The story of the Radium Girls, who exposed the dangers of radioactive paint

Radioactivity was accidentally discovered when uranium left marks on photographic plates

In 1896, Henri Becquerel had been exploring phosphorescence—the emission of light of one color after an object is exposed to another color. He expected these emissions to come from objects exposed to sunlight, but he observed emissions after an overcast day.

The Curies were buried in lead-lined coffins to contain their radioactive bodies

Their discoveries of polonium and radium involved ongoing exposure to radioactive materials before shielding technology was developed. Their notebooks, furniture, and other belongings remain radioactive today, requiring researchers to sign a waiver and wear protective clothing to access.

A list of five everyday products that rely on radioactivity, including exit signs and gemstones

Like some glow-in-the-dark wristwatches, some exit signs contain sealed tubes of tritium—radioactive hydrogen gas—which emit low-energy beta particles that react with surrounding elements to produce light, making them visible without batteries. In smoke detectors, smoke particles disrupt the steady flow of ions generated by americium-241.

Marie Curie pioneered radioactivity research, for which she won two Nobel Prizes

Marie Curie and her husband isolated polonium and radium despite poor lab conditions and financial hardship. President Harding, on behalf of the women of America, presented her with one gram of radium in 1921 in recognition of her service to science.

Where radon comes from and why it may be the most dangerous source of radioactivity

Released from underground bedrock before passing through soil, this radioactive gas is produced from the decay of uranium, thorium, and radium and accounts for about half of all human exposure to radiation. It is the leading cause of lung cancer among nonsmokers and can build up in enclosed spaces such as buildings without proper ventilation to dilute the gas.

As of 2026, the majority of US states have unsafe radon exposure levels

Alaska, South Dakota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Washington top the list of states with exposure levels above 4 picocuries per liter for this naturally occurring radioactive gas. While these state-level averages vary from one county, municipality, and home to another, the EPA encourages those in the highest-risk states to test their homes.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Why it's so hard to end the use of toxic lead

Lead was one of the earliest metals mined on Earth, desired for its soft malleability and used in cosmetics, pipework, gasoline, and more. But even though researchers demonstrated its toxicity in the 20th century, much of the world still uses it.

The 'Penicillin Girls' made mass production possible

In Oxford during the early 1940s, six female technicians—later dubbed the “Penicillin Girls”—worked long hours tending mold cultures and extracting tiny amounts of penicillin.

The Love Canal disaster exposed the dangers of buried toxic waste

In the late 1970s, residents of Niagara Falls, New York, discovered their neighborhood was built atop 20,000 tons of chemical waste. Leaking toxins caused illness and birth defects, sparking nationwide outrage and leading to the creation of the EPA's Superfund cleanup program in 1980.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted and led to authorities' suspicions he was conspiring with the Russians

The 1794 incident involved André-Ignace-Joseph Dufresnoy, a French army physician researching the plants' potential medicinal properties. Rhus radicans is a scientific name for the plant, though it's commonly called Toxicodendron radicans.

How a government chemist founded the FDA—by poisoning people

The Poison Squad tells the story of government chemist Dr. Harvey Wiley who, determined to banish these dangerous substances from dinner tables, took on the powerful food manufacturers and their allies.

The surprising science behind Pop Rocks

Have you ever wondered why Pop Rocks makes tiny explosions in your mouth? Well, there’s actually pressurized carbon dioxide bubbles trapped within the sugary candy. This 19-second video shows you what Pop Rocks look like under a microscope.

Radioactive elements can introduce software errors because the ionizing radiation they produce can detach electrons from atoms, and computer code relies on the distribution of electrons.

The story of the Manhattan Project's unused demon core

A 3-inch, 14-pound sphere of nuclear reactive plutonium-gallium was set to be delivered to the Pacific Theater in 1945 to become the third atomic bomb dropped over Japan. When Japan surrendered, it was returned to Los Alamos in New Mexico for experiment, where two scientists would die testing whether the core could reach criticality—where it would release intense energy—via the use of a dense reflector. Watch the story here.

Symptoms of extreme radiation exposure may take hours to manifest

Large doses of ionizing radiation can damage the body within minutes, particularly in the bone marrow and inner layer of the digestive tract. Victims may briefly seem fine before rapidly deteriorating as immune failure, infection and organ collapse set in.

