Born in 1897, Janaki Ammal was a pioneering botanist who studied plant breeding, genetics & cytogenetics.

Ammal overcame both gender & caste discrimination & was the first Indian woman to obtain a Ph.D. in botany in the U.S.

Her research was crucial for developing high-yield varieties of sugarcane, eggplant & magnolias. Ammal also promoted conservation & was a pioneer of indigenous approaches to the environment. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/pioneering-female-botanist-who-sweetened-nation-and-saved-valley-180972765/ #HistoryRemix #science #history #plants

The "Lost Women of Science" podcast just did a 2 part episode about her, part of their "Lost Women of the Manhattan Project" series.

(transcripts available)

Part 1: https://www.lostwomenofscience.org/season-6-episodes/lise-meitner

Part 2: https://www.lostwomenofscience.org/season-6-episodes/why-did-lise-meitner-never-receive-the-nobel-prize-for-splitting-the-atom-part-2

#Science #History #Women #Podcast #ManhattanProject

Why Did Lise Meitner Never Receive the Nobel Prize for Splitting the Atom?

New translations of Meitner’s letters show that antisemitism before and after World War II robbed Meitner of the 1944 Nobel Prize that went to her long-time collaborator chemist Otto Hahn.

^{www.lostwomenofscience.org}

Very pleased to see NYT acknowledge Lise Meitner.

Meitner developed the theory of nuclear fission & newly translated letters show she was barred from sharing credit for the Nobel Prize-winning discovery because she was Jewish & a woman. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/science/lise-meitner-fission-nobel.html?unlocked_article_code=JGbPgv1zYxrgU0vMDkmURf0UPTTjuLHgCJ7dTnWeFmWslaXwaWhZQ2CW6dr-HuF0MeGqXSfyQV0XyOgw7VTABLw9yJxUG8Jd9xQMrPqsNiNcVd3g1GwsxckwQMW5awE4g9aTqtT-TQbgs1PG5BpMDmUsqcAuapMB798_kyVYaEEXUwILTeojASGJ6ZvwXa5e-LpMvbl3o47_ZtX4JPzngzAvKys52S_L9v2O8h3vH0JYmLSlYmeokZCyl1NmKI_ZXmKyeExgLGB165ODtBkLtFvRRkCofN7uTN2imyfz20LJtbVEy1RdwZ6hqJZf8pvRMlD8yz-OjfYq7wLSbNw5k4zs0hAs&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare #science #history #HistoryRemix

One positive that's come out of the recent SNS shake-ups is encountering new and deeply insightful voices I wouldn't have found in a more stable social network clusters/hierarchy. This article on letter writing philosophers, for example:

https://helendecruz.substack.com/p/letter-to-robin-waldun-on-reviving

Similar concept of less formal research letters is something I'd love to see revived for the modern age!

#writing #philosophy #history

Letter to Robin Waldun, on reviving the early modern tradition of philosophical letter writing

To the Esteemed and Perceptive Eternal Student Robin Waldun I'm writing this elaborate salutation to be in the style of the letters I am about to discuss, philosophical letters by authors of the early modern period (roughly 1500-1800) by authors such…

^{Helen De Cruz (Wondering Freely)}

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.”

- Albert Einstein, 1919

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/einstein-famous-quote-misunderstood/ #science #history

Physicist John Tyndall is often credited w discovering the greenhouse effect, which he wrote about in 1859.

But Eunice Foote published a paper - 3yrs earlier - demonstrating how atmospheric water vapor & CO2 affected solar heating. She theorized that heat trapping gases in Earth’s atmosphere warm its climate.

Tyndall was widely read. And Foote, being a woman, wasn't even permitted to present her own work. http://www.climate.gov/news-features/features/happy-200th-birthday-eunice-foote-hidden-climate-science-pioneer #history #science #ClimateChange

Born in 1910, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin perfected X-ray crystallography, a type of imaging using X-rays to determine a molecule’s three-dimensional structure.

She determined the structures of insulin, penicillin & vitamin B12, leading to tremendous advances in medicine.

Hodgkin was awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964. She also advocated for world peace, campaigning against both the Vietnam War & nuclear weapons. https://www.nobelprize.org/womenwhochangedscience/stories/dorothy-hodgkin #HistoryRemix #science #history

Alan Turing was a mathematician & cryptographer who was a leading code-breaker in the team that decrypted Nazi Germany’s Enigma machine during WWII. He inspired modern computing & what became AI.

