| JANUARY 11 - BIRTHS | |
| Roger Charles Louis Guillemin | |
(source) |
 Born 11
Jan 1924
French-born American physiologist who researched the hormones produced by the hypothalamus gland. After focussing in other directions for seven years, Guillemin worked for another six years searching for the thyrotropin releasing factor (TRF). Such hormones were present in very small quantities. When Guillemin finally did succeed in 1968 in isolating one milligram of TRF, it had come from 5 million sheep's hypothalami. It turned out to be a small, relatively simple tripeptide, easy to synthesize. His work resulted in his being awarded a share (along with Andrew Schally and Rosalyn Yalow) of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1977. |
| Albert Hofmann | |
(source) |
Born 11
Jan 1906; died 29 Apr 2008.
Swiss pharmacologist who discovered LSD (D-lysergic acid diethylamide). For his doctoral thesis he studied the chemical structure of chitin. Working for the pharmaceutical-chemical department of Sandoz Laboratories he studied the plant squill and the fungus ergot for the purification and synthesis of their active constituents as possible pharmaceuticals. He originally synthesised LSD-25, lysergic acid, the central shared component of ergot alkaloids, in 1938. Hofmann continued to study active substances in natural products. On 16 April 1943, because of accidental skin contact with the substance while handling its container, he discovered the psychedelic effects of LSD. Illegal use in the 1960's led to its worldwide prohibition. He died aged 102 yr.«  LSD:
My Problem Child, by Albert Hofmann |
| Clyde K.M. Kluckhohn | |
(source) |
Born 11 Jan 1905; died 29 Jul 1960.
Clyde K(ay) M(aben) Kluckhohn was a American cultural anthropologist with a deep interest in culture and personality. He chose this profession based on his interest in psychology while at the same time expressing his interest in cultural diversity. He felt that diversities of authentic cultures must be represented in personality psychology. As a professor of anthropology at Harvard University, he contributed to anthropology in a number of ways: by his ethnographic studies of the Navajo; by his theories of culture, partial-value systems, and cultural patterns; by his intellectual leadership and stimulation of a large number of students; and by his representation of anthropology in government circles. Image: Navajo rug, circa 1900. |
| Laurens Hammond | |
(source) |
Born 11
Jan 1895; died 1 Jul 1973.
American businessman and inventor of the electronic Hammond organ (patented 24 Apr 1934). Fascinated by science, Hammond patented his first invention, an automobile transmission, while barely a teenager. In 1909, he sold his idea for an inexpensive yet sensitive barometer, and in 1920, he sold his design for a "tickless" clock. In 1933, he stripped an old piano leaving only the keyboard action to use as a controller. He experimented with various different ways of generating sound until he found the one that sounded best - the tonewheel generator, with which he founded the Hammond Organ Company. During WW II, Laurens helped design guided missile controls with patents for bomb guidance. |
| Calvin Blackman Bridges | |
1927 (source) |
Born 11
Jan 1889; died 27 Dec 1938.
American geneticist who advanced understanding of the role of chromosomes in heredity using the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. He began, in 1910, as a laboratory assistant for Thomas Hunt Morgan tracking how observable changes in its chromosomes led to inherited variations. Bridges used natural "mistakes" in sex chromosome segregation to show that an improper number of chromosomes produced abnormal fruit flies. Such "mistakes," called nondisjunction because chromosomes are not properly disjoined, result in gametes with either an extra copy of a sex chromosome or none at all. He created a nomenclature system for naming fly mutants. He correlated Drosophila genes with banding patterns in salivary chromosomes.« [Image right: fruit fly (source) ] |
| Frederick Mark Becket | |
(source) |
Born 11
Jan 1875; died 1 Dec 1942.
Canadian metallurgist who held more than one hundred patents, covering a wide range of electric furnace and chemical products, notably ferro-alloys, calcium carbide, and special chromium steels. He developed a process of using silicon instead of carbon as a reducing agent in metal production, thus making low-carbon ferroalloys and certain steels practical. His processes for the production of low carbon ferro-alloys had world-wide application. |
| George Washington Pierce | |
(source) |
Born 11
Jan 1872; died 25 Aug 1956.
American inventor who was a pioneer in radiotelephony and a noted teacher of communication engineering. He did work that led to the practical application of a variety of experimental discoveries in piezoelectricity and magnetostriction. He developed the Pierce oscillator, which utilizes quartz crystal to keep radio transmissions precisely on the assigned frequency and to provide similar accuracy for frequency meters. His other accomplishments include the mathematical calculation of the radiation properties of radio antennae; invention of the mercury-vapor discharge tube, which was the forerunner of the thyratron; invention of a method of recording sound on film; and sound generation by bats and insects. |
| Edward Bradford Titchener | |
(source) |
Born 11
Jan 1867; died 3 Aug 1927.
English-born psychologist and a major figure in the establishment of experimental psychology in the United States. A disciple of the German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt, the founder of experimental psychology, Titchener gave Wundt's theory on the scope and method of psychology a precise, systematic expression. The acknowledged leader of structuralism, Titchener was rated as the most distinguished psychologist in the United States, its most representative experimentalist, and an inspiring teacher who guided many of his pupils in the direction of scientific procedure. |
| J.C. Arthur | |
(source) |
Born 11
Jan 1850; died 30 Apr 1942.
