Today in History – February 3, 1958 -  Rachael Carson publishes the Silent Spring. Rachel Carson, a writer, scientist and ecologist, worked seventeen years for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, where she learned about the problems of pesticides on the environment. She is best known for her book called Silent Spring, which is [...]

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Today in History – December 14, 1967 – DNA was first created in a test tube. Working with a variety of bacteria, Arthur Kornberg synthesized genetically active DNA. He used very small bacterial viruses (phages), such as the phi X174 and M13 viruses of E. coli, for his study. Their relatively comparatively short [...]

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Today in History – December 3, 1984 – over 2,000 die and many more injured from Union Carbide’s (now owned by Dow Chemical) poison gas emission (methyl isocyanate) at their agricultural plant in Bhopal, India. Prior to the catastrophe, the Bhopal plant had drastically reduced personnel, particularly in regard to production and maintenance, as it [...]

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Today in History – December 1, 1955 – Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in a bus in Montgomery and galvanized the civil rights movement. Rosa Parks showed the world that a single courageous act could positively change the course of history. How can we use engineering and human-centered technologies to positively impact [...]

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Today in History – November 24, 1859 – Charles Darwin publishes his “On the Origin of the Species“, explaining the theory of evolution.
Although controversial in some circles, the theory of evolution is a fundamental part of our understanding of biological systems and agricultural engineering and genetic engineering. The BioQuest biological curriculum uses controversy as part [...]

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