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Science Past from the issue of September 12, 1959

Mushrooms aid mental ills — The mentally ill may be able to get peace and quiet with their steak and mushrooms, providing they eat some special mushrooms described at the 9th International Botanical Congress meeting in Montreal. The clue to the possible medical usefulness of these mushrooms was uncovered as a result of studies of […]

Letters

Philosophers strike back As someone who has taught philosophy of science and history of science for 30 years, I must take exception with Tom Siegfried’s editorial, “Philosophers don’t know what scientists can’t do” (SN: 7/18/09, p. 2). Of course, they don’t! But neither do scientists! Immanuel Kant and Auguste Comte were just as wrong about […]

A place removed from ‘the pressure of received ideas’

Murray Gell-Mann, winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on elementary particles (see Page 24 in this issue), was one of the originators of the Santa Fe Institute, an interdisciplinary research center in New Mexico that is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.