Today in History – May 27, 1931 – the Langley Full Scale Tunnel was put into service by NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Commitee for Aeronautics. The aircraft designers at Langley needed to know more about the effect of a rotating propeller on controllability, interference among aircraft components, and more important, drag penalties due to [...]

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Formerly called  “Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement CCLI”, the NSF program “Transforming Undergraduate Education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (TUES)” emphasizes  projects that have the potential to transform undergraduate STEM education. For more information, see a list of the Engineering Pathway’s collection of engineering-related TUES resources.

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Today in History – May 23, 1930 – U.S. Plant Patent Act of the Hawley-Smot Trariff allows plants to be patented. This new U.S. Plant Patent Act provided, for the first time, patent protection for new and distinct varieties of asexually reproduced plants. Plant breeders now had a financial incentive to perform plant breeding experiments [...]

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Today in History – May 22, 1906 – Wright brothers patent improvements to “flying machine”. From the patent: Our invention relates to that class of fly ing machines in which the weight is sustained by the reactions resulting when one or more aeroplanes are moved through the air edge-wise at a small angle of incidence, [...]

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Today in History -  May 20, 1899 – the American Physical Society (APS) is founded for the advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of physics. It was originally formed at Columbia University by 36 scientists from 17 institutions who elected Henry Rowland as their first president and A.A. Michelson as the first vice-president. It has [...]

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