History of Science coverage from Scientific American, featuring news and articles about advances in the field.

Early scientific theories—such as those explaining basic phenomena like gravity, burning, and the movement of molecules in water—centered on presumed inherent properties rather than external factors, ...

According to a familiar story, science was born as a pastime of seventeenth-century European gentlemen, who built air pumps, traded telescopes, and measured everything from the size of the earth to ...

We’re celebrating 180 years of Scientific American. Explore our legacy of discovery and look ahead to the future. Since at least the 17th century, science has struggled with words. Francis Bacon, ...

Sir Ronald Ross had just returned from an expedition to Sierra Leone. The British doctor had been leading efforts to tackle the malaria that so often killed English colonists in the country, and in ...

Astronomers once believed the Sun revolved around the Earth. In the 19th century, scientists thought the shape of a person’s skull could reveal their mental strengths or weaknesses. And in the 20th ...

We all know the scene -- James Watson and Francis Crick, discoverers of the DNA double helix, walk into a pub in Cambridge and declare, "We have discovered the secret of life!" The rest is Nobel Prize ...

An exhibit at Philadelphia's Science History Institute looks at food science through the lens of the school lunch program. (Emma Lee/WHYY) From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, ...

The history of science and technology links many disciplines and cultures: scientific, technological, humanistic and social. Smith’s program in the history of science and technology is designed to ...

THE first volume of Dr. Sarton's “Introduction to the History of Science”, already reviewed in NATURE, was universally and deservedly acclaimed as a major contribution to our knowledge of the growth ...

Equal Opportunity and Non-discrimination at Princeton University: Princeton University believes that commitment to equal opportunity for all is favorable to the free and open exchange of ideas, and ...