Science History

Rosalind Franklin’s Numerical Data Went Farther Than One Double Helix Picture

By Catherine Meyers, Inside Science   (Inside Science)-- If you’ve heard the name Rosalind Franklin, you’ve probably also heard the names James Watson and Francis Crick. Watson and Crick form the famous duo most widely credited with figuring out the spiral ...

Article - Inside Science - Jul 28 2020 - 10:19am

Will Somebody Please Find Me A One-Handed Scientist??

If I had to pick one consistent complaint from the public about scientists it's that people feel like those who should know the most about a topic are often the least able to give people a straight answer. Instead of providing the answer they know to ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Aug 11 2020 - 10:49am

The Medieval Roots Of Blockchain Technology

Blockchain is an emergent technology that may be as transformative as the internet, according to many predictions. But this innovative new technology has a surprising link to the days of medieval treasuries. Blockchain is a distributed ledger that uses cr ...

Article - The Conversation - Dec 2 2020 - 4:46pm

Forget Mrs. Claus, What About Santa Herself?

Can Christmas be about gender? Apparently so, if the paucity of female Santas is anything to go by. There have, in fact, been cases of Australian women donning the secular red and white Santa attire as far back as 1930 — and there is no reason why we coul ...

Article - The Conversation - Dec 18 2020 - 5:01am

Science videos from which I have learned

Here are some interesting YouTube videos, from which I have learned quite a bit: Mushballs on Jupiter. Terrestrial meteorology is an intricate subject, so how about a planet which could be said to be largely made up of weather?  Here is an interesting vid ...

Blog Post - Robert H Olley - Jun 12 2021 - 9:02am

Michael Barone, The Manhattan Project Was Representative of America. 15 Black Scientist And 10-20% Black Workers.

M ichael Barone of the Washington Examiner wrote an opinion piece so false in premises that it needs no formal logic to show the flaw only a brief Google search. He writes of the Manhattan project as some sort of a disproof of affirmative action and as an ...

Blog Post - Hontas Farmer - Aug 5 2021 - 2:01pm

What Was The First Computer Game?

Do you know the name of the first computer game?   I confess I didn't and I learned programming on a Univac 1100/62 so I am a lot closer to the origination date of computer games than most people who will read this. I assumed it was a kind of punchcar ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Jan 27 2022 - 10:00am

Francesco Redi And The First Science Experiment

I had a question posed to me last week; 'what was the first science experiment?' ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Aug 26 2022 - 8:15am

Activism Or Outreach- A Call For New Ways To Communicate Climate Change

Critics of scientists and science writers who speak plainly usually note it is better to be more neutral in tone, informational- 'show them some slides.' Yet very little actually gets done that way. A few places can stay in existence writing  ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Jan 3 2023 - 12:57pm

Early 20th Century Robots: Sparko, The Robotic Scottish Terrier

At the 1939 World’s Fair, Westinghouse, which had an interest in robotics even a decade before, unveiled two robot prototypes: a humanoid named Elektro and a dog named Sparko. Elektro was able to walk, count and smoke cigarettes (which likely did not make ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Mar 31 2024 - 10:40am