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 traditionally described as gazelle skin, it showed the Atlant...
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When Iñupiat hunters and biologists began finding ancient weapon fragments inside bowhead whales harvested in Arctic Alaska, the discoveries posed an extraordinary question: how long had the...
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Quantum entanglement is often introduced with a sentence that sounds like science fiction: two particles can be linked so deeply that changing one instantly changes the other, even if they a...
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Listen to some of NASA's most famous recordings from the outer Solar System and space does not sound silent at all. Jupiter whistles, crackles and roars. Saturn produces eerie rising tones....
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An old tree can carry the shape of an injury long after the branch that caused it has disappeared. A swollen collar may surround the site of a lost limb. Growth rings can bend around the old...
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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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Astronomy has a reputation for expensive telescopes, complicated star charts and distant objects visible only through professional instruments. Yet some of the sky's most memorable events re...
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Imagine waking up to find dozens of people dancing in the streets — not for joy, but because they couldn’t stop. This strange episode unfolded in Strasbourg (modern-day France) in the sum...
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The Science and History of Vibrators: From Ritual Objects to High-Tech Pleasure Let’s be real: when you hear "vibrator," your brain probably jumps straight to the bedroom. But these bu...
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Why Do We See Colors the Way We Do? Why is the sky blue, grass green, or a ripe apple red? These may sound like simple questions, but they open the door to a much deeper mystery: how and...
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