history of science

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• SOURCE: ScienceNews
  5/4/2021
  

  2,500 Years Ago, the Philosopher Anaxagoras Brought Science’s Spirit to Athens

  2,500 years ago, Anaxagoras brought the Ionian philosophical outlook to Athens, where he helped to advance a naturalistic and empirical understanding of natural phenomena. 

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• SOURCE: Scientific American
  5/2/2021
  

  The Fermilab Muon Measurement May or May Not Point to New Physics, But ...

  by Robert P. Crease

  The measurement of the behavior of muons may or may not prove to be a groundbreaking discovery. But it is an achievement that demonstrates the collaboration across disciplines and national borders that represents the best of science. 

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• 5/2/2021
  

  Another Bite at the Apple: Isaac Newton's Time as a Man of Politics and Economics

  by Patricia Fara

  Isaac Newton's life has been retold according to the values of successive historians. Until now, most have shied away from Newton's second career at the Royal Mint, during which he was part of the growth of a British prosperity that was rooted in colonialism and slavery. 

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• 4/11/2021
  

  Can Space Exploration Restore American Faith in Science?

  by John Baick

  The 60th anniversary of the first manned space flight is time to reflect on the devolution of space exploration from an expression of science as a public and collective enterprise to a vanity project of fame-seeking billionaires.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/7/2021
  

  Our Greatest Libraries are Melting Away

  by David Farrier

  Ice core samples from the Greenland shelf are a physical archive of the long sweep of human history, and demonstrate the connections of humanity's past and future. 

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• SOURCE: Science Focus
  3/8/2021
  

  Beyond Marie Curie: The Women In Science History We Don’t Talk About

  Historian Anna Reser: "I think one of the things that [coauthor Leila McNeill and I] had to do for this book, and that I think we need to do more broadly when looking at the history of women in science, is to rethink what counts as science."

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• SOURCE: KJZZ
  2/22/2021
  

  As A New Blue Is Discovered, ASU Professor Details History Of The Color Blue

  Arizona State's Theresa Devine discusses the discovery of a new blue pigment and the social significance of blue coloring from the ancient world to today. 

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• SOURCE: Public Books
  1/18/2021
  

  When Black Humanity is Denied

  by Edna Bonhomme

  Enlightenment institutions – the prison, science, and asylums – are organized through binaries that draw boundaries between people who are and are not able to exercise freedom. Black artistic work supports Black freedom by challenging those boundaries. 

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  12/9/2020
  

  What Attacks on Science Get Wrong

  by Andrew Jewett

  Reductive diagnoses of a "war on science" ignore the specific political and cultural stakes of controversies around vaccination, climate, or creationism. 

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• SOURCE: Boston Review
  12/8/2020
  

  How Americans Came to Distrust Science

  by Andrew Jewett

  Scientists and their supporters cannot overcome the current moment of hostility toward their profession and rejection of their expertise unless they confront the cultural history of skepticism toward science, in both conservative and liberal forms. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/12/2020
  

  Newton’s Daunting Masterpiece had a Surprisingly Wide Audience, Historians Find

  Two historians of science have traced the ownership and sharing of Sir Isaac Newton's first edition of "Principia" to conclude that the book was more widely read and influential among Enlightenment thinkers than previously believed. 

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• SOURCE: Scientific American
  8/24/2020
  

  Reckoning with Our Mistakes

  "If Scientific American is to help shape a more just and hopeful future, we must learn from the arrogance and exclusions of our past. Not just because it is right, but because the power of scientific knowledge is stronger for it."

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• SOURCE: Public Books
  6/29/2020
  

  Naomi Oreskes: Feminist Science is Better Science

  Historian Andrew Needham interviews Naomi Oreskes about her new book Why Trust Science and the crisis of expertise in American society. 

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• 5/17/2020
  

  A Mathematical Duel in 16th Century Venice (Excerpt)

  by Fabio Toscano translated Arturo Sangalli

  The advancement of mathematics in renaissance Italy was complicated by a context of secrecy, jealousy, and competitive dueling governed by implicit codes of honor.

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  5/7/2020
  

  How Racism Is Shaping the Coronavirus Pandemic

  An interview with historian Evelynn Hammonds on the relationship between African-Americans and epidemics in American history, from the eighteenth century to the present day.

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• SOURCE: WBUR
  5/3/2020
  

  Science, Politics, And The Coronavirus: "A Tragedy of Denial"

  An interview with science historian Naomi Oreskes on the impact of the coronavirus on the relationship between science and politics.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/27/2020
  

  Overlooked No More: Eunice Foote, Climate Scientist Lost to History

  Eunice Foote’s ingenious experiment more than 150 years ago yielded a remarkable discovery that could have helped shape modern climate science had she not been overshadowed.

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• SOURCE: New Yorker
  4/13/2020
  

  The Pandemic Is Not a Natural Disaster

  by Kate Brown

  Zoonotic diseases can seem like earthquakes; they appear to be random acts of nature. In fact, they are more like hurricanes—they can occur more frequently, and become more powerful, if human beings alter the environment in the wrong ways.

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• SOURCE: Nature
  4/6/2020
  

  How Physics is Rocked by the Waves of History

  Up close, the all too human business of doing science is messy. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/1/2020
  

  What the Plague Can Teach Us about the Coronavirus

  by Hannah Marcus

  The distant past is not our best source of advice for pathogen containment. But it does offer clear lessons about human responses to outbreaks of infectious disease.