On this day in 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The announcement of the 2014 winners is a reminder that the selections invariably provoke discussion and sometimes criticism, but Mother Teresa seems like an almost uniquely uncontroversial choice. Yet in the age of big data and quantitative
Mark Harrison— All diseases are mirrors of society but some—especially epidemic diseases—lead us to reflect on the way we are heading. Ebola is one such disease. Although it is still largely confined to tropical Africa and is unlikely to decimate other parts of the world, its lessons are relevant to
Robert Michael Pyle— Many people will have greeted the news that the monarch butterfly has been proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act with bewilderment, if not incredulity. How can this icon among American butterflies, once proposed in Congress as our National Butterfly, this common companion of childhood for
Stephen P. Leatherman— Beaches are the most popular recreational areas in the United States; more than 200 million Americans trek to the shore each year. Beaches help fulfill our desire to return to nature. While families reminisce, they often recall their beach vacations as being among the most memorable. Yet
Bitcoin is on the rise. The completely digital currency has been covered by Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, among others. Bitcoins have the power to buy anything from a hot dog at a Sacramento Kings NBA game to a hotel room at a Holiday Inn in
Follow @yaleSCIbooks Looking for a little motivation to reconnect with your backyard now that summer is officially here? James Barilla’s My Backyard Jungle: The Adventures of an Urban Wildlife Lover Who Turned His Yard into Habitat and Learned with It is the summer reading book for you. Now available in paperback, the book makes
Follow @yaleSCIbooks This June the Yale Press Green Team welcomed a new group of talented summer interns with an introduction to recycling at Yale. Reaching out to new office-mates is a great way to maintain an office culture of sustainability. Many of the tips we shared with our interns could
Although he encountered enormous skepticism, Dr. Stanley B. Prusiner persevered in his research on the causes of degenerative brain diseases, convinced the scientific community of his findings, and, in 1997, received the Nobel Prize. He argued that conditions including scrapie in sheep and goats, mad cow disease in cattle, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans were
Jennifer Doerr— As long as I can remember, I’ve loved birds. As a child, I would spend long stretches of time planted, crossed-legged on the floor, in front of our glass sliders. I was waiting for the sudden, magical arrival of birds—chickadees, cardinals, juncos, goldfinches, blue jays, Carolina wrens, tufted
Thoreau: Fully Annotated
In a month, it will have been ten years since Jeffrey S. Cramer published Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition. Cramer has had a prolific and successful decade, editing numerous volumes on Henry David Thoreau and racking up awards and praise. In 2012, radio host Jim Fleming said that Cramer “may know
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