The reconstructed skeleton of Lucy, found in Hadar, Ethiopia, in 1974, and Grace Latimer, then age 4, daughter of a research team member.
James St. John/Flickr
The image of a kneeling person in chains was first used in a seal commissioned by the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, established by English Quakers in 1787.
Protein wave oscillations open a window into living cells.
Scott Coyle and Rohith Rajasekaran
Warrior-monks crusaded for Christianity throughout medieval Europe. Adding to the ongoing mystery surrounding the military order is their enigmatic seal.
‘Christ of the New Jerusalem’ − created in 1915 for the Uranienborg Church, Oslo, by Emanuel Vigeland.
Michel M. Raguin
Studying the human brain is difficult because of its vast and intricate network of neural connections. The fruit fly offers a simpler but similar model that researchers can more easily map.
This image of a single crystal shows 30 million years of geological history of the Himalayas by tracing its thorium concentration and age.
Matthew J. Kohn
Fighting for voter access is an inevitable part of any democracy, from ancient Rome to the US today. Roman legislators were able to thwart elite political sway by introducing written ballots.
The characteristic hammer-shaped head is just becoming visible in this image of an embryonic bonnethead shark. Scale bar = 1 cm.
Steven Byrum and Gareth Fraser, Department of Biology, University of Florida
Because hammerhead sharks give birth to live young, studying their embryonic development is much more complicated than harvesting some eggs and watching them develop in real time.
One of the earliest depictions of flying witches is in a 15th-century text entitled “Le champion des dames,” or “The Defender of Ladies.”
Martin Le Franc/W. Schild. Die Maleficia der Hexenleut' via Wikimedia Commons
The iconic image of a witch on a broomstick has apocryphal origins. But whether they could actually fly didn’t stop Christian society from persecuting them.