Estée Lauder used wealthy people's bathrooms to curate the color of the jars her products were sold in

While Lauder herself was just starting her cosmetics empire, she knew wealthy people who could afford high-quality products would always be her target market. In order to make her products as appealing to this market as possible, Lauder held up different colors of glass bottles in people's bathrooms to see what would look best with their decorations before landing on a turquoise bottle with a gold cap.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

How did ancient cave painters manage to see what they were doing?

As ancient artists made their way deep into caves and created massive works of art that continue to inspire awe today, they would've required light sources to see what they were doing. This gallery details some of the light sources that cave artists...

A family's yearslong poisoning

Over 14 years, a southern Indian family slowly lost six members, several of whom were found foaming at their mouths. Upon the third death, a post-mortem examination was requested, revealing cyanide had been ingested, though it was ruled as self-inflicted. Several will edits and three deaths later, relatives turned a critical eye toward Joliyamma "Jolly" Joseph, who had married into the family and been present at each death.

The 1939 film changed Dorothy's slippers from silver to ruby

Baum’s original book listed the slippers as silver, but the filmmakers wanted the shoes to pop on film—and highlight their use of Technicolor—so they turned them ruby. The slippers wound up becoming one of the movie’s most iconic elements.

More than 500,000 people worked to contain Chernobyl's fallout

The group—collectively referred to as "liquidators"—included firefighters, military troops, miners, engineers and sanitation crews. Beyond clearing radioactive debris and performing decontamination work, they confined radioactive material to prevent its spread into groundwater.

A history of raising the alarm, from rattles to 911

Because fires spread so quickly, communities around the world have deployed many tactics to raise the alarm to get help. This history from the Museum of Natural History dives into the use of rattles, bells, and brigades to gather help to fight fires, showing just how far we've come since 911 was introduced in 1968.

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

A detailed analysis of romance novel covers through history

A lot has changed in the romance genre over time, a fact that's clearest in the way that the books are marketed to consumers. This interactive data visualization surveyed decades of romance book jackets, finding that raunchy, realistic paintings of scantily clad models have largely been replaced by vibrantly colored illustrations, often with the characters drawn as cartoons.

Nail art can be traced back to 5,000 BCE

Archaeologists discovered Egyptian mummies with nail art and henna-tinted fingertips. The trend would continue informally for centuries until Revlon introduced modern nail polish in 1932.

Jackson Pollock and others developed 'action painting,' highlighting the creative process

A subcategory of performance art, action painting emerged in 1945 as a way to capture a moment-by-moment view of the creative process through painting. For these pieces, the physical act of painting is as important as the finished product. This short explainer video covers the philosophy behind action painting, as well as exploring the works of several well-known action painters, including Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, and Mark Rothko.

Hacking the body for a future that didn't happen

Journalist Adi Robertson experimented with one of the most accessible biohacks: magnets. Having a tiny magnet in their right ring finger meant they could sense magnetic fields, attract small metal objects, and more. But magnets weaken over time, eroding this new sense. Such implants do more than offer a new way of interacting with the world, they also pose new complications, such as the inability to get an MRI.

The board game Risk was created by an Academy Award-winning screenwriter.

An investigation suggests a Scottish island became awash in forever chemicals via seafoam and seaspray—raising questions about what that means for the safety of other coastal areas.

Poison ivy's characteristic rash is caused by an allergic response to an oily compound in the plant called urushiol.

See images of medical cases of firework injuries shared on this 'Instagram for doctors.' (Warning: Graphic content)

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

Massive blooms of microscopic plankton called dinoflagellates produce the neon blue light seen in glowing tides.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings are often assumed to be sexual, though the artist claimed she was simply interested in highlighting the beauty of flowers that most people neglect

The distributor behind 'Rocky Horror' pulled the film from its scheduled national release, believing it would be a failure, though it eventually amassed a dedicated fanbase through midnight showings, a trend that continues over 50 years later.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' is infamous for having some of the highest industrial pollution, toxic air emissions, and cancer risks in the US.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

Human-to-human transmission of hantavirus remains extremely rare, so the 2026 hantavirus cruise ship outbreak doesn't mean we're facing a COVID-style pandemic risk.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.