| OCTOBER 28 - BIRTHS | |
| R.L.M. Synge | |
(source) |
 Born 28
Oct 1914; died 18 Aug 1994.
Richard Laurence Millington Synge was a British biochemist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with A.J.P. Martin for their development of partition chromatography, notably paper chromatography. Some of chemistry's advances need new methods for separating various substances. In filter-paper chromatography, a drop of a mixture of substances is dropped on a strip of filter paper, which is allowed to draw up a suitable solvent (ex. butyl alcohol-water), by capillary action. The spot begins to move, then gradually segregates into several spots. Some spots rapidly follow the solvent, while others lag behind. The result is a resolution of the mixture into component parts. One drop of extremely complicated mixtures can be analyzed in this simple way. |
| Dr. Jonas Edward Salk | |
(source) |
Born 28
Oct 1914; died 23 Jun 1995.
American Jewish physician and medical researcher, born in New York City, who developed the first safe and effective vaccine for poliomyelitis. His early work (1946) was research on the influenza virus. In 1963, he became director of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies at the Univ. of California, San Diego. He developed a vaccine against poliomyelitis by cultivating three strains of the virus separately in monkey tissue. The virus was separated from the tissue, stored for a week, killed with formaldehyde, then tested to make certain that it is dead. A series of three or four injections with the killed virus vaccine was required to confer immunity. |
| Sir Richard Doll | |
(source) |
Born 28
Oct 1912; died 24 Jul 2005.
British epidemiologist who was one of the first two researchers to link cigarette smoking to lung cancer, as published in the British Medical Journal in 1950. In the same journal, fifty years later, Doll published (22 Jun 2004) the first research that quantified the damage over the lifetime of a generation, based on a 50-year study of a group of almost 35,000 British doctors who smoked. The study found that almost half of persistent cigarette smokers were killed by their habit, and a quarter died before age 70. Persons who quit by age 30 had normal life expectancy. Even quitting at age 50 saved six more years of life over those who continued smoking. He studied other health effects, such as those caused by asbestos and electricmagnetic fields.«  Geography
of Disease, by Richard Doll. |
| Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch | |
(EB) |
Born 28
Oct 1867; died 16 Apr 1941.
German experimental embryologist and philosopher who was the last great spokesman for vitalism, the theory that life cannot be explained as physical or chemical phenomena. In 1891, he separated the first two cells formed by a dividing sea urchin egg and discovered that each would form a whole larva. Driesch concluded that the fate of a cell is not determined at the two-cell stage, but by its position in the whole organism. He published his first wholly theoretical monograph that year and, in 1892, speculated that vitalistic interpretations of biological data might be reasonable. His experimental results gave strong impetus to the then new science of experimental embryology. He also studied embryonic induction, enzyme action, and nuclear and cytoplasmic interaction.
The Crisis in Psychology, by Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch. |
| Francis James Gillen | |
(source) |
Born 28
Oct 1855; died 5 June 1912.
