Who or what we become in life is influenced by a bunch of factors that can be boiled down to genetics and environment. Genetically, both my parents were PhD scientists. As a geneticist, I can tell you that there are no genes known to be responsible for “science.” But of course, my home environment skewed […]

Growing up in Oak Ridge TN in the ‘60s, terms like “homogeneous reactor,” “molten salt reactor” and “breeder reactor” were frequently used, although I couldn’t have explained them at the time. Research into nuclear power became the mission of Oak Ridge National Labs after the war under the direction of Alvin Weinberg. A few years […]

I grew up in Oak Ridge TN, where the uranium was enriched for the Hiroshima bomb. There’s a recent piece on the NYT on Oak Ridge and desegregation. One of the local players at the time was Waldo Cohn, a chemist and symphony conductor, who was on the school board at the time. Here’s his […]