Tia Ghose

Over a feverish 10-day period, scientists synthesized and described a new class of carbon molecules, called buckminster fullerenes, after the iconic 20th-century inventor.

Mathematician Grigori Perelman solved the Poincaré conjecture, and then rejected the $1 million prize that came with it.

One morning, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge began bouncing up and down and twisting to and fro before ultimately collapsing into the Puget Sound.

About 50 light-years from Earth, a gas giant about half the mass of Jupiter orbits a sunlike star. The discovery of Pegasi 51 b ushered in a new era of exoplanet research.

Messages transmitted between two computers located about 380 miles apart would form the basis of what would become the internet.

Carolyn Bertozzi and colleagues laid out a way to make paradigm-shifting "click-chemistry" compatible with living cells, opening up a window into living organisms.

On Oct. 3, 1950, three Bell Labs scientists received a patent for a "three-electrode circuit element" that would usher in the transistor age and the era of modern computing.

Alexander Fleming was doing experiments with bacteria when he woke up to a strange mold growing in his petri dish. The "mold juice" would usher in the first antibiotic, penicillin, and would revolutionize medical care for bacterial infections.

On Sept. 26, 2022, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test craft smashed into its target, the hazardous asteroid Dimorphos, and raised hopes that a space rock could be deflected from a collision course with Earth.

Sept. 17, 1999: Jesse Gelsinger died after receiving a gene therapy treatment to treat a liver disease. The death sparked an investigation and caution around gene therapy, which ultimately stalled the field for years.