© 2023
Local NPR for the Cape, Coast & Islands 90.1 91.1 94.3
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

LISTEN: Scientist Ainissa Ramirez On How Inventions Have Transformed Us

Headshot photo of Ainissa G. Ramirez
provided
"Science evangelist" Ainissa Ramirez wrote about eight scientific inventions and how they've shaped us in her recent book "The Alchemy of Us."

Did you know that before the clock was invented, we used to sleep in two installments? Or that the standardization of cameras and film led to racial bias in the production of photographs?

“Technology and science is not neutral. They are endeavors that come from humans, and we have biases,” Ainissa Ramirez, a materials scientist and former Yale University professor, told NEXT. “So how we think about the world goes into our inventions.”

In her book “The Alchemy of Us,” which came out this spring, Ramirez writes about eight inventions and how they have transformed our lives in unintended ways.

Listen to the entire episode of NEXT here.

Morgan Springer is the host/producer for the weekly show NEXT and the New England News Collaborative, a ten-station consortium of public radio newsrooms. She joined WNPR in 2019. Before working at Connecticut Public Radio, Morgan was the news director at Interlochen Public Radio in northern Michigan, where she launched and co-hosted a weekly show Points North.