| NOVEMBER 30 - BIRTHS | |
| Andrew V. Schally | |
(source) |
 Born 30
Nov 1926
Polish-born American endocrinologist and corecipient, with Roger Guillemin and Rosalyn Yalow, of the 1977 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Schally fled Poland with his family in 1939. Schally became a U.S. citizen in 1962. He became senior medical investigator with the Veterans Administration in 1973. He was noted for isolating and synthesizing three hormones that are produced by the region of the brain known as the hypothalamus; these hormones control the activities of other hormone- producing glands. These accomplishments were the synthesis of TRH (thyrotropin-releasing hormone), the isolation and synthesis of LH-RH (luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone), and studies of the action of somatostatin. |
| Henry Taube | |
1983(source) |
Born 30
Nov 1915; died 16 Nov 2005.
Canadian-born American chemist who in 1983 won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his extensive research into the properties and reactions of dissolved inorganic substances, particularly oxidation-reduction processes involving the ions of metallic elements. Metals often form complexes, in which other atoms cluster around the metal atom, transfering and sharing electrons among themselves to bind together. Taube discovered that during a reaction, a temporary "bridge" of atoms often forms between metal atoms. He studied the electron transfer across this bridge, speeding up reactions that would otherwise happen only slowly or not at all. His ideas are relevant beyond his own field of study, for example, in biochemical processes such as respiration. |
| Andrew J(ackson) Moyer | |
(source) |
Born 30
Nov 1899; died 17 Feb 1959.
American microbiologist who invented a method for mass-producing the antibiotic penicillin. While working for the US Agriculture Department laboratory (1940-57), he discovered a technique for antibiotic fermentation using continuous shaking of a culture broth of corn steep liquor (a by-product of the corn starch manufacturing process) and lactose. His method improved on prior methods producing 2 to 8 Oxford units/ml of broth, to in excess of 200 Oxford units/ml. By making possible the large-scale production of penicillin, the process is credited with saving thousands of lives during World War II. Corn steep liquor was adopted for other commercial fermentation processes making many other antibiotics, and the method is still in use today.« |
| Cyrus West Field | |
(source) |
Born 30
Nov 1891; died 12 Jul 1892.
American entrepreneur who promoted the first transatlantic telephone cable. In 1856, he helped establish the Atlantic Telegraph Company. He obtained charters from the British and American governments, and arranged financial backers in New York and London. For technical services he enlisted British engineer Charles Tilston Bright and William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin). Laying the first cable was completed 5 Aug 1858, but shortly failed. Field persisted, and on 27 Jul 1866, an improved cable was laid. Field had built his personal fortune of $250,000 from a paper business (1841-53). Later, he invested in the New York Elevated Railroad Co. (1877-80), and the Wabash Railroad. By late in life, he had lost much of his fortune.« |
| Edgar Douglas Adrian | |
(source) |
Born 30
Nov 1889; died 4 Aug 1977.
(Baron) English electrophysiologist who is one of the founders of modern neurophysiology. He shared (with Sir Charles Sherrington) the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1932 for "for their discoveries regarding the functions of neurons." While a student under Keith Lucas at Cambridge, Adrian discovered the "all-or-none" phenomenon (the relation between stimulus intensity and muscle-fibre contraction) in muscle-nerve preparations. During a career at Cambridge he developed the capillary electrometer to measure minute signals from nerve fibres and discovered the nature of coding of the motor and sensory impulses in afferent and efferent fibres. In the early 1930s, he advanced concepts of electro-encephalography, research on electrical brain waves. |
| Nils Dalén | |
(source) |
Born 30
Nov 1869; died 9 Dec 1837.
Swedish engineer who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1912 for his invention of the automatic sun valve, or Solventil, which regulates a gaslight source by the action of sunlight, turning it off at dawn and on at dusk or at other periods of darkness. It rapidly came into worldwide use for buoys and unmanned lighthouses. While recovering from an accident, convalescing at home, he noticed how much time his wife spent caring for their wood-burning stove. He decided to invent a more efficient and cost-effective stove. In 1922, Dalen's Amalgamated Gas Accumulator Co. patented his design and put the first AGA stoves into production. These stoves produced a radiant heat that kept the kitchen warm. The AGA remains popular today. |
| Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose | |
(source) |
Born 30
Nov 1858; died 23 Nov 1937.
