This wonderful comment was posted in response to my article in “Scientific American”:

“This is very special for me, because 51 years ago, on July 25 1962, my mother gave me a subscription to Scientific American for my 13th birthday. She bought me the current issue, cut out the subscription form and mailed it, and then gift-wrapped the magazine. She also baked me a heart-shaped cake (make a 9″ square one, and a 9” round one, and cut the round one in half, and lay out the heart).

I had only bought one issue before that; this one:
http://backissues.com/issue/Scientific-American-September-1961
I lived on an unpaved road in rural Florida, with a front row seat on the rollout of the greatest discoveries in cell biology.

It was from this magazine I learned what the military industrial complex was, studying the ads for mysterious entities like Rand Corporation. The editors had no more guts than they do now, unfortunately, with regard to big-buck interests. I quickly understood there was something going on in American science that would never belong to me, but the discipline that became biochemistry seemed to speak out for itself independently, through the work of those pioneers.

A couple of years later, I picked up Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring at the Quonset hut post library in Fort Sill Oklahoma, and it all came together.

Thanks for writing so clearly for Scientific Americn, Diane, and for displaying human values and judgement right on the page. You will never know what kids read it, but remember
Way down the river, a hundred miles or more,
Other little children will bring my boats to shore.