George Washington Carver invented some 300 uses for the peanut, including soaps, lotions, shaving cream and paper—but peanut butter was not one of them. Native Americans developed a peanut paste centuries before Carver, and it was Marcellus Gilmore Edson and John Harvey Kellogg who first patented the stuff in the 1800s.
 
Even so, Carver's talents as a scientist and humanist were many. He was a painter, singer and piano teacher. In addition to his hundreds of peanut recipes, he also invented dozens of uses for soybeans, sweet potatoes, and pecans. And he brought the idea of crop rotation to poor southern farmers whose soils had been depleted by the cotton boom.
 
Alabama's Tuskegee University, where Carver spent much of his life, has been celebrating the 150th anniversary of Carver's birth this year. Cathie Woteki of the U.S.D.A. and Dana Chandler of Tuskegee University offer this tribute.

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George Washington Carver: Renaissance Man

Ryan Rykaczewski describes one of the most massive migrations on the planet, driven by the sun. Image by Tintinnidguy (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons 

#ExplainTheSun  - The Largest Migration on The Planet

Once, there was the ordinary incandescent light bulb. It shone brightly, but wasted much of the energy put into it as heat. Then came the compact fluorescent. And as costs have dropped, consumers have increasingly been switching to light-emitting diode (LED) technology for many lighting applications, in an ongoing search for a more efficient bulb. Now, in work published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, researchers report that nanophotonic devices may be able to breathe new life into old incandescent technology. Marin Soljačić and Ognjen Ilic, two authors of the study, explain how they’ve been able to “recycle” some of the incandescent bulb’s wasted heat and re-emit it as visible light, boosting efficiency.

For the Lowly Incandescent Bulb, a Ray of Hope

Science, technology, and other cool stuff from public radio's Science Friday. It's brain fun, for curious people. From WNYC Studios.

George Washington Carver: Renaissance Man

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