Science

Groundbreaking discoveries... but at what cost?

They slaughtered our ancestors and derailed our history. And they’re not finished with us yet.

Submarines played a major role in WW I. But the first submersible was actually used, unsuccessfully, in the Revolutionary War.

Poppy Northcutt planned the vital flight trajectories that got astronauts home from their missions to the moon.

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

A recollection of a NASA employee's experiences with Apollo 11 and 12.

Trans people have existed since the dawn of time. The internet has not.

The return of the disease reflects historical amnesia, declining faith in institutions, and a lack of concern for the public good.

Contrary to what Clarence Thomas recently claimed, eugenicists never favored abortion as a means of population control.

The British were a pain, to be sure, but what really caused him trouble were his teeth.

Frank Malina's scientific dreams were as radical as his politics.

The black men who formed America’s original paramedic corps wanted to make history and save lives—starting with their own.

The invention was once received with chilly skepticism but has become a fixture of American life.

In 19th-century America, rare old bones were a resource like any other.

At the time of the Apollo 11 landing, some Americans had reservations about reaching for the stars when troubles swelled on Earth.

It's worth considering how the two images of the beaver – one focused upon its hind parts and the other upon its industry – are but two acts in a single history.

Reading Silent Spring today, in the hazy reddish glow of climate catastrophe, is both an exhilarating and a melancholy pleasure.

Lead contamination in New Orleans and beyond.

Research finds that white people in regions that were heavily dependent on slavery are more likely to harbor unconscious racism.

The roots of anti-gay attitudes lay in white supremacy.

A review of three recent books that delve into the history and science of vaccines and immunity, and the anxieties that accompany them.

The code has undergone minor changes since its creation, but its use persists to this day.

Two women programmers played a pivotal role in the birth of chaos theory. Their previously untold story illustrates the changing status of computation in science.

Challenges to the legitimacy of the profession have forced it to examine itself. What, exactly, constitutes a mental disorder?

Science doesn’t make you magically objective, and it’s not separate from the rest of human experience.

ARPANET and the development of the internet, 50 years later.

We don't think much about where our waste goes, but the history of what we do with poop is also the history of how we grow food.

If the sci-fi space cities of Bezos’s Blue Origin look familiar, it’s because they’re derived from the work of his college professor.

A Pompous Doctor, a Racist Bureaucracy, and More. From the book "Black Death at the Golden Gate".

25 years later, The Bell Curve’s analysis of race and intelligence refuses to die.