The little-known true story of the unexpected and remarkable contributions to astronomy made by a group of women working in the Harvard College Observatory from the late 1800s through the mid-1900s.-- "In the late nineteenth century, the Harvard College Observatory began employing women as calculators, or "human computers," to interpret the observations their male counterparts made via telescope each night. At the outset this group consisted of the...

This history of science in the Dark Ages documents the achievements of lesser-known European scholars, including the monk Saint Bede, who effectively paved the way for the discoveries of such luminaries as Galileo and Newton. Histories of modern science often begin with the heroic battle between Galileo and the Catholic Church, which ignited the Scientific Revolution and led to the world-changing discoveries of Isaac Newton. Virtually nothing is...

"Early studies of the functions of the human brain used a simple method: wait for misfortune to strike-strokes, seizures, infectious diseases, lobotomies, horrendous accidents-and see how the victim coped. In many cases survival was miraculous, and observers could only marvel at the transformations that took place afterward, altering victims' personalities. An injury to one section can leave a person unable to recognize loved ones; some brain trauma...

In 1838, the U.S. government launched the largest discovery voyage the Western world had ever seen-6 sailing vessels and 346 men bound for the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Four years later, the U.S. Exploring Expedition returned with an astounding array of accomplishments and discoveries: 87,000 miles logged, 280 Pacific islands surveyed, 4,000 zoological specimens collected, including 2,000 new species, and the discovery of the continent of Antarctica....

"A clarifying, fascinating, urgently needed book on radiation--what it is, what should and shouldn't concern us about it, and what place radiation and radiation-related technologies have in our world. The universe and our galaxy and planet Earth were born in a nuclear explosion. We live on a radioactive planet, and without radiation there would be no life here. While radiation can be dangerous, it is also deeply misunderstood and often mistakenly...

This book describes how five famous scientists actually made major errors in the interpretation of their data and how the further investigations of these mistakes led to scientific breakthroughs in such disciplines as biology, medicine, and cosmology. Drawing on the lives of these five great scientists: Charles Darwin, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle and Albert Einstein, the author shows how even the greatest scientists made...