How many notable scientists are the children of notable scientists?
Lots, considering the base rates involved. The famous example of a compilation would be Galton's Hereditary Genius study, and of course, Galton himself, one of the most important statisticians, was the half-cousin of the Darwin, and both were grandchildren of Erasmus Darwin. A read of a Freeman Dyson op-ed reminds me that his son, George Dyson, is one of the most distinguished historians of technology, and earlier this year I was (not that) surprised to learn that the late lamented Oliver Sacks was the cousin of Robert Aumann. Then there are instances lik...
For our solstice event I tried to put together a list of this year’s biggest scientific achievements. They can likely all be looked up with a bit of searching and each one is worthy of a celebration in their own right. But mostly I want to say; we have come a long way this year. And we have a long way to go.
I tried to include science and technology in this list, but really anything world-scale (non-politics or natural disaster) is worthy of celebrating.
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015
April 29 – The World Health Organization (WHO) declares that rubella has been eradicated from the Americas.
July 14 - NASA's New Horizons spacecraft performs a close flyby of Pluto, becoming the first spacecraft in history to visit the distant world.
September 10 – Scientists announce the discovery of Homo naledi, a previously unknown species of early human in South Africa.
September 28 – NASA announces that liquid water has been found on Mars.
Recommendations from the slack:
china makes a genetically modified micropig and sells it: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/03/micropig-animal-rights-genetics-china-pets-outrage
psyc studies can’t be reproduced: http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/27/9216565/psychology-studies-reproducability-issues
zoom contact lenses
http://mic.com/articles/118670/this-painless-eye-implant-could-give-you-superhuman-vision#.4S5ihAKNE
room temperature synthetic diamonds
http://phys.org/news/2015-11-phase-carbon-diamond-room-temperature.html
Notable deaths
terry pratchett passed away
malcolm fraser
John Forbes Nash Jr
Oliver Sacks
Christopher lee
Nobel medals this year
Chemistry – Paul L. Modrich; Aziz Sancar and Tomas Lindahl ("for mechanistic studies of DNA repair")
Economics – Angus Deaton ("for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare")
Literature – Svetlana Alexievich ("for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time" )
Peace – Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet ("for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011")
Physics – Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald ("for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass")
Physiology or Medicine – William C Campbell, Satoshi Ōmura ("for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites") and Tu Youyou ("for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria"[116])
Other:
The dress
Ebola outbreak
Polio came back
(also this year) - upcoming spaceX return flight on the 19th dec
runner up: vat meat is almost ready.
runner up: soylent got a lot better this year
runner up: quantum computing having progressive developments but nothing specific
Things that happened 100 years ago (from wikipedia):
Meta - This list was compiled for Sydney’s Solstice event; I figured I would share this because it’s pretty neat.
Time to compose: 3-4hrs
With comments from the IRC and slack
To see more of my posts visit my Table of contents
As usual; any suggestions welcome below.