Contemporary (Post-WWII)

Resources on The Tuskegee Study

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://www.gpc.edu/~shale/humanities/composition/assignments/experiment/tuskegee.html

Excerpt:

Throughout the forty years of the study it was periodically reivewed by U.S. Health Service officials. In each case the study was extended based on the argument that stopping the study, while helping these individuals, would interfere with the benefits to medical science of studying this untreated disease (Jones, 1989). For a justification of the study by one of the researchers, see the following movie. The study was stopped by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare only after its existence was leaked to the public and it became a political embarrassment.

Annotation:

Collection of online resources regarding the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Includes links to articles, primary documents, images, and documentaries.

Geosciences Memory Online-Solar Variability and Climate Change

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://www.agu.org/history/SV.shtml

Author:

American Geophysical Union

Excerpt:

A novel experiment is currently underway in the geophysical sciences. Thanks to funding from the Sloan Foundation, geoscientists who have worked on a number of pathbreaking developments now have an opportunity to document and write their own history. The AGU, the American Meteorological Society, and the American Institute of Physics have established sites on the World Wide Web to which geoscientists may contribute their recollections and other unpublished material for the histories of Solar Variability and Climate Change; Black Smokers; Greenland Ice Drilling Projects; General Atmospheric Circulation Models; and the GARP Atlantic Tropical Experiment.

Annotation:

The American Geophysical Union established this site to detail the scientific study of changes in global climate, especially temperature, roughly between 1960 and 1990. It is particularly useful in comprehending the topic of global warming and how scientists have assessed this trend over time. The site provides an annotated historical essay on the scientific understanding of climate change and its relationship to solar radiation. In addition there are documents, including interviews with geoscientists and photographs, relating to experiments on solar irradiance, flare and spots, as well as tree rings, isotopes and other historical measures of Earth's temperature. The site asks for further contributions, biographical recollections, and materials such as photographs from those who have participated in the study of climate change and solar variability.

Science in the Making-History of Greenland Ice Drilling

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://www.aip.org/history/sloan/icedrill/

Author:

American institute of Physics

Excerpt:

Unraveling past climate conditions by drilling through kilometers of ice is surely one of our era's grand accomplishments. Future generations will want to study how it was done but they will fail unless the participants act now to secure a high-quality historical record. Around 1999 three leading scientific organizations, the American Meteorological Society (GATE project history), the American Geophysical Union (solar variability history), and the American Institute of Physics (Center for History of Physics), with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, formed a consortium to experiment with using the World Wide Web to locate, create, and preserve historical documentation in science and technology. The aim was to find ways to establish low-cost mechanisms for gathering much historical information that would otherwise be lost to posterity. A continuation of this effort is the History of Recent Science and Technology Project.

Annotation:

Three scientific organizations: the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Institute of Physics (Center for History of Physics) have developed this site to collect the first-hand accounts of those involved with the Greenland Ice Sheet Projects (GISP1 and GISP2) and the development of deep-core ice drilling. The site asks for the memories of scientists, engineers, students, financial backers and others who participated in these research efforts. Participants can send material to the American Institute of Physics, which runs the site, or join an online discussion newsgroup on a variety of topics relating to the GISP efforts. In addition, there is a brief historical essay on ice drilling and its scientific importance and links to other related sites. This site is funded by the Sloan Foundation.

History of Programming Languages and Software Engineering

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://www.computinghistorymuseum.org/sloan

Author:

Computer Science and Information Systems Department-American Univ.

Excerpt:

The primary purpose of this site is to provide a forum in which interested individuals can participate in on-line discussions of programming language and software engineering topics. It is hoped, that in time, such discussions will result in publishable articles or serve as the basis for conferences on selected topics. A secondary purpose is to archive original documents, materials, and commentaries associated with specific programming languages and software engineering tools and techniques.

Annotation:

A few discussion threads on programming language and software engineering. Little to offer and outdated. Note: page uses frames-click on Sloan project to access History of Programming Languages and Software Engineering section.

Caltech Archives Photonet

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://archives.caltech.edu//photoNet.html

Author:

California Institute of Technology Archives

Excerpt:

PhotoNet is an online database containing thousands of images from the Archives' collection of visual material.

