Vannevar Bush

Science in War, Science in Peace: Origins of the NSF

The establishment of a federal agency devoted to space, physics, and more belied a cross-party consensus that such disciplines were vital to national interest.
Mother's hand holding baby's hand on the cover of "Blue: A History of Postpartum Depression in America".

On Rachel Louise Moran’s "Blue: A History of Postpartum Depression in America"

A new book challenges the discursive ignorance about the condition.
During its first year of service, Freedom House Amublance Service transported more than 4,600 patients across 5,800 calls, saving 200 lives. Heinz History Center

These Black Paramedics Are the Reason You Don’t Have to Ride a Hearse or Police Van to the Hospital

In the 1960s and 1970s, Freedom House Ambulance Service set the standard for emergency medical care, laying the groundwork for the services available today.
An eraser erasing a drawing of man.

R.F.K., Jr., Anthony Fauci, and the Revolt Against Expertise

It used to be progressives who distrusted the experts. What happened?
Yosemite Valley from Artist’s Point

This Land is Their Land: Trump is Selling Out the US’s Beloved Wilderness

During the McCarthy era’s darkest days, public lands came under attack. History now repeats itself – and this may be the last chance to defend what’s ours.
Hakeem Jeffries with a sign that reads "Hands off Medicaid and SNAP"
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The Historic Dangers of Slashing Medicaid Funding

Medicaid has always been fiercely contested political terrain, and past cuts have had disastrous human costs.

How to Not Get Poisoned in America

"We should go back into history and ask: Why did we need the federal Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906?"
Lethal injection table.
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Lethal Injection Is Not Based on Science

The history of the three-drug combo used in death-penalty executions. 
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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The History of Why Raw Milk Regulation is Necessary

In the 19th century, tens of thousands of babies died every year of gastroenteritis.
A woman holding her head in distress, and a naked woman sitting on an illustration of a toy car pulled by string.

Frog-Free

The demystification of pregnancy.
Man working on a farm.

RFK Jr.’s 18th-Century Idea About Mental Health

The health secretary’s clearest plans for psychiatric treatment are a retreat to the past.
Eliot Noyes standing outside of an IBM building.

The Complicated Legacy of Eliot Noyes

Noyes is not a household name, but his evangelism for the notion of design as a holistic strategy is so pervasive that many now take it for granted.
Military patients in an emergency hospital at Camp Funston, Kansas, 1918.

How the Industrialization and Militarism of the Early 1900s Helped Spread the Spanish Influenza

The public and private battles waged across Europe and the United States during the 1918 flu pandemic.
Dave Edmonston

The Measles Vaccine Came From His Body. He Went Anti-vax. Not Anymore.

As a boy, David Edmonston was the source of today’s measles vaccine. Now he regrets vaccine doubts.

Queer Activists and the Struggle for AIDS Education

Queer resistance to state-sponsored oppression campaigns, from Reagan to Trump.
Typewriter

The QWERTY Keyboard Will Never Die. Where Did the 150-Year-Old Design Come From?

The invention’s true origin story has long been the subject of debate.
American Flag with Stars replaced with atoms and stripes replaced by syringes and graduated cylinders

The Rise (and Fall?) of the National Science Foundation

In the ’50s, America declared science an ‘endless frontier.’ We may be reaching the end of it.
Wooden mannequin propped up with head hung low.

How a Scientific Consensus Collapsed

The curious case of social psychology.
A bulldozer juxtapositioned with destroyed buildings and barren land.

The Shrouded, Sinister History Of The Bulldozer

From India to the Amazon to Israel, bulldozers have left a path of destruction that offers a cautionary tale for how technology can be misused.
Eastern State Penitentiary in Pennsylvania.

Who Shall and Shall Not Have a Place in the World?

Can the racialist and eugenicist roots of statistics can be cordoned off from “proper” science?
A “mosser” with a load of seaweed bound for the agar factory in Beaufort, N.C.

When Fishermen Harvested Seaweed: The Agar Industry in Beaufort, N.C. during the Second World War

How a small factory off the coast of North Carolina played a role in the war.
Carrie Baker and her book Abortion Pills: US History and Politics.

The Forgotten—and Incredibly Important—History of the Abortion Pill

Mifepristone took longer to get approved than most drugs—but not because it was unsafe.
A satellite orbiting the Earth.

Inside the CIA’s Decades-Long Climate “Spy” Campaign

How a top-secret satellite surveillance program accidentally documented climate change.
Overhead view of neighborhood in the Palisades destroyed by wildfires.
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The L.A. Fires Expose the Problem With Conservation Policy

For more than a century, conservation policy has focused on economic development and wisely using natural resources.
A nurse passing a cup with methadone through a glass window.
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History Exposes the Flaw in RFK Jr.'s Drug Treatment Plan

Kennedy wants to create "wellness drug rehabilitation farms." But the U.S. tried it before, and it didn't work.
A doctor vaccinating a patient.
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The Origins of the Anti-Vaccination Movement

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s nomination to lead HHS reflects the rising power of an anti-vaccination movement more than 100 years in the making.
Woman in a hospital bed reading a pamphlet called "After the Abortion."

Her “Health and Thus Her Life”

Abortion exceptions in legal history.

The Naval Scientist Who Wanted To Know How Football Players Would Survive Nuclear War

It wouldn’t take much, the fan explained, just some radioactive material inside the players, who would then undergo a physical examination.

Farmer George

The connections between the first president’s commitment to agricultural innovation and his evolving attitudes toward his enslaved laborers at Mount Vernon.
David Dobson with scientific equipment.

Nuclear Proliferation and the “Nth Country Experiment”

A mid-1960s “do-it-yourself” project produced “credible nuclear weapon” design from open sources.