Australian anthropologist who did pioneering fieldwork among the Aborigines of central Australia. After working for the South Australian telegraph Department throughout Central Australia (1875-99), he became stationmaster at the Alice Springs Overland Telegraph station. Gillen became very interested in the Aboriginal people. He took a special interest in the Arrentic people who lived near his home. He learned their language, became a friend of the group and was welcomed as a member of their society. He met Baldwin Spencer when, in 1894, the Horn Expedition visited Alice Springs to make an appraisal of the areas geology and the Aboriginal culture. Together, they later made many anthropological expeditions which showed the Aboriginal complex yet subtle culture. |
| Zygmunt Florenty von Wroblewski | |
(source) |
Born 28
Oct 1845; died 19 Apr 1888
Polish physicist who liquefied the "permanent gases" such as nitrogen and carbon monoxide in larger quantities than previously accomplished by Cailletet, whose method he improved. In 1883, he achieved the static liquefaction of oxygen and air. He was the first to liquify hydrogen. Although he achieved it only in a transient fine mist, he published (1885) remarkably accurate data: critical temperature 33 K, critical pressure, 13.3 atm and boiling point, 23 K (modern values 33.3 K, 12.8 atm, 20.3 K). He may also have had a hint of strange electrical properties at very low temperatures, but his research was cut short upon his accidental death. Wroblewski died as a result of burns in a fire started when he overturned a kerosene lamp in his laboratory*. |
|
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| OCTOBER 28 - DEATHS | |
| Richard E. Smalley | |
(source) |
 Died
28 Oct 2005 (born 6 Jun 1943)
Richard Errett Smalley is an American chemist and physicist, known as the father of nanotechnology, who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Robert F. Curl, Jr., and Sir Harold W. Kroto for their joint 1985 discovery of carbon60 (C60, or buckminsterfullerene, or buckyball) and the fullerenes. |
| Marie Maynard Daly | |
1942 (source) |
Died
28 Oct 2003 (born 16 Apr 1921)
American biochemist who was the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in Chemistry (1947). Her postdoctoral research at the Rockefeller Institute included studying the composition and metabolism of components of cell nuclei, determining the base composition of deoxypentose nucleic acids, and calculating the rate of uptake of labeled glycine by components of cell nuclei. Seven years later, she took a university position. She taught biochemistry and researched the metabolism of the arterial wall and its relationship to aging, hypertension, and atherosclerosis. Later, she studied the uptake, synthesis, and distribution of creatine in cell cultures and tissues. She retired in 1986.« |
| Marian Koshland | |
(source) |
Died
28 Oct 1997 (born 25 Oct 1921)
American immunologist who discovered that the differences in amino acid composition of antibodies explains the efficiency and effectiveness with which they combat a huge range of foreign invaders. During WWII, her post-graduate studies included assisting with projects developing an Asiatic cholera vaccine, and combatting transmission of airborne pathogens in army barracks. In 1970 she became a professor of Microbiology and Immunology, after which she discovered the J chain (a B cell antibody subunit). In 1991, with colleagues, she identified a specialized intracellular pathway that transports antibodies into blood circulation, allowing for the multiplication of B cells essential in fighting infection.*« |
| John Backus | |
|
Died
28 Oct 1988 (born 3 Dec 1924)
American computer scientist who invented the FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslation) programming language in the mid 1950s. He had previously developed an assembly language for IBM's 701 computer when he suggested the development of a compiler and higher level language for the IBM 704. As the first high-level computer programming language, FORTRAN was able to convert standard mathematical formulas and expressions into the binary code used by computers. Thus a non-specialist could write a program in familiar words and symbols, and different computers could use programs generated in the same language. This paved the way for other computer languages such as COBOL, ALGOL and BASIC. |
| Cleveland Abbe | |
(source) |
Died
28 Oct 1916 (born 3 Dec 1838)
U.S. astronomer and first meteorologist, born in New York City, the "father of the U.S. Weather Bureau," which was later renamed the National Weather Service. Abbe inaugurated a private weather reporting and warning service at Cincinnati. His weather reports or bulletins began to be issued on Sept. 1, 1869. The Weather Service of the United States was authorized by Congress on 9 Feb 1870, and placed under the direction of the Signal Service. Abbe was the only person in the country who was already experienced in drawing weather maps from telegraphic reports and forecasting from them. Naturally, he was offered an important position in this new service which he accepted, beginning 3 Jan 1871, and was often the official forecaster of the weather. |
