Marvels of Science
Stories of science and medicine that changed our world
- Science
- Medicine
- History
Some of the stories included
ArchimedesDiscover how Archimedes moved ships with pulleys, calculated pi with 96-sided shapes, and defended Syracuse.
How Cats Domesticated ThemselvesHow wildcats became house cats, from 12,000-year-old origins in the Fertile Crescent to the truth of their self-domestication.
The Discovery of DNA’s Double HelixHow Watson and Crick worked out the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953, drawing on Rosalind Franklin's X-ray image Photo 51 and beating Linus Pauling to the answer.
Plate TectonicsThe unifying theory of geology explaining how Earth's outer shell is broken into pieces that move at the same rate human fingernails grow.
Isaac Newton and GravityIn 1666, Isaac Newton saw an apple fall and realized the same force holding the Moon in orbit was pulling the object to the ground.
Mendeleev's Periodic TableIn 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev organized the 63 known elements, leaving gaps for new ones he predicted would one day be found.
The Many-Worlds InterpretationHow Hugh Everett's 1957 Princeton thesis became the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, rejected in Copenhagen, revived in 1970, and still one of several competing ways to read the theory.
Albert Einstein and RelativityAlbert Einstein's theories of relativity state that the speed of light is constant, which means time and space are relative to the observer.
Why We SleepScience reveals why we sleep, from the discovery of active brain stages to the nightly clearance of toxic waste from between our brain cells.
The Discovery of PenicillinHow Alexander Fleming's 1928 mould observation became a usable drug through the Oxford team's work and American mass production, in time for D-Day and the start of the antibiotic era.
Blaise PascalThe life of Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician and religious thinker behind the Pascaline calculator, the Puy de Dôme air-pressure experiment, early probability theory and the Pensées.
Marie Curie and the Discovery of RadioactivityMarie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and then the first person to win a second in a different scientific field.
Charles Darwin and the Origin of SpeciesHow Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution, from a fossil skull in 1832 to the publication of 'On the Origin of Species'.
The Asteroid That Killed the DinosaursA thin clay layer identified in 1980 explains why the dinosaurs died out 66 million years ago: a city-sized asteroid impact.
Eratosthenes Measures the EarthAround 240 BC, a librarian in Alexandria measured the Earth's size using only a shadow, a well, and some clever geometry.
The Double-Slit ExperimentThe quantum experiment where single particles pass through two slits at once, creating a wave pattern that vanishes when measured.
Mendel and His PeasHow a monk discovered the rules of inheritance with pea plants, revealing a near-perfect three-to-one ratio that was ignored for 34 years.
The Coelacanth: A Living FossilThe story of the shocking 1938 discovery of a fish thought to have gone extinct with the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
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