Here’s Lofty Ambitions giving you an excuse to party on Friday! June 10, 1929: Gemini 4 and Apollo 9 astronaut Jim McDivitt was born in Chicago. He commanded his first spaceflight, something only a handful of astronauts have done. (As an aside, The Cure are playing in Chicago on Friday–just saying.) June 10, 1929: Biologist and author E.O. Wilson was also born on this date. He has … Continue reading Reasons to Celebrate This Weekend
Ruth Patrick earned a PhD in 1934, when very few women pursued careers in science. Maybe that’s no surprise, since she’d received her first microscope when she was seven years old; microscopes weren’t the usual fare for girls in 1914. She wrote more than 200 articles and several books. She used her maiden name when publishing her research, in part because her father encouraged her. … Continue reading 5 Reasons You Should Know Ruth Patrick
Forty years ago, Jaws hit the theaters. The opening weekend box figure was more than $7 million, which almost covered the film’s estimated budget of $8 million. By the Independence Day weekend in 1975, just a few weeks after its launch, Jaws was holding steady at the box office. It would go on to gross more than $470 million worldwide. Forty years ago, Anna saw … Continue reading Jaws! (and Airport 1975)
We’re in Paris for a week. See last week’s post for information about the A380 we flew. Here are five French scientists we’d like to meet while we’re in France, if only they were still alive. These scientists represent the kind of thinking we appreciate, thinking outside the box and searching for novel connections. Marie Curie (1867-1934) Okay, she was a naturalized French citizen, but … Continue reading Five French Scientists
Last, week, we wrote an “on this date” post, and we decided to share a few reasons to celebrate science or space this week too. The holidays seems a great time to toast to some perhaps hidden historical gems for nerds. See Part 1, which covers some exciting science and space exploration tidbits from December 24-26, HERE. (And yes, that’s the Anchor holiday beer in the … Continue reading On This (Holiday) Date: Celebrating Science & Space (Part 2)
We spent eleven days in Santa Fe on our self-designed writing retreat. Take a look at PART 1 and PART 2. Shortly after we arrived in Santa Fe, Anna leafed through a free tabloid and discovered that the visual artist Judy Chicago was giving a gallery talk at the opening of her new show at the David Richard Gallery. Anna had first come across Chicago’s … Continue reading Santa Fe Retreat: Judy Chicago
To start with Part one of our series on The Six Million Dollar Man, click HERE. A few weeks ago we wrote about our recent opportunity to relive our childhood memories of all that is The Six Million Dollar Man (TSMDM). Our chance reminiscence was enforced by the brutality of the Polar Vortex and the vagaries of any travel that involves Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. … Continue reading The Six Million Dollar Man and NASA in the 1970s (Part 2)
When Anna’s mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in March 2012, we were upset. But we weren’t shocked. Age increases a person’s risk of cancer. Though in otherwise good health, she was in her seventies. She lived pretty much exactly as long as Centers for Disease Control statistics estimate for someone born when she was. Statistics are tricky, though. At birth, a white woman born … Continue reading Cancer, Risk, & Otherwise
FOR ALL POSTS ON SCIENCE WRITING, click HERE or use the tag cloud in the right sidebar. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2012, Series Editor Tim Folger This anthology is divided into six sections, each representing a different area, a different subject matter. Of the 23 essays, five are written by women. That low percentage is at odds with our experience at the … Continue reading Writing in General, and Science Writing in Particular: Annual Anthologies (2)
The Best American Science Writing 2012, Series Editor Jesse Cohen This collection is a wonderful mish-mosh of essays, from novelist and physicist Alan Lightman’s explanation of the multiverse in “The Accidental Universe” to Charles C. Mann’s investigation of “The Birth of Religion.” If you have the least bit of interest in science writing—and definitely if you’re trying to break into the field of science writing—this … Continue reading Writing in General, and Science Writing in Particular: Annual Anthologies (1)
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