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The Histories Hidden in the Periodic Table

From poisoned monks and nuclear bombs to the “transfermium wars,” mapping the atomic world hasn’t been easy.
by Neima Jahromi via The New Yorker on December 27, 2019
Margaret Morse Nice, smiling, pulling paper out of typewriter, with painting of two birds behind her.

Margaret Morse Nice Thought Like a Song Sparrow and Changed How Scientists Understand Animal Behavior

This 20th century ornithologist earned the respect of her contemporaries for her animal behavior research that went against the grain of traditional science.
by Kristoffer Whitney via The Conversation on December 13, 2019

Vietnam Draft Lotteries Were a Scientific Experiment

The Vietnam draft lotteries functioned as a randomized experiment—which has allowed social scientists to study its life-changing effects.
by Tim Johnson, Dalton Conley, Christopher T. Dawes via The Atlantic on December 2, 2019

The Pirate Map That Launched My Career

Oceanographer Dawn Wright on how "Treasure Island" led her to map the bottom of the sea.
by Dawn Wright via CityLab on November 15, 2019
Ella Tyree from "Atom Scientists: Ten Negro Scientists at Argonne Lab Help in Race to Harness Atomic Materials”, Ebony magazine, September 1949, pp. 26-28. Copyright not renewed.
Exhibit

Scientific Americans

An exhibit about some of the ways that pursuits in the natural and physical sciences have helped Americans understand their world.

How the U.S. Betrayed the Marshall Islands, Kindling the Next Nuclear Disaster

A close look at the consequences of nuclear testing.
by Susanne Rust via Los Angeles Times on November 10, 2019
Drawing of a lightbulb illuminating an inventor's laboratory.

The Real Nature of Thomas Edison’s Genius

The inventor did not look for problems in need of solutions; he looked for solutions in need of modification.
by Casey N. Cep via The New Yorker on October 21, 2019
Pluto, July 2015, photographed by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft.

In Search of Planet X

The books examine the history of space exploration, from the race to discover Pluto to the idea of space colonization.
by Priyamvada Natarajan via New York Review of Books on October 3, 2019

The Military Origins of Layering

The popular way to keep warm outdoors owes a debt to World War II–era clothing science.
by Rachel S. Gross via The Atlantic on September 15, 2019
Lab equipment in an abandoned building.

The Secret History of Fort Detrick, the CIA’s Base for Mind Control Experiments

Today, it’s a cutting-edge lab. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was the center of the U.S. government’s darkest experiments.
by Stephen Kinzer via Politico Magazine on September 15, 2019

The Knotty Question of When Humans Made the Americas Home

A deluge of new findings are challenging long-held scientific narratives of how humans came to North and South America.
by Megan Gannon via Sapiens on September 4, 2019

Wearing The Lead Glasses

Lead contamination in New Orleans and beyond.
by Thomas Beller via Places Journal on May 31, 2019
Margaret Hamilton stands next to a stack of paper as tall as she is - the software she and her team produced for the Apollo project.

The Hidden Heroines of Chaos

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.
by Joshua Sokol via Quanta on May 20, 2019

When Good Scientists Go Bad

Science doesn’t make you magically objective, and it’s not separate from the rest of human experience.
by Maki Naro, Matthew Francis via The Nib on May 15, 2019

Historians Expose Early Scientists’ Debt to the Slave Trade

Key plant and animal specimens arrived in Europe on slavers’ ships
by Sam Kean via Science on April 3, 2019

Our Twisted DNA

A review of "She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity."
by Tim Flannery via New York Review of Books on February 22, 2019
A fanciful, seventeenth-century depiction of the fall of Tenochtitlan, with clashing armies.

Did Colonialism Cause Global Cooling? Revisiting an Old Controversy

However the Little Ice Age came to be, we now know that climatic cooling had profound consequences for contemporary societies.
by Dagomar Degroot via Historical Climatology on February 22, 2019

Hollow Words

Exploring John Cleves Symmes Jr.’s obsession with a hollow Earth.
by Laura Leavitt via The Smart Set on January 7, 2019

Time-Bombing the Future

Synthetics created in the 20th century have become an evolutionary force, altering human biology and the web of life.
by Rebecca Altman via Aeon on January 2, 2019
French elites at an eighteenth-century erotic seance.

Mesmerising Science: The Franklin Commission and the Modern Clinical Trial

Benjamin Franklin, magnetic trees, and erotically-charged séances.
by Urte Laukaityte via The Public Domain Review on November 20, 2018

Science’s Freedom Fighters

Why do Americans get so worked up by the basic assertion that all science is political?
by W. Patrick McCray via Los Angeles Review of Books on November 18, 2018
WW1 soldiers wearing gas masks.

How World War I Became the First Modern War of Science

One hundred years ago, a group of U.S. academics and soldiers revolutionized warfare. We’re still seeing the results today.
by Theo Emery via Politico Magazine on November 12, 2018
Human skull in a museum display case.

The Extremely Fast Peopling of the Americas

Two genetic studies show how the first Native Americans spread through their new continent with incredible speed.
by Ed Yong via The Atlantic on November 8, 2018
Museum exhibit in Peru: a diorama with artifacts and mannequins representing paleoindian culture.

Three New DNA Studies Are Shaking Up the History of Humans in the Americas

Three new genetics studies present a fascinating, complex picture of how the first people in America spread across two continents.
by George Dvorsky via Gizmodo on November 8, 2018

Inherited Trauma Shapes Your Health

A new study on Civil War prisoners suggests that our parents’—and even grandparents’—experiences might affect our DNA.
by Olga Khazan via The Atlantic on October 16, 2018
partner

Biosphere 2: A Faulty Mars Survival Test Gets a Second Act

In 1991, eight people sealed themselves inside a giant glass biosphere to practice space living. By the time they emerged, they had “suffocated, starved and went mad.”
via Retro Report on August 3, 2018

The Nuclear Fail

Physicist and writer Leo Szilard was vital to the creation of the atomic bomb. He also did everything he could to prevent its use.
by Emily Harnett via Hazlitt on July 30, 2018

Looking To History To Combat Wildfires

After decades of modern fire prevention, many forests have become dangerous tinder-boxes.
by Grace Hood via NPR on June 14, 2018

Colonialism Did Not Just Create Slavery: It Changed Geology

Researchers suggest effects of the Colonial Era can be detected in rocks or even air.
by Robin McKie via The Guardian on June 10, 2018

The Surprising History (and Future) of Fingerprints

Our identity is mapped at our fingertips, but also, maybe, our individual fate.
by Chantel Tattoli via The Paris Review on May 15, 2018

How a Soviet A-Bomb Test Led the U.S. Into Climate Science

The untold story of a failed Russian geoengineering scheme, panic in the Pentagon, and a Nixon-era effort to study global cooling.
by Sharon Weinberger via UnDark on April 20, 2018
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