Throughout the mountains of the American West, carvings hidden on the trunks of aspen trees tell the stories of the sheepherders who made them as they passed through with their flocks. Most of the men who etched these arborglyphs into the living trees were Basques who, starting with the Gold Rush of the 1840s, had immigrated from the...
Lynn Conway was a trans woman in tech − and underappreciated for decades after she helped launch the computing revolution
Lynn Conway may hold the record for longest delay between being unfairly fired and receiving an apology for it. In 1968, IBM – a company that now covers its logo in a rainbow flag each June for Pride Month – fired Conway, who died on June 9, 2024, at 86, when she expressed her intention to transition. IBM eventually apologized to...
Excavating data from digs done decades ago and connecting with today’s communities
The ancestors of Alaska Native people began using local copper sources to craft intricate tools roughly 1,000 years ago. Over one-third of all copper objects archaeologists have found in this region were excavated at a single spot, named the Gulkana Site.
This is the site I’ve studied for the past four years as a Ph.D. student at Purdue...
Modern surgery began with saws and iron hands – how amputation transformed the body in the Renaissance
The human body today has many replaceable parts, ranging from artificial hearts[1] to myoelectric feet[2]. What makes this possible is not just complicated technology and delicate surgical procedures. It’s also an idea — that humans can and should alter patients’ bodies in supremely difficult and invasive ways.
Where did that idea come...