A 16th Century Math Book With Pop-Up Models

Jun 9, 2020

Euclid’s Elements , first published in 300 BC, was one of the most important and influential textbooks ever written in the history of scie...

Alexis St. Martin: The Man With A Hole In His Stomach

Jun 8, 2020

By the early 19th century, physicians had a clear understanding of the human anatomy (from dissecting cadavers) but knowledge about the role...

Vladimir Petrovich Demikhov’s Two-Headed Dog

Jun 5, 2020

In 1955, at a meeting of the Moscow Surgical Society, a sensational exhibit was presented to the assembled guests. On the platform close t...

Llívia: A Curious Spanish Enclave in France

Jun 3, 2020

A welcome sign on the road to Llívia, a landlock state of Spain inside France. Photo: LMspencer/Shutterstock.com Deep in the Pyrenees, s...

The War Rubble of Crosby Beach

Jun 2, 2020

Photo: pshab/Flickr Just beyond the coastguard station at the end of the promenade at Crosby Beach, in Liverpool, is a flat stretch of s...

The Unknown Martyrs Who Became Catacomb Saints

Jun 1, 2020

Relics of saint and holy people have always been an integral part of Christianity. There was a time when bones, skins, fingernails, severe...

Clever Hans: The Horse Who Could Do Math

May 29, 2020

In a paved courtyard surrounded by high apartment houses in the northern part of Berlin, a small crowd had gathered to watch an old high s...

Stanley Kubrick’s Rejected Monolith

May 27, 2020

The iconic Monolith from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey was originally not a mysterious black slab. The director wanted it t...

Waterloopbos: Where Dutch Engineers Learned to Play With The Sea

May 27, 2020

A quarter of Netherlands lie below the sea level. Most of these low-lying areas are land reclaimed from the sea. The region was originally o...

Pervitin: The Wonder Drug That Fueled Nazi Germany

May 25, 2020

When Heinrich Böll, the German writer and Nobel laureate, was a young man in his twenties, like many able-bodied youths of his time, he jo...