Science anyone? 🧪 Join us on August 10 from 6–8 p.m. at Franklin Hall in #Philadelphia for "Science on Tap: Untapped Revolution." Food, drinks, and trivia await! 🦴 Register now: bit.ly/4g9UmZj
American Philosophical Society
@amphilsociety.bsky.social
Promoting Useful Knowledge Since 1743 | amphilsoc.org
Directors Danny O’Malley and Alex Rivest noticed a disconnect between today’s public and scientists, setting out to do something about it through film. Learn more about their work in this week’s Meeting Talk Monday: “Frontiers: A Mission to Tell Better Science Stories.” 🌋 https://bit.ly/3TIza3V
This summer, we’re joined by three undergraduate interns from the Mellon Foundation’s Native American Scholars Initiative. Meet Gahsëni'de' Hubbel, who is working on a project titled “Asymmetrical Alliances: Friendship, Betrayal, and Belonging in the Cornplanter Archives.”
Claudia Goldin (APS 2015) spoke with Bloomberg about dads, “duds,” and declining birth rates: “Even though a major factor in the decline of fertility is women’s increased agency, the real obstacle is the need for husbands and fathers to demonstrate their commitment..." https://bloom.bg/45wsfNS
Nobel Laureate Goldin Says Male ‘Duds' Are Weighing on Birth Rates
With birth rates around the world hitting record lows, politicians, think tanks and intellectuals have offered no shortage of solutions. They want to strengthen the family, expand child tax credits or provide free universal child care.
bloom.bg
What’s old is new again! Amid the release of the Christopher Nolan adaptation of The Odyssey, Daniel Mendelsohn, author and translator of Homer’s classic, was featured in The New York Times Book Review and its podcast, Private Life, to discuss his translation and the new film. https://bit.ly/44Q0nnJ
Daniel Mendelsohn on the Odyssey, Film Adaptations, and Translation | Daniel Mendelsohn, Jarrett Earnest
In this episode of Private Life, Daniel Mendelsohn joins Jarrett Earnest to discuss his 2025 translation of Homer’s Odyssey and Christopher Nolan’s
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“The most important thing is to actually think about what you do. To become aware and actually think about the effect of what you do on the environment and on society. That’s key, and that underlies everything else.” Check back weekly for APS Members' words of wisdom.
“A century hence, 2000 may be viewed as quite a primitive period in human history. It's something to hope for.” Check back weekly for APS Members' words of wisdom.
“The main question that guided my research in the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) collection was: How did eugenicists racially classify Latin Americans?” Read Grace Maria Eberhardt’s findings on the APS blog:
“People Making” and Racially Classifying Latin Americans in the Eugenics Record Office 1920s | American Philosophical Society
Image 1: “Peoples By Countries” Numerical List from The Trait Book, pages 86–87.
amphilsoc.org
In this week’s Meeting Talk Monday, historian Susan Brandt gives credit to the women healers of early Philadelphia, including the Black and Indigenous women whose recipes and methods were passed down through generations of female carers. https://bit.ly/4hrw5iu
Congratulations to Tiffany Hale, who recently published a book titled “Fugitive Religion: The Ghost Dance and Indigenous Resistance After the U.S. Civil War” with Yale University Press. @yalepress.bsky.social https://bit.ly/4f0lMAD
APS Members Daron Acemoglu, Ben Bernanke, Paul Krugman, and Joseph Stiglitz are among the cosigners of “We Must Act Now,” an open letter calling for policymakers to prepare for oncoming economic transformation caused by AI, as reported in The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/4vx16F2
Nearly 200 Economists and Tech Leaders Warn of A.I. Threats
A letter calls for policymakers to do more to understand and respond to potential disruptions from artificial intelligence.
nyti.ms
“The Knowledge of Nature tends to enlarge the human Mind, and give us more noble, more grand and exalted Ideas of the Author of Nature, and if well pursu’d seldom fails to produce something useful to Man...” Check back weekly for APS Members' words of wisdom.
