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162 illustrations
The human body contains roughly 37 trillion cells, and here is what astonishes me: every single one carries the complete blueprint — all 20,000-plus genes,...
In the 1924 Paris Olympics, Scottish sprinter Eric Liddell faced a decision that baffled the sporting world. His best event, the 100 meters, was scheduled...
In the fall of 1979, Herb Brooks held tryouts for the US Olympic hockey team. Sixty-eight of the nation's best college players showed up. Brooks...
In 2007, a team of scientists led by Robert Gill at the U.S. Geological Survey tracked a bar-tailed godwit they called E7 as she flew...
In 1977, NASA launched Voyager 1 into space carrying a golden phonograph record. Carl Sagan and his team curated 115 images, greetings in 55 languages,...
In the summer of 1924, Scottish sprinter Eric Liddell arrived at the Paris Olympics as the favorite in the 100 meters. When he learned the...
When Pope Julius II summoned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in 1508, the artist resisted. He was a sculptor, not a...
For decades, scientists dismissed roughly 98% of the human genome as "junk DNA" — vast stretches of genetic code that appeared to serve no purpose...
In 1924, Scottish sprinter Eric Liddell arrived at the Paris Olympics as the favorite in the 100 meters. But when he learned the heats were...
When Eric Liddell arrived at the 1924 Paris Olympics, he was Scotland's fastest man — heavily favored in the 100 meters. But when he learned...
In 1883, a young Spanish architect named Antoni Gaudí took over construction of a church in Barcelona. What began as a modest project became his...
In 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven stood before an orchestra in Vienna to conduct the premiere of his Ninth Symphony. He was almost completely deaf. He...
By the time Ludwig van Beethoven composed his Ninth Symphony — arguably the most celebrated piece of music in Western history — he was completely...
In 1857, Joseph Scriven wrote a poem for his mother back in Ireland. She was going through a difficult season, and he was thousands of...
In 2018, astronomers confirmed something remarkable about a star called S2. This star orbits the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way...
In 1463, the city of Florence commissioned a massive block of Carrara marble to become a sculpture for the cathedral. The sculptor Agostino di Duccio...
For decades, scientists dismissed roughly 98 percent of human DNA as "junk" — meaningless filler taking up space between the genes that actually mattered. It...
When Antoni Gaudi took over the design of Barcelona's Sagrada Familia in 1883, he knew something remarkable: he would never see it completed. The basilica...
When Georges Seurat began painting *A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte* in 1884, he committed to something that must have seemed...
In 1995, astronomer Robert Williams made a decision that many of his colleagues thought was foolish. He pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at a tiny...
By the time Ludwig van Beethoven began composing his Ninth Symphony, he was almost entirely deaf. The man whose life was built around sound could...
In December 1995, astronomer Robert Williams made a decision his colleagues thought was foolish. As director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, he pointed the...
In 1508, Michelangelo Buonarroti received a commission he did not want. Pope Julius II ordered him to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel —...
In 1869, a young German medical student named Paul Langerhans peered through his microscope and noticed something peculiar — tiny clusters of cells scattered throughout...