History of Science

Modified jets spewing sulfuric acid could haze the skies over the Arctic in a few years “for the price of a Hollywood blockbuster,” as physicist David Keith of Harvard University likes to say.

When did the Anthropocene begin?

Buried in one of Isaac Newton's college notebooks is a page on which he fairly accurately theorizes on the process of transpiration in plants, two centuries before the concept was elucidated. Karen Hopkin reports    

 

The crowning achievement of the 18th-century researcher was the design of the first experiment to measure the force of gravity between masses in a lab

I’m no psychedelic prude. I reported on, and applauded, the resurgence of research into psychedelics in my 2003 book Rational Mysticism.

Astronomers have discovered variable stars that periodically dim and brighten at frequencies close to the famed golden mean

William Ruckelshaus, the first EPA administrator, criticizes today’s GOP attacks on the agency as well as industry efforts to thwart scientific evaluations of toxic chemicals

Genetics research sheds light on a long human relationship

Reported in Scientific American, This Week in World War I: January 30, 1915 X-rays were used for medical operations within a couple of months after they were discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen in late 1895.

To a human, two billion years is an unfathomable interval. But that, a team of European, Gabonese, and American scientists now say, is how long ago a recently discovered hoard of fossils suggests Earth’s first big life evolved — large enough to see with the naked eye, and in a spectrum of forms that tease [...]

Participation of broader audiences in science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) requires engaging under-served audiences. The conduit of this engagement is communication.