History of Science coverage from Scientific American, featuring news and articles about advances in the field.

From starting out as a night-drive idea to becoming a global diagnostic gold standard, PCR has irreversibly transformed life sciences in its 40 years of existence. By 1991, scientists had begun ...

There's something uniquely frustrating about the world of scientific discovery. We celebrate the names we know, the heroes etched into textbooks and museum walls. Yet countless brilliant minds remain ...

In her groundbreaking trilogy, “Women Scientists in America,” she told the stories of numerous accomplished but largely invisible women. By Penelope Green Margaret W. Rossiter, a historian whose ...

There are some scientists whose contributions to the stores of human knowledge are so well-known that they have become household names. I don’t think it’s going too far out on a limb to say that ...

A slender thread of memory connects a Texas Hill Country man to a discovery that transformed modern technology. In 1916, Fred Schmidt’s grandfather, Jan Czochralski (1885-1953), a largely self-taught ...

In honor of Women’s History Month and the enduring impact of women in science, The Scientist invited readers to share the names of the female researchers who have inspired them most. From pioneering ...