History of Science

Books and recommendations from Scientific American

When the World Health Organization recently named blood transfusions from Ebola survivors as its priority experimental therapy for the disease ravaging west Africa there was only one major problem: no data indicating that such transfusions work.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s Mariner IV spacecraft (November 28, 1964). In total, the mission gave us 21 complete images of Mars, including this, our first close view of the planet—courtesy of data transmitted by the interplanetary probe and earth-bound scientists wielding pastels (below).

The latest outbreak in humans represents not just the most recent but also most deadly among several incidents dating back to 1976

Genetic blueprints attached to a rocket survived a short spaceflight and later passed on their biological instructions

The Wall Street Journal found in 2010 that an NFL game has just 11 minutes of actual action. Eight decades earlier, Scientific American found just about the same thing
 

I'm as sworn to radical rationalism as the next neo-Darwinian materialist. That said, over the years I've had to "quarantine," for lack of a better word, a few anomalous personal experiences that have stubbornly defied my own logical understanding of them.

Two journalists combine history, science and storytelling to recount the experiences of those who experienced the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck Japan in 2011 and its aftermath

Looking for a gift that says, "Hey, I know you like math"? Look no further. There is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to wonderful mathematical things to give to people, but here are some of the coolest items I've seen this year.

Reported in Scientific American, This Week in World War I: November 21, 1914 From the Scientific American Supplement issue of November 21, 1914, we note, "The first object of an army in war is to disperse or destroy the enemy, but a correlative duty is the care of its own men when wounded or otherwise [...]

As a nation's population ages, more and more older people may draw from support systems such as Social Security, yet fewer workers may be around to pay into those systems.