1863-1872 American Civil War and post-war Philadelphia • University of Colorado Boulder team identifies the caudal granular insular cortex as the brain circuit that maintains chronic pain, separable from acute pain (Journal of Neuroscience, April 2026)
In 1864 a Civil War physician at Turner's Lane Hospital in Philadelphia took seriously the pain his amputee patients reported in limbs that no longer existed. He coined the term phantom limb. He could not explain it. This week, in the Journal of Neuroscience, a team at the University of Colorado Boulder has found the brain circuit that does.
•5 min read
1906-1937 American South / Wisconsin • McGill paper pinpoints two specific brain-cell types altered in major depression
In 1914 a public-health doctor named Joseph Goldberger figured out what pellagra was. It took twenty-three more years to discover what was missing. This week, after a century of antidepressants, scientists in Montreal pinpointed two specific brain cells that go wrong in major depression. The pattern is older than either disease.
•5 min read
1912-1968 Germany / Greenland / Cambridge / Princeton • Turkana Rift enters the necking phase, the last stage before East Africa breaks apart
In 1912 a German meteorologist proposed that the continents had once been joined and were drifting apart. The geological establishment ridiculed him for fifty years. He died alone on the Greenland ice cap in 1930. This week, in the place where humanity first stood up, scientists confirmed his prediction in real time.
•4 min read
1898-1919 United States • Sony's Project Ace defeats top-25 professional table tennis players, overturning Moravec's paradox
In October 1903 the New York Times said powered flight was a million years away. Sixty-nine days later, two bicycle mechanics proved them wrong. This week, a robot did it again.
•5 min read
1856-1900 Brünn, Moravia • The return of symbolic reasoning in artificial intelligence
In 1866 an Augustinian friar in Brünn published the laws of inheritance, and the scientific world ignored them for thirty-five years. A neglected idea has just walked back in.
•4 min read
1753 St. Petersburg, Russia • First filmed observation of corona discharges on treetops during thunderstorms
In 1911, a Dutch physicist cooled mercury to near absolute zero and watched electricity do something impossible. In 2026, it happened again, in a sheet of carbon one atom thick.
•4 min read
1856-1913 • Sodium-ion batteries: CATL and BYD mass-producing batteries from salt to replace lithium
In 1898, a chemist warned the world was running out of nitrogen. In 1909, Fritz Haber pulled it from the air. In 2026, CATL is pulling batteries from salt.
•4 min read
Late 18th-century Italy (1780-1800) • Artificial neurons communicating with biological brain cells
In 1942, Fermi held a chain reaction for 28 minutes in a squash court. In 2026, KSTAR held fusion plasma for 102 seconds. The fire is different. The question is the same.