Instead of being hailed as a genius & hero, Turing was convicted as a homosexual & forced to endure chemical castration. He died by suicide at 41 in 1954.

The British government didn’t apologize until 2009 & Queen Elizabeth II finally pardoned him in 2013. #history #science

Beaches are places of intertidal liminality. Transient, impermanent and ever changing. To be the first person to walk on the sands as the tide retreats, is to find the world remade.

#Galloway #Scotland #History #blackandwhitephotography

In 1916, 23 yr old chemist Alice Ball discovered a breakthrough in treatment for Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease). She was the 1st woman & 1st Black chemistry professor at UHawaii.

Tragically, Ball passed away months after her discovery due to complications from a lab accident.

What happened next? Arthur Dean, head of her dept, continued the work publishing Ball’s process as “Dean’s method.”

Fortunately, a colleague spoke up & the name was changed to “Ball’s method.” #HistoryRemix #science #history

Katherine Esau, born in 1898 in Ukraine, was a pioneering botanist who studied plant anatomy & viruses.

Esau began studying agriculture in 1916 in Moscow. Her family fled to Berlin & ultimately arrived in the US in 1922.

Esau earned a PhD & her research on plant structure spanned 7 decades. She wrote 6 textbooks & was the 6th woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

In 1989, Esau received the National Medal of Science. https://ccber.ucsb.edu/ucsb-natural-history-collections-library-and-historical-information-katherine-esau/life-katherine #HistoryRemix #science #history

About 250M years ago, 90% of species on Earth died during the Permian extinction.

Tragic? Perhaps. But it also created a lot of vacant niches to fill.

And not long after, the very first mammals, our ancestors, appeared.

#Life on Earth is resilient & will continue to be, whether we're part of it or not. #history #science

Born in 1861, Nettie Stevens received her PhD in 1903. She went on to discover sex chromosomes in mealworms. Until then, it was believed that the mother or environment determined males & females.

But... Edmund Beecher Wilson published first. He may have seen Stevens' results & also didn't quite get everything right.

Stevens' work had the correct conclusion, but Wilson is most often credited with this discovery.
https://www.vox.com/2016/7/7/12105830/nettie-stevens-genetics-gender-sex-chromosomes #HistoryRemix #history #science

Born in 1838, Margaret Knight invented a machine that could efficiently build paper bags with a design that made packing easier.

And right on cue - for those who follow #HistoryRemix - a man tried to steal credit.

Charles Annan glimpsed her prototype & filed a patent. Thankfully, many people had seen Knight's invention + she had the blueprints.

Knight took Annan to court & won! She received her patent in 1871 & went on to receive dozens more. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/meet-female-inventor-behind-mass-market-paper-bags-180968469/ #history #design

I haven’t been sharing interviews here, but it was an absolute delight to join Kate Lister on #BeTwixtTheSheets to talk about the #history & #science of kissing.

Yes, I’m a scientist focused on policy, sustainability & communication, but 12 years ago, I wrote a book called The Science of Kissing. We contain multitudes.

https://play.acast.com/s/betwixt-the-sheets/history-of-kissing-why-do-we-lock-lips

History of Kissing: Why do we lock lips? | Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society on Acast

A good old smooch. It’s something that we do on a daily basis in one form or another (if we’re lucky), and yet have you ever stopped and wondered why we do it? Wonder no more.

^acast

Physicist Lise Meitner’s brilliance led to the discovery of nuclear fission. But her long time collaborator Otto Hahn, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry without her in 1944, even though she had given the first theoretical explanation.

Albert Einstein called Meitner “our Marie Curie." She also adamantly refused to work on the atomic bomb during WWII. https://whyy.org/articles/lise-meitner-the-forgotten-woman-of-nuclear-physics-who-deserved-a-nobel-prize/ #science #history

🆕 blog! “Bryan Adams lied to you”

I'm always interested in when anachronistic technology pops up in the media. Whether it's Kelly Rowland trying to send an email using Excel, or people in spaceships developing film photographs, or futuristic moonbases which use BS 1363 plugs - I just love it! So, I was watching that absolute banger of a tune "When You're […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/07/bryan-adams-lied-to-you/
⸻
#history #phones #technology #video

"Christopher Nolan's #Oppenheimer explores the work of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer & colleagues to create the atomic bomb.

Yet, the film fails to depict a key part of the story, using 2 female scientists as stand-ins for ALL of the women who contributed."

