ALL POSTS

In 1941, the first patent was filed for a hot new product that stood to revolutionize the electronics field - it was a capacitor that...

We can be a heedless species. We daily expose ourselves to wear and tear both from the environment and our own actions that take their...

In the early 20th century, buying and consuming food of any sort in an urban center was a fraught proposition, particularly in the days...

In its externals the life of Emma Carr (1880-1972) bears many similarities to that of fellow physicist Margaret Maltby (1860-1944). Both...

An American woman hoping to make her way in science in the 19th century carried with her the knowledge that, as soon as she had a child...

Untold billions of miles away, a star explodes, and violently ejects barrages of hydrogen and helium atoms into the universe at speeds...

The years of the Second World War gifted to American feminism one of its most enduring icons in the form of Rosie the Riveter.  She was...

The list of Quaker women who made fundamental contributions to the science of crystallography while in prison is a short one.  In fact,...

It is early August in the year 1794, and jails, choked with the enemies of Maximilien Robespierre and his Committee for Public Safety,...

In 1983, one of the great pillars of modern physics was cemented in place when CERN announced the discovery of a group of particles that...

Carbon. Its astounding versatility is matched only by our total and historic complacency in the face of its wonders. “Carbon? Whatever...

To fully appreciate Lise Meitner, you have to first forget everything you learned about the atom in high school. Forget that the nucleus...

You want to see tough? Take a look at this picture of Marie Curie near life’s end. It’s not an image you see a lot, but there is no...

On October 4, 1957, the United States received the greatest single blow to its prestige since the burning of the White House in 1814 with...

The human body is a truly wonderful place to live, if you can fit in it. It's warm and protected and, because humans are such clever at...

How is it that, starting from a single fertilized egg, employing only mechanical processes, you can form a kangaroo, a housefly, or a...

In 1932, Irving Langmuir won the Nobel Prize for his life of work investigating the physics of how surfaces interact with their...

Who (besides, obviously, bacteria) doesn't love penicillin? It's on everybody's shortlist of the most important things we've discovered...

Remember back when I said that botanists were the most under-respected members of the scientific community? Well, that's true until you...

When Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958) succumbed to cancer at the age of thirty-seven, she left behind monumental contributions to three...