In February 1945, the end of war in the European theatre of operations was still a few months off in the future. Nonetheless, Allied leaders felt that the war’s end was close enough that they could begin to anticipate the post-war era. To that end, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met in Yalta—a city on the Crimean peninsula overlooking the Black Sea—on February 4-11 to discuss … Continue reading Countdown to The Cold War: February 1945
It’s been a while since we wrote an “on this date” post to share a few reasons to celebrate science or space, right here, right now. The holidays seems a great time to toast to some perhaps hidden historical gems for nerds. December 24 1955 NORAD—the North American Aerospace Defense Command, made famous to us 40-somethings in the film War Games—began to track Santa’s annual … Continue reading On This (Holiday) Date: Celebrating Science & Space (Part 1)
On October 12th, Doug spent the day at the 2014 iteration of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s (JPL) Open House. You can read the first Lofty installment HERE, but there’s more! It was a day full of space-nerd goodness, and one of the highpoints was Site 18: “Flying Saucers for Mars.” This particular site was dedicated to a project known to researchers by the acronym … Continue reading JPL Open House 2014 (Part 2)
In the last couple of posts, we’ve begun our Countdown to the Cold War by talking about the reorganized at Los Alamos in the fall of 1944 to develop a method known as implosion. You can read the last post in the series by clicking HERE. The next step on the Manhattan Project’s Countdown to the Cold War occurred on September 22, 1944, and was … Continue reading Countdown to the Cold War: September 1944
Over the last few years, your Lofty Duo has had an inordinate amount of interest in the Manhattan Project. If you were to draw a Venn diagram of our many overlapping interests in this historical event, it’s likely that somewhere in the shaded region at the center of the diagram would be a man named Henry Cullen. Henry was Anna’s grandfather. In his professional life, … Continue reading Countdown to The Cold War: August 1944
Recently, we spent eleven days in Santa Fe on our very own self-made writing retreat. Writing was our goal, but we also recommend Santa Fe as a great getaway even if getting away from your routine is your only goal. You can read about lodging, food, and shopping in our first Santa Fe Retreat post. But wait, there’s more! MUSEUMS & GALLERIES Santa Fe is a hub … Continue reading Santa Fe Retreat (2)
If you’re celebrating today, you’re probably celebrating Lincoln’s birthday, a welcome mid-winter holiday for us as children growing up in Illinois. Or maybe you’re celebrating the natal day of Charles Darwin, the renowned naturalist and geologist who was born on the same day as Abraham Lincoln in 1809. By mapping out his theory of natural selection, Darwin changed the way we think about ourselves, our … Continue reading Duck! It’s an Asteroid!
We have perused science writing handbooks and anthologies before, and we’re at it again for the recently published anthology The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2013. It’s the time of year for “best of” lists, and this book is chockfull of great articles on a wide array of subject matter from the past year. This year’s iteration is edited by Siddhartha Mukerjee, who is … Continue reading The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2013
It’s Nobel Prize season! The three big science categories—physiology or medicine, physics, and chemistry—were just announced on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Of the eight science winners, how many are women? Zero! That’s the usual number of women in the annual mix. No female scientist has been awarded a Nobel Prize since 2009. In “The Nobel Prize: Where are All the Women?” we wrote about the … Continue reading 5 Women Who Should Have Won the Nobel Prize
To go back and begin reading this series from our initial visit to Palomar Observatory, start with PART 1. When the big book of facts is finally written, it’s possible that George Ellery Hale’s contributions to changing the United States into a techno-scientific nation will outshine those of all others. Hale, eventually, spearheaded the building of Palomar Observatory, the biggest telescope in the world at … Continue reading Palomar Observatory: Hale (Part 4)
