In the Chihuahuan Desert of northern Mexico, where Durango, Chihuahua and Coahuila approach one another across an immense dry basin, a patch of landscape has acquired one of the strangest reputations in North America.It is called La Zona de...
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For generations, chemistry books could place bismuth near the end of the periodic table's stable territory. Its naturally occurring isotope, bismuth-209, showed no detectable radioactive dec...
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In 1929, while scholars were cataloguing manuscripts in Istanbul's Topkapı Palace, they encountered a fragment of an extraordinary world map. Painted in vivid colors on parchment traditional...
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On September 9, 1947, somebody working with one of the most advanced calculating machines in the United States opened its hardware and found an unusually literal explanation for a malfunctio...
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Look down at a computer keyboard and you are looking at a museum whose exhibits still work. Some keys preserve decisions made by nineteenth-century typewriter manufacturers. Others carry sym...
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There is a peculiar kind of certainty that appears around traditional food. A grandmother made a dish one way, a restaurant in its supposed birthplace serves it another, and suddenly one ver...
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Who can claim the invention of wine? A drink so old and widespread that it predates written history. Traces of fermented grape juice have been found across ancient civilizations, but where e...
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Stones that float on water? Sounds impossible—unless you’re in Rameswaram, India. Here, ancient stones defy gravity, floating on the surface like driftwood. Linked to one of Hinduism’s gr...
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n a land filled with ancient myths and vibrant traditions, India never ceases to surprise. One of the most astonishing sites is the Karni Mata Temple in Rajasthan — a holy place where over 2...
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Imagine a town where your daily commute doesn’t involve traffic lights—but a bush plane. In remote corners of Alaska and the U.S., several communities exist without any road access. One of t...
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