Breakthrough discovery in plants’ DNA may lead to slowing the aging process in humans, Sandee LaMotte, CNN, November 18, 2019 Topics: Biology, Civics, Civil Rights, Entropy, History, Philosophy My last post on this site was on my birthday this summer. I have been commuting to and from work in Durham during the government shutdown (aContinue reading “Travels…”
Category Archives: History
The Audacity of Arrogance…
Topics: African Studies, Civil Engineering, Civilization, Diaspora, History A personal note: I am mandated to drive into my office daily, which for me is a one-hour and ten-minute commute if the traffic is optimal. Two of my colleagues opted to separate from government service as their commutes were two hours for one and two andContinue reading “The Audacity of Arrogance…”
The End of History…
Topics: African Americans, Civics, Civil Rights, Civilization, Democracy, Existentialism, Fascism, History “The End of History and the Last Man,” by Francis Fukuyama “a 1992 book of political philosophy by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama argues that with the ascendancy of Western liberal democracy—which occurred after the Cold War (1945–1991) and the dissolution of the SovietContinue reading “The End of History…”
Willie Hobbs Moore…
Willie Hobbs Moore (left) with her daughter, Dorian, in the 1980s. (Courtesy of the Ronald E. Mickens Collection on African-American Physicists, AIP Niels Bohr Library and Archives.) Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Diversity in Science, Education, History, Theoretical Physics, Women in Science The first African American woman to earn a PhD in physics remains littleContinue reading “Willie Hobbs Moore…”
The First…
Portrait of Edward Bouchet and lithograph of early Yale College campus. Courtesy of Yale University. Via uniquecoloring.com Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Diversity in Science, Education, History, Physics Authors: Bryan A. Wilson, Ph.D., M.B.A & Sierra A. Nance, B.S. (PhD Candidate – Univ. Michigan) AbstractEdward Alexander Bouchet was born in New Haven, Connecticut, USA inContinue reading “The First…”
Reparations…
Amanda Montañez; Source: “Slaveholder Ancestry and Current Net Worth of Members of the United States Congress,” by Neil K. R. Sehgal and Ashwini R. Sehgal, in PLOS ONE. Published online August 21, 2024 Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Civilization, Democracy, Education, History U.S. Senators and Representatives whose family had a history of enslaving others have greaterContinue reading “Reparations…”
Seventy Years Ago…
Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Civilization, Existentialism, Fascism, History “On **May 17, 1954**, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th Amendment and was, therefore, unconstitutional. This historic decisionContinue reading “Seventy Years Ago…”
The Checkbook of Space Travel…
An illustration of NASA’s Orion spacecraft in orbit around the moon. (Image credit: Lockheed Martin) Topics: Astronautics, History, NASA, Space Exploration, Spaceflight Between 1969 and 1972, the Apollo missions sent a total of a dozen astronauts to the surface of the moon — and that was before the explosion of modern technology. So why does it seem likeContinue reading “The Checkbook of Space Travel…”
Esse Quam Videri…
Credit: Menno Schaefer/Adobe Starlings flock in a so-called murmuration, a collective behavior of interest in biological physics — one of many subfields that did not always “belong” in physics. Topics: Applied Physics, Cosmology, Einstein, History, Physics, Research, Science “To be rather than to seem.” Translated from the Latin Esse Quam Videri, which also happens toContinue reading “Esse Quam Videri…”
Boltwood Estimate…
Credit: Public Domain Topics: Applied Physics, Education, History, Materials Science, Philosophy, Radiation, Research We take for granted that Earth is very old, almost incomprehensibly so. But for much of human history, estimates of Earth’s age were scattershot at best. In February 1907, a chemist named Bertram Boltwood published a paper in the American Journal of Science detailing a novelContinue reading “Boltwood Estimate…”
Physics and Nano 