While resurrecting dinosaurs may not be on the docket just yet, gene drives have the power to alter entire species.
Hiroshi Watanabe/DigitalVision via Getty Images
As genetic engineering and DNA manipulation tools like CRISPR continue to advance, the distinction between what science ‘could’ and ‘should’ do becomes murkier.
Prepare to be stunned by a technology that nature perfected.
maradek/iStock via Getty Images
Bill Sullivan, Indiana University School of Medicine
Albert Alexander was the first known person treated with penicillin. While his ultimately fatal case is well known in medical histories, the cause of his illness has been misattributed for decades.
Tu Youyou shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2015.
Claudio Bresciani/AFP via Getty Images
Brian Finlayson, The University of Melbourne and Ray Sumner, California State University, Dominguez Hills
A total eclipse that travelled the full width of Australia in 1922 offered astronomers the chance to confirm Einstein’s theory of general relativity - and for the community to enjoy a rare spectacle.
After six decades during which it tracked lunar missions, spotted distant pulsars and quasars, and even expanded our concept of the size of the Universe, the Parkes telescope is still going strong.
Children and parents lined up for polio vaccines outside a Syracuse, New York school in 1961.
AP Photo
Public health experts know that schools are likely sites for the spread of disease, and laws tying school attendance to vaccination go back to the 1800s.
Women who got their start in the male-dominated profession 40 years ago have advice for today’s newcomers in STEM.
Contributor/Denver Post via Getty Images
On Oct. 1, 1971, Godfrey Hounsfield’s invention took its first pictures of a human brain, using X-rays and an ingenious algorithm to identify a woman’s tumor from outside of her skull.
When people think about how AI might ‘go wrong’, most probably picture malevolent computers trying to cause harm. But what if we should be more worried about them seeking pleasure?
Eunice Foote described the greenhouse gas effects of carbon dioxide in 1856.
Carlyn Iverson/NOAA Climate.gov
The results of Foote’s simple experiments were confirmed through hundreds of tests by scientists in the US and Europe. It happened more than a century ago.
A single brilliant insight is only part of the story of how diabetes became a manageable disease.
Douglas Grundy/Three Lions via Getty Images
A biomedical engineer explains the basic research that led to the discovery of insulin and its transformation into a lifesaving treatment for millions of people with diabetes.
Emmy Noether made significant contributions to theoretical mathematics.
Konrad Jacobs, Erlangen/Wikimedia Commons
More than a century after publishing major papers in theoretical mathematics, German-born Emmy Noether continues to challenge and inspire mathematicians with her story and mathematical legacy.
The worldwide fascination with UFOs started in the late 1940s after a few incidents made the news in the U.S.
David Zaitz/The Image Bank via Getty Images
The history of UFOs weaves together public fascination, government secrecy and cultural phenomena. Recent news and shifts in the government’s stance on UFOs are giving new life to the mystery.
As a printer’s apprentice in 1721, Franklin had a front-row seat to the controversy around a new prevention technique.
ClassicStock/Archive Photos via Getty Images
When Bostonians in 1721 faced a deadly smallpox outbreak, a new procedure called inoculation was found to help fend off the disease. Not everyone was won over, and newspapers fed the controversy.
Long misunderstood, snake tongues have fascinated naturalists for centuries.
reptiles4all/iStock via Getty Images Plus
Politics always influences what questions scientists ask. Their intertwined relationship becomes a problem when politics dictates what answers science is allowed to find.