Have you noticed that you see so many pictures of people wearing face masks during the 1918-20 influenza pandemic, but you don’t…

The people who sign up for the first-in-human trials of Covid-19 vaccines are about to do our societies an extraordinary service. Most…

It was “a large, plain white building”, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote, “on the banks of the Seine, opposite the Rue des…

This Black History Month, I’ve dug into the origin stories of African-American STEM societies, and the amazing people who started…

This Black History Month, I’ve dug into the founding stories of African-American STEM societies. In previous posts we’ve covered groups from…

After the slow first wave of African-American STEM societies from 1895 to 1947 (part 1), a new wave swept in…

When we celebrate STEM history, we tend to focus on individuals singled out for specific inspiring scientific achievements. And that’s…

I had been losing sight, slowly at first, but later, scarily quickly. By the time I had my first surgery…

It was a turning point. The previous year, the US Civil Rights Act had passed. On 26 January 1969 in…

This story didn’t get off to a very good start. It turns out, it’s not easy to dig out online who’s been…

I knew there wasn’t a steady, inexorable rise of women in science. I still thought of it as a trajectory of progress though: virtually…

Freedom itself is again at stake… It is difficult to believe in progress, at least in decency and commonsense, when this…