Scopes Monkey Trial: Guilty
July 21 is verdict day in the infamous Scopes "Monkey" Trial of 1925. The verdict came in from a jury in Dayton, Tenn., that John Thomas Scopes had committed the crime of teaching evolution to students at his high school, for which transgression he was fined $100.
Adjunct Instructors Petition for Better Pay, Job Security
Note: We’re pleased to feature a guest post by former Cocktail Party Physics co-blogger Ann (Lee) Kottner. Jennifer has graciously given me space to ask for some help from the science writing and STEM academic and post-ac community.
How Science Determined the Structure of Solids [Timeline]
Crystallography tells us how atoms are arranged in solids and is essential for our understanding of the material world. This timeline is an adaptation of Nature Milestones in Crystallography, a project to highlight the field's defining moments
Give Us This Day the Bread Wheat Genome
A preliminary map of the bread wheat genome includes the locations of more than 75,000 genes. Cynthia Graber reports
California Sets Sizzling Record for 2014 So Far
The statewide average temperature for the first six months of 2014 was 1.1 degree F warmer than it has been for the past 120 years of records
Identities Anonymized at Science Journals to Eliminate Race and Sex Bias
Double-blind peer review could level the playing field a bit more for women and minorities in science
A Superplume Is the Reason Africa Is Splitting Apart
Primordial gases confirm the cause of the East African Rift
The Past and Future of California's Water
Aqueducts, dams and irrigation projects all made rapid development possible in the arid West
Four Great Scents from Outer Space
You don’t need your nose to know what something smells like. Perfumers and astronomers can detect and recreate scents based on the chemical signatures of the molecules in the air, even if that air is very very far away.
Elon Musk Donates $1 Million to New Tesla Museum
Musk, the CEO of electric car company Tesla Motors and rocket company SpaceX, pledged the money in support of a museum to be built on the grounds of the Serbian-American inventor's laboratory in New York
Early Universe Explorer Looks for Answers [Video]
A co-designer of an experiment that might have confirmed gravitational waves isn't bothered by criticism that cosmic dust may account for his results
LEGO Reveals Female Scientist Minifigures
After much rejoicing at the news last month that LEGO would mass-produce a set of female scientist minifigures, the company has released a prototype of the final set to its original designer, Ellen Kooijman (a.k.a.