History of Science

Protein...evolution...

If you ignore for a second the constant forward-looking attention Internet news demands and stretch your mind back to the Mad Cow Disease scare of 2004, you might remember thinking "how strange that proteins can act as pathogens in the mammalian body!"

Mad Cow scares us because it's an enigma--a protein disease that acts like it has DNA. But now it's looking more familiar, as researchers prove it mutates very much like a DNA or RNA virus or bacteria.

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Great Scientists Who Aren't As Well-Known As They Should Be, Part 1: Hedy Lamarr

Part 1: Hedy Lamarr, Engineer

Science is too important not to be a part of popular culture.

- Brian Cox

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Empiricism comes naturally...


No career seemed insurmountable to me, as a teenager. Im not sure if it was sheer arrogance that got me into science--i'd like to think genuine curiosity and thirst for empiricism had something to do with it, too.

Yet, teens today struggle to see a science career in their future--but, not for the reasons you'd think (it's geeky/boring.)

In the 2010 Lemelson-MIT Invention Index, teens show a strong understanding of the creative and fun aspects of science, but less understanding of the societal implications of that tinkering:

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Making philosophy less mischievous: Isaac Newton on his official birthday-

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

Isaac Newton was born in Lincolnshire, more than ten weeks prematurely in the winter of 1642/3. His father died before he was born, but the family were not without money, and Isaac and his mother pottered on alone until she remarried a rector when he was three. Isaac, understandably, loathed his step-father. Less understandably, he later recorded that he had threatened to burn both his mother and step-father alive in an outburst of temper. His mother went on to have more children, but remained devoted to her eldest son.

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Royal Society's 350-Year-Anniversary, and We Get the Gifts

The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, although not formally incorporated until 1662 is celebrating its 350 year in 2010. As an early gift to all of us, they just launched a new section on their excellent website:

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Revolutions & Drugs Policy

Copernicus, Galileo & Pope Urban VIII
The idea that the sun revolves around the earth went unquestioned for along time, supported, as it was, by an unassailable authority - scripture. The relevant passages (King James) are:

  • “the world is stablished, that it cannot be moved” psalm 93:1
  • “the world shall be established that it shall not be moved” psalm 96:10
  • the Lord … “who laid the foundations of the earth that it should not be removed for ever” psalm 104:5
  • “the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved” 1 Chronicles 16:30
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