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Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
The earliest roots in the history of science can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3000 to 1200 BCE. Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages, but was preserved in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age.
The recovery and assimilation of Greek works and Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th century revived "natural philosophy", which was later transformed by the Scientific Revolution that began in the 16th century as new ideas and discoveries departed from previous Greek conceptions and traditions. The scientific method soon played a greater role in knowledge creation and it was not until the 19th century that many of the institutional and professional features of science began to take shape; along with the changing of "natural philosophy" to "natural science".
Modern science is typically divided into three major branches: natural sciences (e.g., biology, chemistry, and physics), which study the physical world; the social sciences (e.g., economics, psychology, and sociology), which study individuals and societies; and the formal sciences (e.g., logic, mathematics, and theoretical computer science), which study formal systems, governed by axioms and rules. There is disagreement whether the formal sciences are science disciplines, because they do not rely on empirical evidence. Applied sciences are disciplines that use scientific knowledge for practical purposes, such as in engineering and medicine.
New knowledge in science is advanced by research from scientists who are motivated by curiosity about the world and a desire to solve problems. Contemporary scientific research is highly collaborative and is usually done by teams in academic and research institutions, government agencies, and companies. The practical impact of their work has led to the emergence of science policies that seek to influence the scientific enterprise by prioritizing the ethical and moral development of commercial products, armaments, health care, public infrastructure, and environmental protection. (Full article...)
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Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 1920 - 16 April 1958) was an English chemist and X-ray crystallographer who made critical contributions to the understanding of the fine molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite. Franklin is best known for her contribution to the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, while working at King's College London under the direction of physicist John Randall. By the time the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine was awarded to Crick, Watson, and her colleague Wilkins, she had been dead for 4 years. She subsequently became an icon in feminist literature.
More did you know...
- ...that the endangered golden lion tamarin (pictured) has a long, but not prehensile, tail?
- ...that the Witch's hat is the common name of a colourful orange-red toadstool?
- ...that Grandi's series 1 − 1 + 1 − 1 + • • • is divergent and appears to equal 0, yet in some sense "sums" to 1⁄2 — a paradox once linked to the creation ex nihilo of the universe?
- ...that Derek Freeman was an anthropologist whose refutation of Margaret Mead's work "ignited controversy of a scale, visibility, and ferocity never before seen in anthropology"?
- ...that the New Year's Eve snowstorm of 1963/1964 dropped over 17 inches of snow at Huntsville, Alabama, simultaneously setting new snowfall records for any day, week, or month in their history?
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Science News
- 9 August 2022 – Discoveries of exoplanets
- Radio astronomers have discovered a newborn, Jupiter-size exoplanet orbiting the star AS 209, using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array telescope in Chile. (Space.com)
- 28 July 2022 –
- Researchers using AlphaFold have predicted the structures of 200 million proteins from 1 million species, covering nearly every known protein on the planet. (Nature)
- 21 July 2022 – Holocene extinction
- Conservation-reliant species
- The monarch butterfly is added by the International Union for Conservation of Nature to its endangered species list because of rapidly decreasing population numbers. (AP)
- 18 July 2022 –
- Wild European bison are reintroduced to the United Kingdom for the first time in over a thousand years after three are released into a pine forest in Kent, England. (BBC News
- 14 July 2022 –
- At least 30 green sea turtles are found dead off a beach in Kumejima, Japan, with many having been stabbed in the neck. The green sea turtle is an endangered species. (BBC)
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