| Ottmar Mergenthaler | |
(source) |
Died
28 Oct 1899 (born 11 May 1854)
German-American inventor of the Linotype typesetting machine (1886), regarded as the greatest advance in printing since the development of moveable type 400 years earlier. He moved to the U.S. in 1872. At the age of 32, he designed and built his first linotype machine. With it, the two operations of setting and casting type in lead lines were performed simply by touching the keys of a board similar to the keyboard of a typewriter. His machine enabled one operator to be machinist, type-setter, justifier and typefounder. His machine was first used in 1886 by the New York Tribune, followed by many great improvements on its design. He died at the early age of 45. |
| Edouard Séguin | |
(source) |
Died
28 Oct 1880 (born 20 Jan 1812)
French-born American psychiatrist who opened the world's first school for the severely mentally retarded (1839). He was a student of Jean Gaspard Itard, who suggested this speciality. Seguin developed a sensory training method. In 1850, Seguin moved to the U.S. where he set up more teaching centres for the retarded. In his book, Idiocy: and its Treatment by the Physiological Method (1866), he described the approach he used at the Seguin Physiological School in New York City. When the Association of Medical Officers of American Institutions for Idiotic and Feebleminded Persons was formed, Seguin became its first president. This later changed its name to the American Association on Mental Retardation.« |
| Johan August Arfwedson | |
| Died
28 Oct 1841 (born 12 Jan 1792)
Swedish chemist who discovered lithium (1817) in a compound in the mineral petalite, though he was unable isolate it as metal. That required electrolysis with stronger batteries than he had available. (The separation was eventually accomplished by Davy.) Arfwedson abandoned scientific endeavour to spend his time running his family's manufactories and mines that he inherited. Petalite is now known to be lithium aluminium silicate.« |
|
| John Smeaton | |
(source) |
Died
28 Oct 1792 (born 8 Jun 1724)
English civil engineer, who coined the term "civil engineering" (to distinguish from military engineers). He built the third Eddystone Lighthouse, Plymouth, Devon, using dovetailed blocks of portland stone (1756-59). He discovered the best mortar for underwater construction to be limestone with a high proportion of clay. Smeaton also constructed the Forth and Clyde Canal in Scotland between the Atlantic and the North Sea; built bridges in towns including Perth, Banff, and Coldstream, Scotland; and completed Ramsgate harbour, Kent. He introduced cast-iron shafts and gearing into wind and water mills, designed large atmospheric pumping engines for mines, and improved the safety of the diving bell.) Smeaton's
Tower, by Christopher Severn. |
| John Locke | |
(source) |
Died
28 Oct 1704 (born 29 Aug 1632)
English physician who was the most important philosopher during the Age of Reason. He spent over 20 years developing the ideas he published in most significant work, Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) which analysed the nature of human reason, and promoted experimentation as the basis of knowledge. He established primary qualities, (ex. solidity, extension, number) as distinct from secondary qualities identified by the sense organs (ex. colour, sound). Thus the world is otherwise silent and without colour. Locke recognised that science is made possible when the primary world mechanically affects the sense organs, thereby creating ideas that faithfully represent reality. He was an acquaintance of Robert Boyle.« |
| John Wallis | |
(source) |
Died
28 Oct 1703 (born 23 Nov 1616)
British mathematician who introduced the infinity math symbol. Wallis was skilled in cryptography and decoded Royalist messages for the Parliamentarians during the Civil War. Subsequently, he was appointed to the Savilian Chair of geometry at Oxford in 1649, a position he held until his death more than 50 years later. Wallis was part of a group interested in natural and experimental science which became the Royal Society, so Wallis is a founder member of the Royal Society and one of its first Fellows. Wallis contributed substantially to the origins of calculus and was the most influential English mathematician before Newton. |
| OCTOBER 28 - EVENTS | |
| Loch Ness | |
(source) |
In 1992, scientists using sonar to map Scotland's Loch Ness made contact
with a mysterious object, but declined to speculate what that implies about
whether the legendary monster "Nessie" exists.
Loch Ness lies on the Great Glen fault-line and has a depth over 2-km.
