Over 50 exquisite hand-painted Renaissance maps decorate a Medici storage room.

The largest and most famous wax anatomical collection anywhere in the world.

According to the local folklore, the myriad colors of this lake are the result of a lovelorn wizard's blunder.

The middle finger of modernity.

The last moments of the ill-fated Pompeiians, frozen forever in plaster.

This Venice bookstore has resigned itself to constant flooding by keeping its books in bathtubs and boats.

Hundreds of lucky felines haunt the ruins where Caesar was murdered.

Stalactites and stalagmites in a beautifully lit cave.

An Italian crevasse filled with abandoned buildings gives visitors a look at the world without humans.

The world's first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory continues to report on the stars.

Suburban observatory was personal lab of the father of modern astrophysics.

Stepping away from the glitz of mobsters and casinos to learn about the other history of Vegas.

This Arizona observatory is famous for investigations into Martian life, and as the place humans first spotted Pluto.

This 4,000-foot-diameter hole is touted as "the most well known, best preserved meteorite crater on Earth."

A preserve with 75,000 ancient drawings remains the realm of public – not just scientific – exploration.

The largest source of fossilized insects anywhere.

A museum within a museum, devoted to history's most questionable medical devices.

The final resting place of the world's first nuclear reactor.

Mutant vegetables, transgenic mosquitos, and atomic rodents span the walls of this one-of-a-kind museum.

These expertly crafted, scientifically accurate glass sea creatures were once an international phenomenon.

Where the embers of the Big Bang were first detected.

Fossilized sea bottom and lime quarry.

Astonishing collection of helmets, scientific instruments, and medical models.

An unrealized dream to wirelessly electrify the entire Earth.