Books for Jewish American Heritage Month
In celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month in May, we are sharing books by authors who share their individual stories, experiences, and lives. Find our full collection of books here.
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The scanning tunneling microscope (STM) has been hailed as the “key enabling discovery for nanotechnology,” the catalyst for a scientific field that attracts nearly $20 billion in funding each year. In Instrumental Community, Cyrus Mody argues that this technology-centric view does not explain how these microscopes helped to launch nanotechnology—and fails to acknowledge the agency of the microscopists in making the STM and its variants critically important tools. Mody tells the story of the invention, spread, and commercialization of scanning probe microscopy in terms of the networked structures of collaboration and competition that came into being within a diverse, colorful, and sometimes fractious community of researchers. By forming a community, he argues, these researchers were able to innovate rapidly, share the microscopes with a wide range of users, and generate prestige (including the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics) and profit (as the technology found applications in industry).
Mody shows that both the technology of probe microscopy and the community model offered by the probe microscopists contributed to the development of political and scientific support for nanotechnology and the global funding initiatives that followed. In the course of his account, Mody charts the shifts in U.S. science policy over the last forty years—from the decline in federal basic research funding in the 1970s through the rise in academic patenting in the 1980s to the emergence of nanotechnology discourse in the 1990s—that have resulted in today's increasing emphasis on the commercialization of academic research.
The scanning tunneling microscope (STM) has been hailed as the “key enabling discovery for nanotechnology,” the catalyst for a scientific field that attracts nearly $20 billion in funding each year. In Instrumental Community, Cyrus Mody argues that this technology-centric view does not explain how these microscopes helped to launch nanotechnology—and fails to acknowledge the agency of the microscopists in making the STM and its variants critically important tools. Mody tells the story of the invention, spread, and commercialization of scanning probe microscopy in terms of the networked structures of collaboration and competition that came into being within a diverse, colorful, and sometimes fractious community of researchers. By forming a community, he argues, these researchers were able to innovate rapidly, share the microscopes with a wide range of users, and generate prestige (including the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics) and profit (as the technology found applications in industry).
Mody shows that both the technology of probe microscopy and the community model offered by the probe microscopists contributed to the development of political and scientific support for nanotechnology and the global funding initiatives that followed. In the course of his account, Mody charts the shifts in U.S. science policy over the last forty years—from the decline in federal basic research funding in the 1970s through the rise in academic patenting in the 1980s to the emergence of nanotechnology discourse in the 1990s—that have resulted in today's increasing emphasis on the commercialization of academic research.
In celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month in May, we are sharing books by authors who share their individual stories, experiences, and lives. Find our full collection of books here.
For Mental Health Awareness Month in May, we are sharing books to educate and raise awareness about mental health and the various factors that may affect it, and to provide tools and resources for student wellness. Find our full collection of titles here.
Each May, we honor the stories, histories, and cultures of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. Below is a selection of acclaimed fiction and nonfiction books by AANHPI creators to share with your students this month and throughout the year. Find our full collection of titles for Higher Education here.
