Few astronomical discoveries have produced a nickname as irresistible as the “diamond planet.” About 41 light-years away in the constellation Cancer, 55 Cancri e is a super-Earth nearly twice Earth's diameter and about eight times its mass....
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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 October 30, 1961, a Soviet Tu-95 bomber crossed the frozen landscape of Novaya Zemlya carrying an object so large that the aircraft had been specially modified to accommodate it. The bomb...
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The first message sent across the network that would become a crucial ancestor of the modern Internet was not profound, poetic or even complete. It consisted of two lowercase letters: lo.Tha...
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Modern elections are designed to look ordinary. Voters enter a booth, mark a choice, deposit a ballot and wait for arithmetic to produce a winner. In medieval and early modern Europe, choosi...
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Few subjects can turn an ordinary Italian lunch into a tribunal quite as quickly as a traditional recipe. Put cream in carbonara, use pancetta instead of guanciale, add garlic where somebody...
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The idea of launching an object into space was born of a scientific and political ambition that changed the course of history. The first artificial satellite, launched in 1957, was not jus...
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Was wine invented in Georgia or by the Romans? The answer isn't as simple as one might think. While Georgia holds the title for the oldest wine, Rome may be the birthplace of modern wine cul...
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In southern Brazil lies a small town where twins are born at an extraordinary rate. Cândido Godói, often dubbed the "Land of Twins," has baffled scientists and intrigued visitors with its hi...
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In a small town in southwestern Nigeria, seeing double is completely normal. Welcome to Igbo-Ora, often called the “Twin Capital of the World,” where almost every family has at least one set...
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