Hundreds of women were essential to the Manhattan Project, including Nobel Prize winning physicist Maria Goeppert Mayer. But they are largely absent in the #film.

https://www.businessinsider.com/women-manhattan-project-christopher-nolan-oppenheimer-completely-ignored-2023-7 #HistoryRemix #science #history

The women that Nolan's new film 'Oppenheimer' completely ignored

Women serving in key roles like explosion techs, librarians, and hematologists were essential to the Manhattan Project.

^{Katie Hawkinson (Insider)}

Born in 1928, Vera Rubin set her sights on Princeton, but they wouldn’t accept female grad students in astronomy. So she earned her master’s from Cornell & PhD from Georgetown.

In 1965, Rubin became the 1st woman allowed to observe at the Palomar Observatory. She went on to find evidence for the existence of dark matter.

In 1993, Rubin was awarded the National Medal of Science. But curiously, she was not awarded a Nobel Prize. https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/04/18/vera-rubin-interview-women-in-science/ #HistoryRemix #science #space #history

Happy birthday Rosalind Franklin!

Rosalind Franklin’s research was crucial to discovering DNA’s double helix structure. But she never received proper acknowledgement for her contribution.

James Watson & Francis Crick were awarded the credit & Nobel Prize, but their work was only possible bc they saw her unpublished data & X-ray diffraction images. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/25/science/rosalind-franklin-dna.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare #science #history #HistoryRemix

Isn’t it incredible to live on the same planet where this magnificent, ancient shark once grew up to 65 ft (20m)? 🦈

The massive megalodon swam Earth’s ocean for millions of years.

Funny how many folks mistakenly believe humans are some kind of pinnacle of #evolution. We literally just arrived a few hundred thousand years ago. #science #history

If you were Black and woke up in NYC on Monday, July 13, 1863, things got terrifying quick. For Black New Yorkers, there was no reprieve. Black life was dispensable to white mobs & law authorities. The Civil War, poverty, & rabid racism in 19th-century New York explains the events of that week. For Black Americans, the NYC Draft Riots were a heinous episode in an already brutal age. But it didn’t happen in a vacuum.

1/

@blackmastodon@a.gup.pe @BlackMastodon@chirp.social #BlackMastodon #Histodons #History #NYC

“What’s in a kiss? Nothing less than the very essence of what it is to be human”

Preparing for an interview this morning by re-reading this article I wrote exactly 8 years ago. I adore #history & it’s a good one.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jul/19/history-of-kissing-lips-love?CMP=share_btn_fb

What’s in a kiss? Nothing less than the very essence of what it is to be human

Whether we lock lips, rub noses or even bite off our partner’s eyelashes, the urge to express love is something we all share

^{Sheril Kirshenbaum (The Guardian)}

I'm excited to announce the completion of "Forth: The programming language that writes itself: The Web Page (Charles H. Moore and the pursuit of simplicity.)"

Recommended for fans of: historical computing, programming languages, and space technology.

http://ratfactor.com/forth/the_programming_language_that_writes_itself.html

#forth #RetroComputing #history

Forth: The programming language that writes itself: The Web Page

An exploration of the evolution and meaning of the Forth programming language and its context in history.

^{ratfactor.com}

Dr. Gladys West grew up in 1930s VA. She had limited opportunities as a black girl in the south, but went on to become a mathematician.

In the 1950s, West helped program the Naval Ordnance Research Calculator. Later, she worked on modeling the shape of the Earth & helped develop satellite geodesy models, a foundation of GPS.

West was not formally credited for her work until 2018 when the VA General Assembly honored her contributions. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys_West #HistoryRemix #history #science

By today’s standards he seems mild. Even Obama praised him. Along with Lincoln, Republicans trot Ronald Reagan out every time Democrats praise the communication wizardry of Obama, Clinton, or Kennedy, or the stalwart composition of FDR or integrity of Truman. In reality, Reagan was an impenetrable facade of congeniality who was quite hostile to civil rights.

1/

@blackmastodon@a.gup.pe @BlackMastodon@chirp.social #BlackMastodon #Histodons #History #BlackHistory #Politics #StillWeRise

Ynes Mexia was born in 1870 & became one of the most successful botanists in the world.

At a time when most people felt women couldn't travel alone, she did - A woman of color in her 50s & 60s. Mexia traveled the Americas for 13 years, collecting >145,000 #plants & discovering >50 new species.

