Just Say No to Melanoma

Just Say No to Melanoma

Wel­come back to Flash­card Fri­day here on Math, Sci­ence, His­to­ry! I’m your host, Gabrielle, and today’s episode is all about some­thing small that packs a big punch against one of the most com­mon can­cers in the world: sun­block. We’ll explore its fas­ci­nat­ing his­to­ry, the sci­ence of how it works, the sta­tis­tics on skin can­cer and melanoma, and why pro­tect­ing your

Read More

Mayan Mathematics

Mayan Mathematics

The Maya civ­i­liza­tion thrived in what is now south­east­ern Mex­i­co, all of Guatemala and Belize, and parts of Hon­duras and El Salvador. 

Ancient Spookiness 👻

Ancient Spookiness 👻

In Greece, near Athens, there was an old house that always seemed emp­ty. The renters would always move out ear­ly, claim­ing it was haunt­ed. This house was infa­mous for its dark past; neigh­bors even claimed it was spooky. They said they could hear the clank­ing of chains echo­ing through the halls at night. Even brave young influ­encers would vis­it and

Read More

Falling Leaves and Helicopters

Falling Leaves and Helicopters

Every now and then, I hear heli­copters over­head. And I joke, liv­ing in Los Ange­les, that heli­copters and sirens are the songs of my peo­ple. I like the sound. It makes me feel safe. Close to my house, there is a hos­pi­tal with a heli­pad. And every now and then, I hear a heli­copter fly­ing into my neigh­bor­hood, get­ting closer

Read More

The History of Calculators

The History of Calculators

The year was 1983 and I was tak­ing the Scholas­tic Apti­tude Test, the SAT! It was spring­time in Den­ver, Col­orado, which meant it was snow­ing, as it usu­al­ly does until about June. I was prob­a­bly dressed in sweat­pants and leg warm­ers because, you know, the 80s. I remem­ber look­ing for­ward to the SAT test because I had been study­ing hard

Read More

Hypatia: The Sum of Her Life — Chapter One

I have good hope that there is some­thing after death. This is a quote by Pla­to that I chose to use for the first chap­ter of my recent­ly pub­lished book, Hypa­tia: The Sum of Her Life. This quote is so pro­found to me because her lega­cy con­tin­ued to live on after Hypa­ti­a’s death. Some were neg­a­tive, some were pro­pa­gan­da, and

Read More