THE MYSTERIOUS BEAST THAT ONCE TERRORIZED FRANCE
In a remote French village, where snow, wind, and thunderstorms frequently made life in the sparsely populated area difficult, villagers had more to fear than the elements. Lurking in the shadows was The Beast, a monster that stalked women and children at the edge of town.
AWAITING THE FIRST COLOR PHOTOS FROM THE JAMES WEBB TELESCOPE
Artist conception of the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA GSFC/CIL/Adriana Manrique Gutierrez. I interviewed scientists at NASA for two pieces.
THE GREAT NANTUCKET SEA SERPENT HOAX
When photos of massive footprints on a sandy beach started popping up in the papers in the summer of 1937, the people of Nantucket — an isolated crescent-shaped island off of Cape Cod in Massachusetts — started to whisper that a sea monster had certainly come ashore.
HOW TUBERCULOSIS INFLUENCED VICTORIAN FASHION
Before influencers and advertisements, fashion relied on other factors to steer trends — including deadly diseases. One of the oldest diseases in human history, tuberculosis has had lasting impacts on the world. But it also had an unexpected influence on Victorian fashion when people began to romanticize it.
TRADITIONAL TAKEDOWNS: THE WRESTLING WOMEN OF BOLIVIA
Poised atop a rope in a wrestling ring in Bolivia, you’ll find a woman dressed in a thick colorful skirt, her hair in swinging braids. In spite of the many voices that have told her she can’t, she leaps at her opponent.
BLACK HOLES OR ALIENS? UNRAVELING SPACE RADIO SIGNAL THEORIES
There’s a field of space study known as radio astronomy that investigates many things, including fast radio bursts (FRBs). These are blips of energy that last for milliseconds at most. The energy is in the form of electric frequencies, like the ones in walkie-talkies and cell phones, coming from matter in space. Most of the ones that scientists have observed over the years have come from outside our galaxy, making them that much harder to figure out.
HISTORIC ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS FOR AN ALL-AMERICAN ROAD TRIP
When traveling, do you seek out the familiar, or do you head off the beaten path to hunt down the weirdest roadside attractions? If you’ve ever taken a family road trip and begged your parents to stop at a Mothman statue or a World’s Biggest, well, anything—this list is for you. These stops along the way, photographed by the late novelty architecture aficionado John Margolies, are a glimpse into the fading, fantastical world of roadside attractions.
WRIGGLING WORM BLOBS HELP SCIENTISTS BUILD BETTER ROBOTS
Worms aren’t insects, despite the knee-jerk “yuck” reactions that many have towards the wiggly dirt-dwellers. But scientists are learning a lot about swarm intelligence by studying them. Worms have been observed grouping together in balls and acting like a liquid.
THE EARLY ORIGINS OF TEMPORARY TATTOOS: HAND-PAINTED KNEES
A temporary tattoo of a whimsical whale from a Cracker Jack box would hardly turn a head in 1912, but a portrait painted by hand on a woman’s knee in the ’20s? Now that was scandalous.