We have undertaken an integrated and collaborative approach to developing foundational skills of students in a first year, Introductory Biology course. The course is a large lecture and laboratory course with enrollments ranging from 800-1000 per year. Teaching and Learning experts were brought into the course as weekly "Foundation Skills for…

A pervasive anti-statism often blinds us to the democratic victories in the past and thus to possibilities in our future. This article argues that big government can democratize society and uses historical investigation to make the point. The study of history emancipates us from the tyranny of the present. Progressive social change has come about…

Relates the story of Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen and presents one view of the extent to which the discovery of the x-ray was an accident. Reconstructs the sequence of events that led to the discovery and includes photographs of the lab where he worked and replicas of apparatus used. (GS)

Retrieval of passages from documents rather than whole documents as units speeds both user access to wanted information and the screening out of false retrievals. Results of an experiment suggest that high quality passage retrieval services for scientists are now feasible. (Author/PF)

Author recalled simultaneously the scientific lives of Priestley, Franklin, Rumford, Davy, Faraday, and other investigators of "experimental philosophy" (what we now call chemistry), and the life of the Royal Institution, founded in 1797 to promote both research and its practical applications. (Editor/RK)

Highlights the differences in patent laws in different countries to illustrate the importance of searching foreign patents, indicates how patent searches should be tackled and what assistance is available from patent offices, searching organizations and commercial patent documentation services, and considers the probable effect of the Europatent…

This article records an interview with the chemist Lord Todd, who talks about his career, his views on the education of scientists, the changes in the approach to chemistry, and the future of chemistry. (DT)

This article describes a meeting in 1874, seen to be the origin of the American Chemical Society, which commemorated the 100th anniversary of Joseph Priestley's discovery of oxygen. The remainder of the article is concerned with Priestley's scientific contributions and their implications. (DT)

This article, based on a talk the author gave to the 'Innominates', an interdisciplinary faculty group at the University of Chicago, focuses on events of the years surrounding the British Expeditions to Brazil and West Africa in 1919 that led to the confirmation of Einstein's theory of relativity. (BT)