Category: Stories & Inspiration
Stories of science, technology, startup journeys and lessons from history.
Immunity and Obligation: Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793
During Philadelphia’s 1793 yellow fever outbreak, Black leaders organized aid after medical authorities falsely claimed Black people were immune.
From Metal Matrices to Interlocking Rings: Jean-Pierre Sauvage and the Birth of Chemical Topology
How Jean-Pierre Sauvage used transition metal scaffolds to synthesize interlocked molecular rings, opening the field of chemical topology.
Between Alchemy and Medicine: The Long History of Essential Oils and Wish Fulfillment
From 18th-century peddlers to modern alchemy, essential oils have bridged organic plant chemistry and the human search for natural healing.
Industrializing Earth Orbit: Kennedy Space Center and the Shuttle Processing Era
How Kennedy Space Center built an industrial processing engine in the 1980s to turn reusable space shuttles around for continuous orbital science.
Rachel Carson’s Long Battle: How Federal Fisheries Data Led to Silent Spring
How Rachel Carson overcame Depression-era hardship and illness to translate federal fisheries research into Silent Spring, reshaping environmental policy.
Tunicates, Urchins, and the Parakeet Lab: How Charles M. Rice Found His Path to Virology
How an unexpected lab assignment and early molecular innovations at Caltech led Charles M. Rice from sea urchins to pioneering RNA virus research.
Nodes, Pixels, and Pedagogy: How Andries van Dam Shaped Interactive Computing
How Andries van Dam pioneered hypertext, cofounded SIGGRAPH’s precursor, and shaped graphics education across five decades.
The High-Stakes Path to PIEZO1: How Ardem Patapoutian Decoded Touch
How refugee Ardem Patapoutian survived civil war in Beirut and odd jobs in LA to uncover the molecular receptors for touch and pressure.
Two-Ton Magnets and Uranium Decays: How Nuclear Chemistry Measured the Age of the Earth
How 20th-century mass spectrometry and nuclear decay rates transformed geology’s search for Earth’s age from scriptural estimates to precise deep time.
Twenty-Six Thousand Miles on the Highway: Inside Apollo 11’s Fifty-State Road Trip
How NASA carried the Apollo 11 command module Columbia across 26,000 miles and fifty states, bringing lunar spaceflight hardware directly to 3.25 million citizens.
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