History of Science
The Ten Best Science Books of 2020
New titles explore the mysterious lives of eels, the science of fear and our connections to the stars
Two Darwin Notebooks Quietly Went Missing 20 Years Ago. Were They Stolen?
Staff at Cambridge University Libraries previously assumed that the papers had simply been misplaced in the vast collections
Even in the Bolivian Amazon, Average Human Body Temperature Is Getting Cooler
A new study finds the average body temperature among Bolivia’s Tsimane people dropped by nearly a full degree in just 16 years
How a Public Health Campaign in the Warsaw Ghetto Stemmed the Spread of Typhus
A new study shows how life-saving efforts by Jewish doctors helped curb an epidemic during World War II
A Bird Named for a Confederate General Sparks Calls for Change
McCown’s longspur has launched a renewed reckoning over the troubling histories reflected in taxonomy
Tesla's Patents, Einstein's Letters and an Enigma Machine Are Up for Auction
Christie's Eureka! sale features personal and academic objects owned by 20th-century scientists
Compare the Flu Pandemic of 1918 and COVID-19 With Caution
The past is not prediction
Graduate Student Untangles Decades-Old Math Problem in Less Than a Week
Lisa Piccirillo recently published her proof of Conway’s knot problem, a well-known quandry that stumped mathematicians for more than 50 years
Building a Mouse Squad Against COVID-19
A Maine laboratory is on the verge of supplying a much-needed animal for SARS-CoV-2 research
Poo-Sniffing Peeps, Miss Ameripeep and More Emerge Victorious in #PeepYourScience 2020 Competition
Blending marshmallows with scientific rigor, the contest offers levity during a difficult time
A Dead Cat's Brain Revives Discussion of 1960s Mercury Poisoning Disaster in Japan
The exact molecule behind the Minamata mercury disaster, caused by a chemical plant’s wastewater, remains a point of disagreement
This 2,000-Year-Old Skull May Belong to Pliny the Elder
The Roman statesman launched a rescue mission when Vesuvius erupted but lost his life in the process
Human Body Temperature Is Getting Cooler, Study Finds
Our average normal temperature may no longer be 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit
Why This 18th-Century Naturalist Believed He’d Discovered an Eyewitness to the Biblical Flood
Smithsonian paleontologist Hans Sues recounts a colossal tale of mistaken identity
The Top Ten Scientific Discoveries of the Decade
Breakthroughs include measuring the true nature of the universe, finding new species of human ancestors, and unlocking new ways to fight disease
The Ten Best Science Books of 2019
New titles explore the workings of the human body, the lives of animals big and small, the past and future of planet earth and how it's all connected
How Dan the Zebra Stopped an Ill-Fated Government Breeding Program in Its Tracks
At the centennial of the death of this captive animal, an archaeozoologist visited collections at the Smithsonian to examine human-animal relationships
How Scientists Resolved the Mystery of the Devil's Corkscrews
Smithsonian paleontologist Hans-Dieter Sues tells the tale of a fossil find that bedeviled early 20th-century researchers
One Hundred Years Ago, Einstein's Theory of General Relativity Baffled the Press and the Public
Few people claimed to fully understand it, but the esoteric theory still managed to spark the public's imagination
How Charlotte Moore Sitterly Wrote The Encyclopedia of Starlight
The "world’s most honored woman astrophysicist" worked tirelessly for decades to measure the makeup of the sun and the stars
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