Welcome to Sciworthy’s Throwback Thursday feature article section, where we dig into the history of science and find classic scientific papers that made a critical contribution to the science, and thus the world, that we know today. New articles are published on the third Thursday of every month.
What do gene sequencing, catching criminals with DNA evidence, and “designer babies” all have in common? Forty years ago, these were all considered science fiction topics. Today, they are fields of serious study. All three of these fields, and many more, were made possible by a very important discovery in 1986: a…
As we settle into October, many start turning their attention towards the fall and Halloween. Scientists turn their attention to the announcement of the Nobel Prizes. This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Jennifer Duoba and Emmanuelle Charpentier for their work on CRISPR DNA-editing technology, which…
Poliomyelitis is the name of the disease caused by the poliovirus, and it mostly affects children under the age of 5, causing paralysis in a small percent of cases. The disease had been around since the 1800s at low levels, but became an epidemic in multiple countries between the 1910s-1960s. Because polio was killing…
When Dr. Ido from Jurassic Park said, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should,” he was referring to reviving the dinosaurs. On a grander scale, he was talking about the lines people were willing to cross for the sake of science. Manipulating the…
How the ancient Chinese discovery of gunpowder and a scientist burning different metals led to the fireworks we know and love today!
James Clerk Maxwell may not have invented the first electromagnet. But, he was the first person to finally prove the relationship between electricity and magnetism using math, unifying the two theories and allowing for much faster advancement.
Today, we know DNA is where we get our traits. We know we inherit our DNA from our parents, and that our DNA contains genes. We know that we can sequence DNA to learn about what genes we have, as well as the genes of plants, animals, bacteria, viruses, and more. We can even change the DNA of living things to change…
As world news about the coronavirus pandemic continues to unfold, society’s collective knowledge and interest in viruses has increased. But who discovered the first virus? How did they know what to look for? Why are viruses so good at what they do? Viruses are very curious creatures. They are extremely small…
It might be likely that civilizations eventually develop large spherical shells that can catch all of the light emitted from their stars - an idea famously credited to the late Freeman Dyson.
This is the story of how scientists first discovered that oxygen was a thing, in the 1700s. One of our writers did some digging into the original French language publication as well as some other sources and pieced it together for your reading pleasure!
