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Great cosmology research requires accounting for an enormous number of variables, everything from nuclear detonations to bird droppings. In this animation from Nature, the American radio astronomer Robert Wilson discusses how a pair of pigeons living in a large antenna frustrated attempts to measure the minimum brightness of the sky. Even once the pigeons were removed, the measurements still weren’t right. The issue, it turned out, was cosmic microwave background radiation left behind by the Big Bang – a discovery that would eventually earn Wilson part of the 1978 Nobel Prize in physics.
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Earth science and climate
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Cosmology
The Indian astronomer whose innovative work on black holes was mocked at Cambridge
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Astronomy
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Physics
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Biotechnology
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Medicine
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Space exploration
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Biography and memoir
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Meaning and the good life
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