The Night Alice Cooper Bought a Letter Picture a shock-rock performer famous for guillotines and boa constrictors instead writing a check to save a piece of a Los Angeles landmark. In the late 1970s, that’s exactly what Alice Cooper did. He personally funded the restoration of one letter of the Hollywood Sign, reportedly in memory … Read more
A Switch Too Small to Catch Somewhere behind your eyes, as you read this sentence, a molecule the size of a few atoms stacked together is flipping open, letting a signal pass from one neuron to the next. That flip is part of how a thought takes shape, how a memory gets laid down, how … Read more
A Camera Goes Where No Diver Can In 2015, ocean engineer Brennan Phillips led a National Geographic expedition to Kavachi, an active submarine volcano in the Solomon Islands, roughly 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of Vangunu Island. Its summit sits just 65 feet (20 meters) below the surface, while its base runs down to the … Read more
Two Maps, One State Two maps of the United States, both published April 28, 2011, once circulated online. One, “How does your state excel?”, handed out environmental bragging rights state by state. The other, “How does your state not excel?”, listed each state’s environmental weak spot. Alone, neither stands out. Side by side, one state … Read more
The Street Corner That Doesn’t Add Up Picture a corner in Bath, England, on a clear day in August 2008. A street musician has his fiddle tucked under his chin, bow moving fast, and underneath the melody there’s a full, steady guitar part keeping time. You scan for a second musician. There isn’t one. No … Read more
A Walnut Case Full of Protection In October 2008, at the Jimmy Pippen estate sale in the new Natchez Convention Center in Natchez, Mississippi, Stevens Auction Company sold what was billed as a complete, authentic vampire killing kit for $14,850. The case itself was American walnut, carved with a cross on the lid. Inside, according … Read more
The Forest That Remembers Hikers who stray off the trail near Hope, British Columbia, sometimes stumble on something strange: broad, umbrella-sized leaves growing in thick, oddly deliberate patches. Nothing about the layout looks natural. That’s because it isn’t. The spot sits on the former Tashme internment camp, one of several sites where Canada forced more … Read more
A Corpse, a Crowd, and a Bottle of Smelling Salts On September 3, 1840, Marie Lafarge walked into a courtroom in Tulle, France, dressed in mourning black, accused of poisoning her husband Charles, a foundry owner. The case became one of the first trials the public followed almost in real time, through daily newspaper reports. … Read more
The Cup You Were About to Throw Away Picture a paper coffee cup right after it’s been drained: crumpled rim, coffee rings on the cardboard, a few minutes from the trash can. Now picture that same cup with a clean line of lettering wrapped around its side, spelling out a joke sharp enough to stop … Read more
A Teenager’s Strange Little Project Sometime between 1940 and 1942, a British teenager did something most people would call pointless: picking up her cats’ shed whiskers from the floor, the hearthrug, even under the draft blocker on the back door, and keeping them. She wove each one into the page of a handmade book, dated … Read more