Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Civilization, Democracy, Economics, Education, Existentialism Carrie Buck and her mother (left panel) were both labelled as “feebleminded,” shorthand for unintelligent and undesirable. In the 1927 the Supreme Court case, Buck v. Bell, judges endorsed the surgical sterilization of Carrie Buck, who was pregnant due to rape at age 16. Officials atContinue reading “Eugenics…”
Tag Archives: Science
Equally Terrifying…
Topics: Civilization, Existentialism, Nanoengineering, Philosophy, Quantum Mechanics, Star Trek As an undergraduate Engineering Physics major, science classes disabuse you of notions that science fiction might leave you with. “2001” was released in 1968, the year Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy Sr. were assassinated, the second year of the Star Trek franchise, oneContinue reading “Equally Terrifying…”
Now What?..
Students enter Harvard Yard, on the university’s main campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Credit: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” “There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were notContinue reading “Now What?..”
Algebraic Analysis…
Masaki Kashiwara—Abel Prize Laureate 2025. Peter Badge/Typos1/The Abel Prize Topics: Abel Prize, Mathematics, Modern Physics, Research Masaki Kashiwara, this year’s Abel Prize winner, co-founded a new field of mathematics called algebraic analysis. One of the landmarks of Kyoto, the home of mathematician Masaki Kashiwara, is the Kamo River. At certain points, there are stepping stonesContinue reading “Algebraic Analysis…”
Scaffolding and Gallium…
A branching blood vessel network fabricated using the ESCAPE process to form complex tissues. This image shows the cell nuclei color-coded based on height. Credit: Subramanian Sundaram, Boston University and Wyss Institute, Harvard University Topics: 3D Printing, Additive Manufacturing, Biology, Tissue Engineering The manufacturing technique known as 3D printing, now being used everywhere, from aircraftContinue reading “Scaffolding and Gallium…”
Woolly Mouse…
The “woolly mouse” was developed by Colossal Biosciences by editing genes to give the mouse a bushier, thicker coat, akin to that of the extinct woolly mammoth. Colossal Topics: Biology, Biotechnology, Research Note: I had a pet hamster named “Woolly,” that looked remarkably like this one. I’m sure cloning wasn’t at this point decades ago.Continue reading “Woolly Mouse…”
Entropy and Empires…
Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Civilization, Climate Change, Entropy, Existentialism The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival, Sir John Glubb, Abe Books In these inspiring essays, Sir John Glubb examines the human race over 4,000 years and finds the same patterns of rise and fall of national greatness on the same timescale. I. Pioneers –Continue reading “Entropy and Empires…”
Canceling V.I.P.E.R…
The completed VIPER rover awaits one of two fates: be sent to the Moon by an organization other than NASA or be cannibalized for its parts and instruments. Credit: NASA Topics: Astrobiology, Astronautics, Astrophysics, Chemistry, COVID-19, NASA, Space Exploration, Spectrographic Analysis “Boldly going” has budget constraints, but all is not lost. “Plan B” is atContinue reading “Canceling V.I.P.E.R…”
Black Holes and Dark Matter…
Artist’s impression of a microlensing event caused by a black hole observed from Earth toward the Large Magellanic Cloud. The light of a background star located in the LMC is bent by a putative primordial black hole (lens) in the Galactic halo and magnified when observed from the Earth. Microlensing causes very characteristic variation ofContinue reading “Black Holes and Dark Matter…”
Spectral Molecule…
Scientists detected 2-Methoxyethanol in space for the first time using radio telescope observations of the star-forming region NGC 6334I. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Topics: Astronomy, Chemistry, Instrumentation, Interstellar, Research, Spectrographic Analysis New research from the group of MIT Professor Brett McGuire has revealed the presence of a previously unknown molecule in space. The team’sContinue reading “Spectral Molecule…”
Physics and Nano 