Introduction • by Guest Editor Sima Rabinowitz • 1

Hamilton Arts & Letters     “It {Science} soon gained the connotation of accurate and systematized knowledge, by a semantic infection from the technical meaning that the earliest Latin translators of Aristotle had conferred on the adjective scientificus.” [emphasis mine] Sydney Ross, B.Sc., PhD (1962), Scientist: the story of a word. Annals of Science, 18:2, 65-68, DOI: https://doi.or/10.1080/00033796200202722   When we first imagined this issue, we could not have predicted (we might not have even found the idea at all credible) that we would soon enter an era when “science” would become a topic of (urgent) daily conversation (and debate). We asked for writing and images related to “any STEM discipline” (science and medicine, technology, engineering, and math) very broadly conceived. A lengthy list of “ologies,” “onomies,” “omics” and “atics.” Shortly after announcing the theme, we found ourselves living inside what, at first (and often still), seems more like “science fiction” than fiction about science. “Messenger RNA” has become a topic of (almost) ordinary conversation, not merely the subject matter of virologists. Immunology has become our shared poetry, that terrifying “cytokine storm.” Adjectives have become less reliable (if they ever were): “long” is now a synonym for of uncertain duration. The word “science” comes from the Latin scientia or “knowledge.” Also, “expertise,” or “experience” or— my favorite— “a knowing.” This issue presents innumerable ways of knowing (about) ourselves and the material world, and I am deeply grateful to the writers, artists, and scientists presented here who have shared their unique knowledge, perspectives, and talents. I appreciate their very different contributions to this issue. Above all, I admire the way each piece surprised me in some way.    [  >>>>>   FORWARD ]   + [Distillate © HA&L + Sima Rabinowitz {from the Greek bios} -- the course of a life.]