Joseph Charles Arthur was an American botanist who discovered basic facts about the parasitic fungi known as rusts. He was the first head of the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Purdue University. The plant rusts form one of the largest natural groups of plant parasitic fungi. They are of great scientific interest because of their close evolutionary relationships with their host plants, their complex life cycles, and their numerous biological adaptations that permit them to thrive on all the continents (except Antarctica) under great extremes of environments. |
| Sir James Paget | |
(source) |
Born 11
Jan 1814; died 30 Dec 1899.
(1st Baronet) British surgeon and physiologist who is considered (with Rudolf Virchow) to be a founder of the science of pathology. Paget discovered (1834) in human muscle the parasitic worm that causes trichinosis. In 1877, he described Paget's disease of bone (osteitis deformans), a chronic disease of bones, occurring in the elderly and most frequently affecting the skull, backbone, pelvis, and long bones. He also described an early indication of breast cancer known as Paget's disease (1874). Paget was one of the first to recommend surgical removal of bone-marrow tumours (myeloid sarcoma) instead of amputation of the limb. Also named for him is Paget's abscess, one recurring about the remains of a former abscess. |
| Sir Samuel Bentham | |
(source) |
Born 11
Jan 1757; died 31 May 1831.
British engineer, naval architect, and navy official in Russia (1780-91) and England (from 1795) who was an early advocate of explosive-shell weapons for warships. In 1780, he was sent by the Admiralty to visit dockyards in Northern Europe. In Russia he improved management of Prince Potemkin's factories. While he was in Russia he built and equipped a flotilla of ships and distinguished himself in a victorious naval battle with the Turks. Using special guns that he had built and mounted in the ships, shells were fired for the first time in naval warfare. There also, he began his ideas for machines which worked by unskilled labour, could produce the same results as skilled workmen. |
|
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| JANUARY 11 - DEATHS | |
| Donald E. Osterbrock | |
(source) |
 Died
11 Jan 2007 (born 13 July 1924)
Donald Edward Osterbrock was an American astronomer who was a leading authority on the history of astronomy, and director of the University of California's Lick Observatory. He applied physics to produce accurate models of stars. For example, treating the outer part of the sun as turbulent and convective, he explained the seemingly anomalous fact that the sun's corona is hotter than its surface. He investigated the nature of ionized gas around hot stars, and was a pioneer in the use of spectroscopic methods for the study of gaseous nebulae. He discovered new types of active galactic nuclei, which are powered by black holes in the centers of galaxies. He fostered the construction of the 10-meter Keck Telescopes in Hawaii.«  |
| Carl David Anderson | |
(source) |
Died
11 Jan 1991 (born 3 Sep 1905)
American physicist who, with Victor Francis Hess of Austria, won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1936 for his discovery of the positron, or positive electron, the first known particle of antimatter. He examined the photographs of cosmic rays taken as they passed through a Wilson cloud chamber in a strong magnetic field. Besides the curved paths of negative electrons, he found also paths deviating in the opposite direction, corresponding to positively charged particles - yet having the the same mass as an electron! Previously, Dirac had predicted such particles by theoretical solution to electromagnetic field equations. Anderson has now found the existance of positron. |
| Isidor Isaac Rabi | |
(source) |
Died
11 Jan 1988 (born 29 Jul 1898)
Isidor Isaac Rabi was American physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1944 for his invention (in 1937) of the atomic and molecular beam magnetic resonance method of measuring magnetic properties of atoms, molecules, and atomic nuclei. He spent most of his life at Columbia University (1929-67), where he performed most of his pioneering research in radar and the magnetic moment associated with electron spin in the 1930s and 1940s. His Nobel-winning work led to the invention of the laser, the atomic clock, and diagnostic uses of nuclear magnetic resonance. He originated the idea for the CERN nuclear research center in Geneva (founded 1954). Rabi:
Scientist & Citizen, by John S. Rigden. |
| Theodor Schwann | |
 |
Died
11 Jan 1882 (born 7 Dec 1810)
German physiologist who founded modern histology by defining the cell in Mikroskopische Untersuchungen (1839) as the basic unit of animal structure that makes elementary parts (such as teeth, bone, muscle, cartilage, nerve tissue) by cell differentiation. This laid the foundations for the cell theory. Schwann also worked on fermentation and discovered the enzyme pepsin. Schwann cells are named after him. He also investigated muscular contraction and nerve structure; discovered the striated muscle in the upper esophagus and the Schwann sheath; identified the role of microorganisms in putrefaction; formulated basic principles of embryology (that the egg is a single cell that develops into a complete organism); and coined the term metabolism. |
| Gail Borden | |
(source) |
Died
11 Jan 1874 (born 9 Nov 1801)