The term "cryptozoology"
was coined in the late 1950s by French zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans to
describe the study of such unverified animals. |
| British satellite | |
(source) |
In 1971, Britain became the sixth nation with its satellite launched
into orbit by a Black Arrow rocket from Woomera, Australia. The
Prospero,
a Black Knight 1 satellite, had 86-kg mass at launch, 4-m diam. and transmitted
on 137.56 MHz (still
heard in 2000, although the onboard tape recorder failed after 730 replays
on 24 May 1973). Its mission was to test solar cells and other technology
experiments. Prospero is the only satellite launched by a British
rocket. The Black Arrow was a 3-stage rocket only 13 m high. The
Royal Aircraft Establishment developed the space launcher Black Arrow
from 1964 until the project was cancelled by the British government in
Jul 1971. The USSR's Sputnik was the first satellite (4
Oct 1957).« |
| Gateway Arch | |
(source) |
In 1965, the Gateway Arch (630' (190m) high) was completed in St. Louis,
Missouri. This graceful sweeping tapered curve of stainless steel is the
tallest memorial in the U.S. The architect of the catenary curve arch was
Eero
Saarinen who won the design competition in 1947. It was constructed
1961-66 in the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Park, established
on the banks of the Mississippi River, on 21 Dec 1935, to commemorate the
westward growth of the United States between 1803 and 1890. Cost for the
$30 million national monument was shared by the federal government and
the City of St. Louis. The memorial arch has an observation room at the
top for visitors reached by trams running inside the legs of the arch. |
| Atomic Energy Commission | |
(source) |
In 1946, a five-man commission of civilians was appointed by President
Harry S. Truman. The Atomic Energy Commission was established by the U.S.
Atomic Energy Act approved
1 Aug 1946 to develop and utilize atomic energy toward improving the public
welfare, increasing the standard of living, strengthening free competition
in private enterprise, and promoting world peace. The first meeting took
place on 13 Nov 1946, although the official confirmation by the Senate
occurred later, on 9 Apr 1947. The chairman was David Eli Lilienthal. |
| Statue of Liberty | |
(source) |
In 1886, the monument
of Liberty Enlightening the World, popularly called the Statue of Liberty,
was unveiled in New York Harbor. It was dedicated by confetti (the first
ticker tape parade) in the New York Harbor by President Cleveland in the
presence of its sculptor, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. It was a gift from
the people of France to commemorate the 100th anniversary of American independence.
In 1876, a preview of the statue, the right hand and torch, was exhibited
at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, Pa. The statue was assembled
on Liberty Island (formerly Bedloe Island), 151-ft tall on a 155-ft high
granite pedestal. Its copper skin is supported by a massive internal iron
pylon and secondary skeletal framework.« 
The
Statue of Liberty, by Barry Moreno. |
| Not an aeronautical patent | |
 |
In 1799, according to surviving lists of patent titles, Moses McFarland,
of Massachusetts, received a patent titled a "Federal Balloon." Some sources
incorrectly call this the first U.S. patent of an aeronautical design.
The Patent Office fire in 1836 destroyed all full records, but the Collections
of the Massachusetts Historical Society of 1799 include a letter from
Timothy Pickering about the "absurdity of name for Major McFarland's exercising
machine," which says "I wish Major McFarland has hit on a proper name for
his machine; it has no relation to a 'balloon' and his motive for calling
it 'federal' is rather fanciful than solid... but if it is substantially
useful in promoting health, I should... call it McFarland's Exercising
Machine..." [Ref:
Collections
of the Massachusetts Historical Society v. [6] (1799) page 136.]* |
| Cotton gin | |
(source) |
In 1793, Eli Whitney applied
for a patent
for his cotton
gin, which was granted the following March. Southern planters of the
time desperately needed to make cotton-growing profitable, especially since
tobacco-growing was in decline due to over-supply and soil exhaustion.
Long-staple cotton, which was easy to separate from its seeds, could be
grown only along the coast. The one variety that grew inland had sticky
green seeds that were time-consuming to pick out of the fluffy white cotton
bolls. Whitney solved this problem, and reinvigorated cotton planting throughout
the South. The original patent was destroyed in the 1836 Patent Office
fire.« [Image: detail
from copy of Whitney's patent made by the Patent Office in 1845.] |