She was a fierce conservationist & early pioneer fighting to preserve the redwood forests of California. She also advocated for Indigenous rights. https://www.nps.gov/people/ynes-mexia.htm #HistoryRemix #science #history

Remembering Steve Soto, founding member of California punk rock band Agent Orange in 1979, founding member of Adolescents in 1980, died on this day in 2018 at the age of 54.

Photo by John Gilhooley

#punk #punks #punkrock #stevesoto #history #punkrockhistory #otd

Born in 1804, Janet Taylor was a brilliant mathematician, astronomer, author & inventor. She wrote books, founded an academy & ran a manufacturing business for nautical instruments - many she designed herself.

Between 1617-1852, 79 patents were awarded for nautical instruments & Taylor was the only woman among them.

Sadly, Taylor died bankrupt in obscurity. Her death certificate only records her occupation as a “Teacher of Navigation.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Taylor #HistoryRemix #history #science

From 1865 forward, Black Americans gathered in TX every year to honor and celebrate freedom. These celebrations evolved into what is known as Juneteenth, but were also 'Jubilee Day' and 'Emancipation Day.’ Black Americans were prohibited from using public spaces to celebrate, so they collected money to purchase land to carry on the tradition. Emancipation Park in Houston, TX was purchased in 1872 for $1,000.

11/16


#BlackMastodon 
#histodons #History #CivilWar
#histodons #Juneteenth

Although emancipation didn’t happen overnight for everyone—in some cases, enslavers withheld the information until after harvest season—celebrations broke out among newly freed Black people, and Juneteenth was born!

10/16

#BlackHistory 
#BlackMastodon 
#histodons #History #CivilWar
#histodons #Juneteenth

Final emancipation from the Emancipation Proclamation happened on June 19, 1865 in Galveston Texas, two months after the surrender at Appomattox. Commemoration of this date would become the celebration JUNETEENTH. Enslaved people in states that fought for the Union — Missouri, Delaware, Maryland, and Kentucky — did not become emancipated until December 6, 1865, with the passage of the 13th Amendment.

9/16

#BlackHistory 
#BlackMastodon 
#histodons #History #CivilWar
#histodons #Juneteenth

In Texas, slavery continued as the state experienced no large-scale fighting or significant presence of Union troops. Many enslavers outside the Lone Star State moved there, as they viewed it as a safe haven for slavery. After the war ended in the spring of 1865, General Granger’s arrival in Galveston that June signaled freedom for Texas’ 250,000 enslaved people and later solidified by the 13th Amendment.

8/16

#BlackHistory #BlackMastodon 
#histodons #History #CivilWar
#histodons #Juneteenth

Actual Emancipation took time. As the Union Army rolled into different regions of the South, they emancipated the enslaved people there. SInce this happened over time, each region had their own dates. The enslaved people in the mid-Atlantic recognized April 4 as their Emancipation Day, when abolition came to DC. MS celebrated on May 8; in FL, May 22; AL & GA, May 28; MO, August 4; and KY & TN, August 8.

7/16

#BlackHistory 
#BlackMastodon 
#histodons #History
#histodons #Juneteenth

But in reality, the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t instantly free any enslaved people. The Proclamation only applied to places under Confederate control and not to slave-holding border states or rebel areas already under Union control. However, as Northern troops advanced into the Confederate South, many enslaved people fled behind Union lines.

6/16

#BlackHistory 
#BlackMastodon 
#histodons #History #CivilWar
#histodons #Juneteenth

At last, a messenger pushed through the crowd, confirming long-awaited news. The day of Jubilee had arrived. 4 million souls freed! Black Americans spilled into the streets, joy overflowing. Shouts reverberated through the air.. even strangers embraced one another. Tears of elation & relief streamed down many faces, while others bent their knees in prayer. Many, including Douglass, would never forget that day.

5/16

#BlackHistory 
#BlackMastodon 
#histodons #History
#histodons #Juneteenth

Frederick.Douglass, in Boston, recounted the Watch Night at Tremont Hall, where he and others eagerly awaited the signing of the document. As the night progressed, anticipation mounted for the long-awaited moment when the Proclamation would come into effect on Jan 1, 1863. Douglass wrote that each passing minute seemed to dampen their hopes, as the clock struck 8, 9, and then 10 o'clock, with no news reaching them.

4/16

#BlackHistory 
#BlackMastodon 
#History
#histodons #Juneteenth