Annotation:

This online database of over 3,000 images from the California Institute of Technology's archive of visual materials illustrates the history of science from the Scientific Revolution to the present. Photographs, fine prints, book illustrations, paintings, and architectural drawings of various scientists and their projects, including Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, George Ellery Hale, and Linus Pauling are found in the database. Images are accompanied by a brief (roughly 150-word) biography and, in many cases, a photograph or other image of the scientist(s) involved in the project. The site can be browsed through two sub-categories, "Science and Technological artifacts" and "Rare Books," as well as a keyword search by scientist name or subject. This site provides an ideal tool for research on the history of science and prominent scientific figures.

Szilard, Leo (1898-1964)

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://www.dannen.com/szilard.html

Author:

Gene Dannen

Excerpt:

Welcome to the world of physicist, biophysicist, and "scientist of conscience" Leo Szilard (1898-1964). How do you say it? Say SIL-ahrd.

Szilard's ideas included the linear accelerator, cyclotron, electron microscope, and nuclear chain reaction. Equally important was his insistence that scientists accept moral responsibility for the consequences of their work.

In his classic 1929 paper on Maxwell's Demon, Szilard identified the unit or "bit" of information. The World Wide Web that you now travel, and the computers that make it possible, show the importance of his long-unappreciated idea.

Annotation:

This site is dedicated to the life and work of Leo Szilard, a European physicist who contributed to the development of the atomic bomb, but protested its use. The site focuses on Szilard's role in advocating arms control. The opening page is basic in design, with a couple of images, a small amount of text, and a list of links. A visitor must follow these links to find the bulk of the information. The site contains images, transcriptions of interviews and speeches, audio clips, a short bibliography, a biographical timeline, and links to external sources of information. Perhaps the most useful of these external links take a browser to the online index to the Leo Szilard papers housed at the University of California, San Diego.

African-American Inventors

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://www.ehhs.cmich.edu/~rlandrum/

Author:

Ron Landrum

Excerpt:

A
new site
that is dedicated
to the memory of the
many African-American inventors
that have helped
to develop this land of Diaspora that we have built.

Rachel Carson Homestead

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://www.rachelcarson.org/

Author:

Linda Lear

Excerpt:

Rachel Carson, writer, scientist, and ecologist, grew up simply in the rural river town of Springdale, Pennsylvania. Her mother bequeathed to her a life-long love of nature and the living world that Rachel expressed first as a writer and later as a student of marine biology. Carson graduated from Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham College) in 1929, studied at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, and received her MA in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932.

Annotation:

This site features a short biography of Rachel Carson in addition to bibliographic collections of books by and about Carson. Of interest to researchers would be the collection of links of online Carson resources. A more general listing of links is also made available.

Leo Szilard Online

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://www.dannen.com/szilard.html

Excerpt:

Szilard's ideas included the linear accelerator, cyclotron, electron microscope, and nuclear chain reaction. Equally important was his insistence that scientists accept moral responsibility for the consequences of their work.

Annotation:

Site contains several biographies of the physicist and biophysicist Leo Szilard. Interviews and other primary sources are made available, as well as links to other sites for potential research. A number of images are present as is an extensive bibliography.

Faces of Science: African Americans in the Sciences

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://www.princeton.edu/~mcbrown/display/faces.html

Author:

Mitchell C. Brown, Mathematics and Physics Librarian, Fine Library, Princeton University

Excerpt:

Profiled here are African American men and women who have contributed to the advancement of science and engineering. The accomplishments of the past and present can serve as pathfinders to present and future engineers and scientists. African American chemists, biologists, inventors, engineers, and mathematicians have contributed in both large and small ways that can be overlooked when chronicling the history of science. By describing the scientific history of selected African American men and women we can see how the efforts of individuals have advanced human understanding in the world around us.

Annotation:

This site contains biographical profiles of over 200 African-American men and women who have contributed to the advancement of science and engineering. The site provides brief (roughly 250 word) biographies of scholars from fields such as biology, chemistry, physics, zoology, and veterinary medicine, as well as inventors. Among the scientists included in the site are prominent figures like George Washington Carver, scientist and inventor of numerous industrial applications for agricultural products, and astronomer and mathematician Benjamin Banneker. Each entry also includes a bibliography of sources for further biographical information. The site is indexed by scientist name and profession, and there are special sections for the biographies of 20 women scientists and 14 of the first African Americans to receive Ph.D.'s in science. Though there are no primary documents on this site, it is a good place to find general information on prominent African-American scientists throughout American history.