Science is collaborative, painstaking and iterative, with progress slow and some unsung scientific heroes lost to time. But every once in a while, a key event, discovery or conceptual breakthrough has had a galvanizing effect on science. Each week, we take a look at the moments in science history that changed the world we live in — and our understanding of it.
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Science history: 'Father of modern genetics' describes his experiments with pea plants — and proves that heredity is transmitted in discrete units — Feb. 8, 1865Gregor Mendel described his experiments with pea plants and proved that genes are transmitted in discrete units, with certain fundamental laws of inheritance.
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Science history: Sophie Germain, first woman to win France's prestigious 'Grand Mathematics Prize' is snubbed when tickets to award ceremony are 'lost in the mail' — Jan. 9, 1816Sophie Germain was a brilliant, self-taught mathematician who won one of France's most prestigious prizes, yet she declined to attend the award ceremony because the committee members didn't respect her work.
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Science history: Richard Feynman gives a fun little lecture — and dreams up an entirely new field of physics — Dec. 29, 1959In a short talk at Caltech, physicist Richard Feynman laid out a vision of manipulating and controlling atoms at the tiniest scale. It would precede the field of nanotechnology by decades.
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Science history: Dian Fossey found murdered, after decades protecting gorillas that she loved — Dec. 27, 1985Dian Fossey was a zoologist who spent decades studying the elusive mountain gorillas of Congo and Rwanda before she was murdered.
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Science history: Marie Curie discovers a strange radioactive substance that would eventually kill her — Dec. 26, 1898Scientists in Paris discovered two new substances with incredible radioactivity. It earned them the Nobel Prize in Physics but would ultimately kill one of them.
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Science history: James Webb Space Telescope launches — and promptly cracks our view of the universe — Dec. 25, 2021The James Webb Space Telescope blasted off from a launchpad in French Guiana in 2021, before reaching a spot in orbit a million miles away. It soon began breaking cosmology.
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Science history: Anthropologist sees the face of the 'Taung Child' — and proves that Africa was the cradle of humanity — Dec. 23, 1924Over a century ago, anthropologist Raymond Dart chipped an ancient skull out of some rock from an ancient quarry — and revealed the face of an ancient human relative.
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Science history: Norwegian explorer wins the treacherous race to the South Pole, while British rival perishes along with his crew — Dec. 14, 1911In December 1911, Roald Amundsen and his crew reached the South Pole, beating his rival, Robert Falcon Scott, by 35 days. Scott and his crew didn't survive the return trip.
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Science history: Female chemist initially barred from research helps develop drug for remarkable-but-short-lived recovery in children with leukemia — Dec. 6, 1954In December 1954, Gertrude Elion and colleagues described a new compound they had developed that sent children with leukemia into remission. It would guide a new approach to "rational drug design."
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