“A key part of our Center's mission is to connect the collections to their descendant communities today so that they may continue to be used” writes Paul Sutherland in his blog post “Shoeboxes and Binders: Newly Available Collections at CNAIR.” https://bit.ly/4b03EnT
Is a love of art simply a matter of preference, or is there more to it? In this week’s Meeting Talk Monday, psychologist and Boston College professor Ellen Winner discusses “How Art Works,” or the science behind our feelings about art. @bostoncollege.bsky.social https://bit.ly/4fli7wc
What is prosody in linguistics, and how does the Caddo language exemplify it? Nat Thompson, an undergrad at UMass Amherst completing a short term fellowship at the APS, is here researching just that.
Join our team! The APS seeks a detail-oriented and organized Staff Accountant to support the daily accounting operations of the Society. Learn more and apply here: https://bit.ly/4ffJmrH #Hiring #JobOpening
Congratulations to Xiaowei Zhuang (APS 2019), who was recently awarded the 2026 Dickson Prize in Medicine from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. @hhmi-science.bsky.social
We celebrated America’s 250th in a heatwave, but what was the weather like for Philadelphians first hearing about the Declaration of Independence in 1776? Bayard Miller, APS Associate Director of Digital Initiatives & Technology, discussed it with WHYY. https://bit.ly/4ylGEK5
What Philly's Fourth of July heat wave and storms reveal about climate change
Scientists say rising temperatures and intense storms will become more likely because of human-caused climate change.
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“Caution and investigation are a necessary armor against error and imposition.” Check back weekly for APS Members' words of wisdom.
THE FLY ROOM, the new book from @amphilpress.bsky.social chronicling how experiments with fruit flies in the early 20th century refuted eugenics and proved Darwin was right about evolution, has been featured in @publisherswkly.bsky.social's Fall 2026 preview of science books! https://bit.ly/4wJrDQF
Fall 2026 Fiction & Nonfiction Preview: Science
Medical breakthroughs, side effects of AI use, and histories of the natural world feature among this season’s science titles.
publishersweekly.com
“Instead of just making up solutions to the problem, it would be useful to try to understand the problem first.” Tune in to Useful Knowledge to hear from statistician Joel Cohen on the growth of the human population and his outlook on the coming years. https://bit.ly/3RgrHrX
“In the 17th century, when many grammars of Mesoamerican languages were written, it was common for a grammar to appear as a separate text.” Read the full piece from Nico Barnum, Daythal L. Kendall Short-Term Fellow, now. https://bit.ly/4haZygy
What does governing transformative technology actually require? I'll be speaking in London on Monday @8:30am ET @royalsociety.org + @amphilsociety.bsky.social's The Next 250--on science, technology and the democratic institutions we need for a just future. Watch live: youtube.com/live/kW9TAlW...
The Next 250: the future of democracy, science and markets - Day 1
YouTube video by The Royal Society
youtube.com
“A book came, and it landed in my hands. It was Dudley Randall: The Black Poets. And it offered me some light.” Reginald Dwayne Betts remembers books as a source of solace as an incarcerated teen. Now, he leads Freedom Reads, an organization that builds libraries in prisons. https://bit.ly/4ybbPb3
This April, the APS inducted 23 Members to the Society, including 3 Members in Class 5 (Professions, Arts, and Affairs): nurse historian Julie Fairman, legal scholar and journalist Jeffrey Rosen, and economist and former President of Mexico Ernesto Zedilla.
Join the APS and the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic for “Civic Engagement in the Revolutionary City, 1776 and 2026,” a discussion of the essential ideas and documents of the American Revolution and their significance and importance to our nation today. https://bit.ly/4vdODpX
Visitors to “These Truths: The Declarations of Independence” are sharing how the Declaration inspires them. Some expressed feelings of patriotism, asserted their belief in equality and kindness, or even their concerns about the future. Others used the platform to share artwork and jokes!
15 APS Members have recently been honored in Forbes “America’s 250 Most Successful Living Immigrants.” https://bit.ly/4w9Nxwk
Forbes 250: America’s Most Successful Living Immigrants
The Most Successful Living Immigrants list showcases those naturalized citizens who have made their mark on American business and culture.
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Applications open! The David Center for the American Revolution at the APS invites proposals its 2026–27 seminar series. We welcome papers focusing on any aspect of the American Revolution and its era (1750–1820). Learn more and apply here: https://bit.ly/4wu6UA6
“The most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning.” Check back weekly for APS Members' words of wisdom.