American manufacturer who invented a commercial method of condensing milk by heating it in a vacuum to preserve it (patented 19 Aug 1856, U.S. No. 15,553) and investigated other food concentrates. He began with a process (patented 5 Feb1850, No. 7,066) that cooked meat extracts with flour to form a meat biscuit capable of long term storage. When he devised a way to preserve milk by condensing it, he created a market in big cities which were distant from the farm sources, as well as supplying the military, travellers and seamen. The dairy company he founded (renamed Borden, Inc., in 1968) expanded and diversified to become a sizable conglomerate.  |
| Francis Hauksbee, the Younger | |
(source) |
Died
11 Jan 1763 (born 1687)
English instrument maker, scientist, and lecturer who was the nephew and assistant experimenter to Francis Hauksbee the Elder. He contributed to early studies of electricity with his own independent research. From c. 1714, he gave lectures and demonstrations. He manufactured scientific instruments, including air pumps, hydrostatic balances, and reflecting telescopes. Hauksbee published an Essay for Introducing a Portable Laboratory, 1731), and other works on chemistry, astronomical instruments, electricity, and pneumatics. In 1723, he became clerk and housekeeper to the Royal Society. In 1728, (with Benjamin Robinson) he obtained a patent* "for preserving the Planks and Sheathing of Ships sailing to the East and West Indies."« [Image: Mariner's compass made bu Hauksbee.] |
| Sir Hans Sloane | |
(source) |
Died
11 Jan 1753 (born 16 Apr 1660)
(Baronet) British physician and naturalist whose collection of books, manuscripts, and curiosities formed the basis for the British Museum in London. By the time he died, Sloane had amassed one of the world's largest and most varied collections of natural history specimens. His passion for the collection and his concern for its future upkeep after his death led him to write a will which clearly stated that it must "remain together and not be separated." He offered it to the British nation, requesting in return a sum of £20,000 for his heirs. Parliament accepted, and King George II gave his royal assent 7 Jun 1753. Thus the British Museum was created and eventually its sister institution, the Museum of Natural History. |
| JANUARY 11 - EVENTS | |
| Smoking | |
(source) |
In 1964, the U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry, announced the
results
of a study on the health effects of smoking, ordered by President Kennedy
in 1962. As America's first widely publicized official recognition of the
dangers, it stated "Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient
importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action."
The report reviewed over 7,000 articles in medical journals, and concluded
that cigarette smoking was a cause of lung and larynx cancer and of chronic
bronchitis. Male cigarette smokers were 1,000 times more likely to die
from lung cancer than non-smokers. In 1965, the U.S. Congress required
printed health warnings on cigarette packages.« |
| First UK TV weather broadcast | |
(source) |
In 1954, the first in-vision weather forecaster broadcaston
BBC television. George Cowling of the Meteorological Office presented from
the BBC's Lime Grove studios with two hand-drawn weather charts pinned
to an easel.« |
| Francium | |
|
In 1930, the element Fr (francium) was discovered. |
|
| First human use of insulin | |
|
In 1922, Leonard Thompson (1908-35), age 14, was the very first person
to receive
an injection of insulin as a treatment
for diabetes. He weighed only 65 pounds and was about to slip into a coma
and die. The allergic reaction he displayed was attributed to an impurity
in the pioneering extract provided by Drs. Frederick
Banting and Charles Best. Twelve
days later Thompson received a more purified dose of insulin prepared by
Dr. James Collip. His symptoms
began to disappear as his blood sugar returned to normal and he regained
strength. Before this time, diabetes had inevitably resulted in death within
months or even weeks of the diagnosis. Thompson lived another 13 years
with the insulin. He died at the age of 27 due to pneumonia, a diabetes
complication.« |
|
| Kaiser Wilhelm Society | |
|
In 1911, the "Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science" was
founded in Berlin. This became the present Max Planck Society.* |
|
| Alizarin | |
|
In 1869, the first samples of alizarin, synthetically prepared by Carl
Graebe and Carl Lieberman, were presented at the Berlin Chemical Society.
The patent was acquired by the Badische Anilin- and Soda-Fabrik for commercial
production using modifications by Heinrich Caro to optimize the process.* |
|
| Stainless steel | |
|
In 1820, as the steel industry was making huge technological advances,
chemists tried to create a rust-proof, or stainless steel. A French metallurgist
observed
that when carbon steel was combined with an alloy like chrome, it did yield
a rust-resistant metal. A century would pass before two British scientists
continued his work and, in 1913, Europe was introduced to stainless steel.
Its smooth, hard surface doesn’t trap dirt, bacteria or molds - and today,
stainless steel is used in everything from silverware and jewelry to spacecraft. |
|
| Uranus moon | |
(source) |
In 1787, William Herschel, a German
astronomer, discovered
the first two moons of Uranus, six years after he had discovered
the planet, on 13 Mar 1781. Titania's diameter is 998.2 miles (1610 km)
and its distance from Uranus is 271,104 miles (436,300 km). Oberon, the
outermost of the major moons of Uranus, has a mean diameter of 1523 km
and a mean distance from Uranus of 583,500 km. These names were suggested
by Herschel's son John Herschel in 1852 at
the request of William Lassell, who had discovered two more moons of Uranus
the year before which became known as Ariel and Umbriel.« |
