The sextant is an instrument that measures angular distance of the sun and stars from the horizon to determine latitude. It is used with a chronometer and nautical charts by navigators of ships at sea to determine location. The sextant consists of a...

A sextant is an instrument generally used to measure the angle of elevation of a celestial object above the horizon. Making this measurement is known as sighting the object, shooting the object, or taking a sight. The angle, and the time when it was...

The notes of 17th-century researcher Robert Hooke were posted on the Internet on Monday, opening an online window into the man who helped drive Britain's scientific revolution and laying bare his professional rivalries with the likes of Sir Isaac Newton.The notes, lost for centuries before...

It's the coldest of cold cases, and yet it keeps warming to life. Seventy years after Amelia Earhart disappeared, clues are still turning up. Long-dismissed notes taken of a shortwave distress call beginning, "This is Amelia Earhart...," are getting another look.The previously unknown diary of...

It's the coldest of cold cases, and yet it keeps warming to life. Seventy years after Amelia Earhart disappeared, clues are still turning up. Long-dismissed notes taken of a shortwave distress call beginning, "This is Amelia Earhart...," are getting another look.The previously unknown diary of...

As a not-so-newly divorced woman with an eight-and-a-half-year-old daughter, I have lately developed a habit of grilling married couples with the same intensity and awed fascination that I imagine Charles Darwin felt for his Galapagoan critters: What magical beasts are these, and how did they...