The Foresight Institute (Foresight) is a San Francisco-based research non-profit that promotes the development of nanotechnology and other emerging technologies, such as safe AGI, biotech and longevity.
Kim Eric Drexler is an American engineer best known for studies of the potential of molecular nanotechnology (MNT), from the 1970s and 1980s. His 1991 doctoral thesis at Massachusetts Institute of Technology was revised and published as the book Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery Manufacturing and Computation (1992), which received the Association of American Publishers award for Best Computer Science Book of 1992.
An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysics, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. Historically, observatories were as simple as containing an astronomical sextant or Stonehenge.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) is a federally funded research and development center in the hills of Berkeley, California, United States. Originally established in 1931 by the University of California (UC), the laboratory is now sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administrated by the UC system. Ernest Lawrence, who won the Nobel prize for inventing the cyclotron, founded the Lab and served as its Director until his death in 1958. Located in the hills of Berkeley, California, the lab overlooks the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.
Carolyn Jean Spellmann Shoemaker was an American astronomer and a co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9. She discovered 32 comets and more than 500 asteroids.
The National Research Council Canada is the primary national agency of the Government of Canada dedicated to science and technology research & development. It is the largest federal research & development organization in Canada.
Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline, James Keeler, said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the heavenly bodies, rather than their positions or motions in space–what they are, rather than where they are." Among the subjects studied are the Sun, other stars, galaxies, extrasolar planets, the interstellar medium and the cosmic microwave background. Emissions from these objects are examined across all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the properties examined include luminosity, density, temperature, and chemical composition. Because astrophysics is a very broad subject, astrophysicists apply concepts and methods from many disciplines of physics, including classical mechanics, electromagnetism, statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, relativity, nuclear and particle physics, and atomic and molecular physics.
IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM Research is the largest industrial research organization in the world and has twelve labs on six continents.
Aden B. Meinel was an American astronomer. He retired in 1993 as a distinguished scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He also held the rank of professor emeritus at the University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences. His research interests have included upper atmospheric physics, glass technology, optical design, instrumentation and space systems.
Jeremiah Paul "Jerry" Ostriker is an American astrophysicist and a professor of astronomy at Columbia University and is the Charles A. Young Professor Emeritus at Princeton where he also continues as a senior research scholar. Ostriker has also served as a university administrator as Provost of Princeton University.
John Norris Bahcall was an American astrophysicist and the Richard Black Professor for Astrophysics at the Institute for Advanced Study. He was known for a wide range of contributions to solar, galactic and extragalactic astrophysics, including the solar neutrino problem, the development of the Hubble Space Telescope and for his leadership and development of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
"Home on Lagrange (The L5 Song)" is a filk song, written in 1977 by William S. Higgins and Barry D. Gehm, intended to be sung to the tune of Home on the Range. It was inspired by the idea of placing large, self-contained space colonies into stable equilibrium at the L4 or L5 Lagrange points, which had been advocated by Gerard O'Neill. The song's lyrics satirize the enthusiasm of space-colony advocates.
Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) is a network of astronomical observatories run by a non-profit private operating foundation directed by the technologist Wayne Rosing. Its offices are in Goleta, California. The telescopes are located at both northern and southern hemisphere sites distributed in longitude around the Earth. For some astronomical objects, the longitudinal spacing of telescopes allows continuous observations over 24 hours or longer. The operating network currently consists of two 2 meter telescopes, nine 1 meter telescopes, and seven 40 cm telescopes, placed at six astronomical observatories. The network operates as a single, integrated, observing facility, using a software scheduler that continuously optimizes the planned observing schedule of each individual telescope.
The Eugene M. Emme Award is an award given annually to a person or persons selected by a panel of reviewers from the American Astronautical Society History Committee to recognize "the truly outstanding book published each year serving public understanding about the positive impact of astronautics upon society." The award is in honor of Eugene M. Emme, NASA's first historian.
The California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) is an integrated research center operating jointly at UCLA and UC Santa Barbara. Its missions are to foster interdisciplinary collaborations for discoveries in nanosystems and nanotechnology; train the next generation of scientists, educators and technology leaders; and facilitate partnerships with industry, fueling economic development and the social well-being of California, the United States and the world.
Frederick Garnett "Fred" Watson AM is an English-born astronomer and popular scientist in Australia. He holds the role of Australia's First Astronomer at Large with the Commonwealth Government of Australia, relaying the important aspects of Australian astronomy to the government, the general public, and associated organisations.
Walter Scott Houston was an American popularizer of amateur astronomy. He wrote the "Deep-Sky Wonders" column in Sky and Telescope magazine from 1946 to 1993.
Amanda Susan Barnard is an Australian theoretical physicist working in predicting the real world behavior of nanoparticles using analytical models and supercomputer simulations and applied machine learning. Barnard is a pioneer in the thermodynamic cartography of nanomaterials, creating nanoscale phase diagrams relevant to different environmental conditions, and relating these to structure/property maps. Her current research involves developing and applying statistical methods and machine/deep learning in nanoscience and nanotechnology, and materials and molecular informatics. In 2014 she became the first person in the southern hemisphere, and the first woman, to win the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, which she won for her work on diamond nanoparticles.
Charles Mattias ("Matt") Mountain is currently the President of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) which designs, builds, and operates telescopes and observatories for the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). AURA's NASA center is the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), responsible for the science mission for the Hubble Space Telescope, the science and operations for the James Webb Space Telescope, and the MAST data archive. AURA's NSF centers are Gemini Observatory, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), and the National Solar Observatory (NSO). Dr. Mountain and AURA are also responsible for the NSF construction projects: the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) on Haleakalā, Hawaii and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) on Cerro Pachón in Chile.
This prize should not be confused with the Watson Davis Award from the Association for Information Science and Technology.
The Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize of the History of Science Society is awarded yearly for a book published, during the past three years, on the history of science for a wide public. The book should "introduce an entire field, a chronological period, a national tradition, or the work of a noteworthy individual." The book can be written by multiple authors or editors and is required to be written in English and suitable for an audience including undergraduates and readers without specialized, technical knowledge. The author receives 1,000 U.S. dollars and a certificate. The prize, established in 1985, is named in honor of Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis who were science popularizers in the USA.
“Episode 206: Is Space the Place? Trying to Save Humanity by Mining Asteroids”, Science History Institute 