Richard Feynman, sexism and changing perceptions of a scientific icon
The text of this post has been removed because it did not meet Scientific American‘s quality standards.
Stories by Ashutosh Jogalekar
Environment
Gavrilo Princip, conspiracy theories and the fragility of cause and effect
A hundred years ago this day in Sarajevo, disgruntled nationalist Gavrilo Princip fired a shot. An Archduke and his wife died, the world mourned and fulminated, and in a rash of misunderstanding and patriotic throes the nations of Europe went to war with each other, a war that in its calculated butchery exceeded all that [...]..
Environment
New Cystic Fibrosis Medication a Triumph of Drug Discovery
Getting a drug from conception to market is among the riskiest, hardest and most expensive of scientific and human endeavors, often requiring up to ten years of effort and anywhere between 1 and 5 billion dollars...
Oppenheimer’s folly: On black holes, fundamental laws and pure and applied science
On September 1, 1939, the same day that Germany attacked Poland and started World War 2, a remarkable paper appeared in the pages of the journal Physical Review.
Molecular modeling and physics: A tale of two disciplines
In my professional field of molecular modeling and drug discovery I often feel like an explorer who has arrived on the shores of a new continent with a very sketchy map in his pocket.
Environment
Philosophy Begins Where Physics Ends, and Vice Versa
Physicist Sean Carroll has some words of wisdom for physicists who might have less than complimentary things to say about philosophy. The most recent altercation between a physicist and philosophy came from Neil deGrasse Tyson who casually disparaged philosophy in a Q&A session, saying that it can be a time sink and it doesn’t actually [...]..
Making nuclear energy cheap: The view from the Breakthrough Institute
I have been wanting to highlight this review of strategies to make nuclear energy cheap and efficient from the Breakthrough Institute for a while.
The Sciences
Verizon Ad Warns Parents Not to Squelch Daughters' Interest in Science
At a time when we are still seeing subtle and not-so-subtle opposition to fostering young girls’ interest in STEM disciplines and to women’s mobility in professional science, it’s encouraging to see this ad from Verizon asking parents to not squelch their daughters’ natural curiosity...
Truth and beauty in science
Philip Ball who is one of my favorite science writers has a thoughtful rumination on the constant tussle between beauty and truth in science.
Evolution
Genes and Race: The Distant Footfalls of Evidence
A review of Nicholas Wade’s book, “A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History“. In this book NYT science writer Nicholas Wade advances two simple premises: firstly, that we should stop looking only toward culture as a determinant of differences between populations and individuals, and secondly, that those who claim that race is only a [...]..
How a college student can derive the RNA world hypothesis from scratch
One of the greatest breakthroughs in twentieth century biology was the finding that RNA can serve as a catalyst and drive some of life’s essential chemical reactions.
The structure of DNA 61 years later: How they did it.
This month marks the sixty-first anniversary of the publication of the landmark paper on the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick, which appeared in the April 25, 1953 issue of the journal Nature...
Biology
(Don't) Mind the Gap: Manufacutring Costs and Drug Prices
Misleading statements and conclusions regarding drug costs and prices are again being thrown around. It started with a post right here on Scientific American Blogs with the title “The Quest: $84,000 Miracle Cure Costs Less Than $150 to Make”...
Y Combinator and biotech: The wave of the future?
Y Combinator is the well-known startup incubator that picks promising computer technology startup ideas from a competition every year and seeds them with a few tens of thousands of dollars and dedicated space in Silicon Valley in return for an equity stake...
The Sciences
Why Prejudice Alone Doesn't Explain the Gender Gap in Science
This is a guest post from my friend Chris Martin. Chris (chriscmartin.com) studied psychology and music at Davidson College, human-computer interaction at Georgia Tech, and psychology at the College of William and Mary...
Space & Physics
It’s the End of Fundamental Physics... Again
Fellow Scientific American blogger John Horgan is at it again. This time he is heralding the end of fundamental physics based on the increasing time lag between Nobel Prizes awarded for fundamental discoveries...
Diversifiers of the world – Unite!
On my computer screen right now are two molecules. They are both large rings with about thirty atoms each, a motley mix of carbons, hydrogens, oxygens and nitrogens.
Physics envy: The last emotion you ever want to feel
This is a guest post by my friend Pinkesh Patel, a data scientist at Facebook. Pinkesh has a PhD in physics from Caltech during which he worked on LIGO, the gravitational wave detector.
Biology
The House of Representatives Committee on Science is turning into a national embarrassment
A few days back I wrote a post explaining why I am all for private support of basic science, especially in an age when government funding and support is flagging.
Biology
Are we entering a golden era of private science funding?
Last week, the BICEP2 experiment dropped a bombshell in the physics world by announcing potential evidence for gravitational waves from inflation as well as support for the quantization of gravity...
