In 1993, Wilma Stuart gave birth to two baby boys. They were fraternal twins, so some dissimilarity was to be expected. However, only one of the boys seemed to take after his parents of white Dutch heritage. The other sported a much darker complexion. Wilma’s pregnancy was due to in-vitro fertilization (IVF), in which her […]

In 1960, when scientists first developed Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation, skeptical scientists and engineers joked that this new LASER was a “solution lacking a problem”. But within just a few years, practical uses began to arise for the new technology. Steady advances over the next few decades allowed ever-smaller lasers to produce […]

The year was 1957. The power of the atom had been unleashed upon the world. Technology–along with just about everything else–was booming. Safe, plentiful nuclear energy promised to be too cheap to meter, and radioactive waste seemed only a minor concern. It was an age of optimism and naiveté; a time of action without consequences. […]

For all that mankind has learned through science, the Universe has so far managed to keep most of its secrets. For instance, we don’t know where the Universe came from, what its fate will be, or even its most basic composition. But over the last few decades, tantalizing clues and some very intelligent guesswork led […]

Passenger Pigeons (Ectopistes Migratorius) were once so numerous that by some estimates they outnumbered all the rest of the birds in North America combined. The swift birds were capable of flying in excess of 60 miles per hour, and frequently migrated hundreds of miles in search of suitable grounds for nesting and feeding. Yet their […]

Gerald Bull is a prime example of a man who created his own luck–unfortunately for him most of it was bad. A brilliant and distinguished artillery engineer, Bull spent much of his life in the upper echelons of government-funded weapons research. Though his career took him down a convoluted and often difficult path, he devoted […]

At the height of the Cold War in the late 1950s, all international communications were either sent through undersea cables or bounced off of the natural ionosphere. The United States military was concerned that the Soviets (or other “Hostile Actors”) might cut those cables, forcing the unpredictable ionosphere to be the only means of communication […]

Deep beneath the plains of central Texas lies a catacomb of tunnels once meant to house the most expensive physics experiment ever devised. That experiment, the Superconducting Supercollider, would have revolutionized our understanding of the physical world by giving us our first glimpse of the “God Particle.” And, proposed during the Cold War, it would […]

If there truly is some extraterrestrial Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy it would undoubtedly list a total solar eclipse as one of the sights to see while taking a break from probing Earth’s natives. Total solar eclipses, called totality for short, are pretty rare here on Earth; a casual observer might see only one or […]

Natural disasters are tragedies that usually strike randomly and infrequently – unless you happen to live in the Huang He River (colonially referred to as the Yellow River) valley in China. In the space of just over 50 years between 1887 and 1943, some 10 million people drowned or died of famine and disease as […]