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

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

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,...

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...

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...

Every morning we wake up to a feast of assumptions. We assume that the place our sewage gets dumped is not the same place our drinking...