History of Science

Last night the winners of the 2015 Breakthrough Prizes were announced, including the $3 million Fundamental Physics Prize — likely the most lucrative such honor in science.

It was a big week for physics in the movies, with the premiere of Interstellar, and the Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything. That translates into lots of pixels commenting on the science behind the films.

November 5th marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of Mariner 3, America’s first mission to Mars, which was lost in space. Steve Mirsky reports

 

A few months ago I wrote about some mystifying mathematical and geographic tiles I encountered at the National Tile Museum in Lisbon, Portugal.

The Republican Party is widely predicted to win control of the Senate as a result of today's midterm elections. In broadstrokes, that outcome portends a green light for the Keystone XL Pipeline, a blow to the Affordable Care Act and a push for corporate tax reform.

"Everybody dies, and every ship sinks" is the abbreviated story of the battle in which the Huis de Kreuningen was lost. Archaeologists believe they've now found it

August 3, 1562 a devastating thunderstorm hit central Europe, damaging buildings, killing animals and destroying crops and vineyards. The havoc caused by this natural disaster was so great, so unprecedented, that soon an unnatural origin for the storm was proposed.

The current incentive structure often leads to dead-end studies—but there are ways to fix the problem

Most software today arrives full of small bugs. But big glitches have lost whole spacecraft or could send tourists driving into the ocean

But coming of age during a recession could temper that rising trend

Historical agriculture practices predict modern mentalities