Scientific advances depend on experiments, people and careful distinctions between a result and a promise. This collection moves from early balloon flights and anaesthesia to supersonic flight, space missions and gene editing, examining what each milestone made possible.
Science
Casgevy has allowed many trial participants with sickle cell disease to go a year without severe crises and many with beta-thalassemia to stop regular transfusions. The latest…
Science
On October 16, 1846, a Boston printer underwent an operation with ether. The demonstration helped transform surgery, but his medical record tells a more complicated story.
Science
On October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager piloted the Bell X-1 past Mach 1 over California. The milestone was not a lone pilot’s duel with an invisible wall: it grew from aeronautical…
Science
On October 11, 1968, three astronauts launched into Earth orbit on the first crewed Apollo mission. Apollo 7 did not approach the Moon. It had a more urgent job: prove that a…
History
In 1783, balloons gave people a practical way to leave the ground. From the Montgolfier brothers’ experiments in France to a Channel crossing and scientific journeys above the…
