phenomenon and an Academy Award winner, Takashi Yamazaki is returning to the...
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