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

Marie Curie's work with radioactive materials left traces on her furniture and notes

Some of Marie Curie's family heirlooms were radioactive and destroyed. Marie and Pierre Curie are entombed in lead coffins to block radiation.

Items in the Curie Museum do not produce significant radioactivity today

Ionizing radiation produced by elements such as uranium, polonium, and radium can damage living things, but the trace amounts found in the museum objects that Marie Curie once touched have been largely decontaminated, with more dangerous items stored in protective, lead-lined containers.

The Curies developed a way to measure radioactivity in an old medical dissecting room

Despite lacking proper laboratory conditions, Marie and Pierre built an ionization chamber and a piezoelectric quartz electrometer to measure the amount of charged particles released by radiation, with a sensitivity of ten-trillionth of an ampere. Substances with different emission rates indicated different elements.

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.

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

After radium was discovered in 1898, companies began using radium-based paints on watch and clock dials to create a glow-in-the-dark effect. Women who worked to apply the paint were encouraged to use their lips and tongues to help create the fine point needed to draw small numbers, unknowingly poisoning themselves.

Radioactive waste solutions include glass smelting and dumping into graphite blocks

Since radioactive materials can take seconds to millions of years to decay, their disposal or storage requires creative solutions. Besides turning liquid waste into glass or storing medical waste in lead-lined rooms, spent nuclear rods are stored in deep-water pools.

How spoiled meat helped uncover a bacterium that can survive the vacuum of space

When a can of ground beef and pork spoiled despite attempts to sterilize it with gamma radiation, researcher Arthur Anderson isolated the bacteria in the food and discovered Deinococcus radiodurans. The polyextremophile has since been found on the walls of nuclear reactors and overcomes radiation damage through highly optimized DNA repair mechanisms.

Meet the the scientists of the Manhattan Project

This resource profiles the scientists behind the Manhattan Project—from Nobel laureates like Fermi and Bethe to controversial figures like Teller and Fuchs—showing how their ideas, rivalries, and choices shaped the development of the atomic age.

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

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.

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.

A 36-year-old Russian physicist survived a particle accelerator beam to the head

Several safety mechanisms failed during Anatoli Bugorski's inspection of malfunctioning equipment at the U-70 synchrotron, the Soviet Union's largest particle accelerator. Despite receiving as much as 600 times the lethal dose of radiation to the brain, he has shown no intellectual damage and worked until the age of 77.

The Chernobyl exclusion zone remains a region restricted to public access

It now spans beyond the initial 30-kilometer radius around the nuclear plant to include surrounding areas found to have significant radioactive contamination. Aside from a handful of elderly self-settlers, permanent residency is banned, and access remains tightly controlled due to lingering radioactive contamination.

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.

View the periodic table of radioactive elements, and a list of each's most stable isotopes

Technetium is the lightest artificial radioactive element, which is produced primarily as a byproduct of nuclear fission. Several unstable isotopes are commercially available to medical professionals and scientists, despite their radioactivity risks.

How the extended life of rapidly decaying particles supports the special theory of relativity

Muons produced in particle accelerators are known to decay into other particles after about 2.2 microseconds on average, but those produced in the atmosphere live much longer—enough to travel thousands of meters to detectors on Earth's surface. As predicted by the mathematics of special relativity, by traveling near the speed of light, muons experience time passing dozens of times more slowly, allowing them to live long enough to reach Earth's surface before decaying.

Faraday cages protect enclosed objects by redirecting electrical currents

Constructed from conductive materials, the cage allows electrons to distribute themselves evenly throughout its surface and travel to ground, keeping the interior neutrally charged and preventing any internal electricity. The same principle blocks electromagnetic waves by redirecting the electric field component, preventing telecommunication signals from entering the apparatus.

Camus contracted tuberculosis as a teenager

There was still little understanding of treatment for the disease at the time; for most people, a tuberculosis diagnosis was a death sentence. The 17-year-old Camus was quarantined in his uncle's house, where he grew into an avid reader. Scholars note that the experience would inform his later work, including his 1947 novel "The Plague."

As of 2025, CERN is the world's largest particle physics laboratory

Founded in 1954, the European Organization for Nuclear Research's laboratory is located near Geneva, Switzerland, and more than 10,000 scientists from more than 100 countries visit its facilities each year. Its largest tool is the Large Hadron Collider, a 27-kilometer-long tunnel that accelerates protons to near the speed of light.

Study pinpoints where to hide during a nuclear blast

There’s no surviving the fireball of a nuclear bomb, but beyond that, there are certain spots indoors where you can try avoid the destructive shockwave.

Searching for Albert Einstein's stolen brain

Within moments of Einstein's 1955 death, someone reportedly ferreted away the 76-year-old genius's brain. Decades later, a reporter's editor told them to solve the case. This 64-minute podcast episode follows the work of Steven Levy, the reporter who ultimately tracked down Einstein's brain, which had been sliced and stored in slides, goo, and a cardboard box in a scientist's office.

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

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

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.

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

Volatile chemical contamination can last in burn areas long after urban wildfires

Lead, arsenic, asbestos, and other chemicals have been found trapped in smoke-exposed rugs, couches, pillows, and other furniture that appeared otherwise undamaged from the 2025 LA wildfires. The gradual release of these substances has produced dangerous indoor air concentrations and contributed to increased emergency room visits and abnormal blood tests.

Whose bodies are held inside the American Museum of Natural History?

The American Museum of Natural History holds the remains of at least 12,000 people collected via purchase, donation, or expedition. This article by a professor of art crime details their attempt to identify the individuals whose remains the museum held. Amid questioning, AMNH announced it would change its human remains policy. At the time of the article's publication in October 2023, AMNH had few human remains on public display.

Ceren: The Maya Pompeii (sans all the bodies)

The Maya village of Ceren in El Salvador was preserved by volcanic ash from 1,400 years ago, revealing insights into ancient Maya commoners' lives. Ceren villagers had autonomy in their daily activities, and excavations reveal evidence of communal decision-making and event hints at the presence of a community sauna. Dive into more of the archaeological finds on how businesses were run, how they prepared for disaster, and more.

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

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

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

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

Astronauts have repaired genetic damage in space using CRISPR—a molecular tool that can make precise changes to DNA and is used in single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses.

Neutron stars, the remains of some massive stars after they explode in a supernova, are the densest directly observable objects in the universe.

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

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

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

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

Watch the cumbersome, but necessary, precautions healthcare workers must take to care for and protect themselves while caring for Ebola patients.

Volcanoes 'die' when their supply of magma runs out, if they are shifted away from their underlying magma reservoir, or if they get clogged by collapsing or their magma cooling back into rock.

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

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

See how fireworks are made and learn how metals like magnesium and copper are responsible for different colors.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is not a pristine document, and even features a smudged anonymous handprint in the bottom left corner.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects