COVID-19. Flu. AIDS. Pathogens like these have had a profound impact on our lives, whether it’s prolonging quarantine or causing annual pandemics that kill thousands of people every year. In response, we’ve developed vaccines against them. Still, how do modern vaccines work? And what’s next in the pipeline? A history of vaccines Vaccines have been
The History of the PhD While many students aim to earn their PhDs, few know the philosophical history of the degrees they are pursuing. The Doctor of Philosophy (PhD or DPhil) began as the degree awarded in recognition of advanced scholarship and acknowledging that recipients had expertise needed to teach at a university level. These
Murder is as old as mankind. Or so the saying goes. Every culture has a history of poisons, from the ironically named “elixirs of life†eagerly sought after by early Chinese emperors and nobles, to the Poison Damsels (Visha Kanya) of ancient Indian mythology that could kill you with just a drop of the deadly
I have a good friend who studied evolutionary ecology during our undergraduate years. He eats science for breakfast. The scientific method is his guiding principle. At our last get together, I began talking about science as a cultural phenomenon. This conversation graduated into an entire day's debate about the cultural nature of the scientific method.
