History of Science

Seventeen years ago, Phil Yam, then news editor (now managing editor, online), was looking for a rent-a-kid to test out the newly opening physics playground at the New York Hall of Science.

I recently got into an argument, again, about cancer. The occasion was a talk by one of my colleagues at Stevens Institute, philosopher Gregory Morgan, on the fascinating history of research into cancer-causing viruses.

College lecture classes have been around for more than 900 years. Lately, a handful of science and engineering professors have been experimenting with a more innovative way of teaching science, especially at the introductory level.

A new book argues race and genetics explain "the rise of the West." Bad science explains the downfall of its ideas. Nicholas Wade is not a racist.

The west coast of the U.S. is not only characterized by earthquakes and related myths, but also by volcanoes and also these natural phenomena became incorporated in supernatural stories.

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 [...]

Psychologists find that the agricultural region in China where people grew up predicted whether they have an individualistic or communal outlook

A competition for attention lies at the heart of the scientific enterprise. And the abstract is its “blurb.” A scientific abstract is a summary used to attract readers to an article and to get a piece of research accepted for a conference presentation.

The sunshine that warms Washington, D.C. is once again generating electricity for the White House. After an absence of nearly 30 years, the Obama administration has announced that a 6.3 kilowatt photovoltaic installation of the “typical size for an American house,” is back on the White House roof and generating power.

One of my good friends is an engineer trained in Canada. I had noticed over the years that she always wears a plain silver ring on her pinky, but I never asked if it had any special meaning to her.

In his new book, astrobiologist Lewis Dartnell compiles the knowledge necessary for society to recover after a devastating disaster, including the basics of taking photographs
 

By 1664, the year he published his most famous book of neuroanatomy, Cerebri Anatome, Dr. Thomas Willis was already renowned in Britain for saving lives.