Indian plant physiologist and physicist whose invention of highly sensitive instruments for the detection of minute responses by living organisms to external stimuli enabled him to anticipate the parallelism between animal and plant tissues noted by later biophysicists. |
| Sir William Henry Flower | |
(source) |
Born 30
Nov 1831; died 1 Jul 1899.
British zoologist who made significant contributions to comparative anatomy and clarification of the classification of mammals, including carnivores (1869), rhinocerosces (1875), and edentates (1882). He was superintendent, and subsequently followed Sir Richard Owen as director of Natural History Departments of the British Museum of Natural History (1884-98). Flower's innovations in museum displays greatly improved their educational value to the public. His main research interest dealt with marsupials, primates and especially whales, through which he was the first to demonstrate that lemurs are primates. Further, in thorough anthropological studies, he recorded detailed measurements of over 1,300 human skulls.  «
 Essays
on Museums and other subjects connected with natural history by
William Henry Flower (reprint) |
| Nathanael Pringsheim | |
algae (source) |
Born 30
Nov 1823; died 6 Oct 1894.
German botanist who was one of the founders of the science of algology (study of algae). He made important discoveries in the morphology and physiology of plants, especially in the fields of reproduction and evolution. Pringsheim's observation of the formation of plant cells provided support for the belief, opposed by the German botanist Matthias Jakob Schleiden, that cells arise only by division of pre-existing cells. In 1868 Pringsheim and Julius von Sachs were the first to describe the specialized bodies in the cell cytoplasm called plastids. Pringsheim also was the first to demonstrate a case of apospory, (production of a sexual generation from an asexual generation without the intervention of spores), in the Thallophyta (e.g., algae, fungi). |
| Johann Lukas Schönlein | |
1860 (source) |
Born 30
Nov 1823; died 23 Jan 1864.
German physician whose attempts to establish medicine as a natural science helped create modern methods for the teaching and practice of clinical medicine. Schönlein was the first to use the microscope in conjunction with urine and blood analyses to diagnose disease. He coined the term hemophilia (1828), was the first to describe purpura rheumatica (1837, hence called Schönlein's disease) and discovered fungus causing favus (1839). |
| Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni | |
(source) |
Born 30
Nov 1756; died 3 Apr 1827.
German physicist, known as the "father of acoustics" for his mathematical investigations of sound waves. Chladni figures, seen when thin plates covered in sand at set in vibration, are complex patterns of vibration with nodal lines that remain stationary and retain sand. He demonstrated these to an audience of scientists in 1809. He measured the speed of sound in various gases by determining the pitch of the note of an organ pipe filled with different gases. To determine the speed of sound in solids, Chladni, used analysis of the nodal pattern in standing-wave vibrations in long rods. He performed on the euphonium, an instrument he invented, made of glass and steel bars vibrated by rubbing with a moistened finger. He also investigated meteorites. |
| Ebenezer Kinnersley | |
(source) |
Born 30
Nov 1711; died 4 Jul 1778.
English-born American experimenter and inventor who investigated electricity. In 1748 Kinnersley demonstrated that the electric fluid actually passed through water, using a 10-ft long trough of water. In 1751, as one of the earliest popularizers of science, he began delivering lectures on "The Newly Discovered Electrical Fire." His experiments discovered the difference between the electricity that was produced by the glass and sulphur globes, which he communicated to Benjamin Franklin at Philadelphia, since they showed beyond a doubt that the positive and negative theory was correct. He also sought ways to protect buildings from lightning, invented an electric thermometer (c. 1755), and demonstrated that electricity can produce heat.« [Image: simplified version of Kinnersley's electrical air thermometer in which colored water in the airtight cylinder pushed water up the capillary tube when sparking between electrodes heated and expanded the air.] Ebenezer
Kinnersley - Franklin's Friend, by J. A. Leo Lemay |
|
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| NOVEMBER 30 - DEATHS | |
| Robert A. Swanson | |
(source) |
 Died
30 Nov 1999 (born 29 Nov 1947)
American chemist who, at age 29, cofounded Genentech, Inc. (1976), a research-based company that pioneered the biotechnology industry. His cofounder, distinguished biochemist, Herbert Boyer, had developed one of the key techniques that opened up the possibility of the transfer of genes from one organism to another. Boyer was a pioneer using restriction enzymes to snip segments of DNA out of cells. In 1977, Genentech began mass- producing their first human protein by splicing a gene into bacteria. In 1978, Genentech created the first drug produced by genetic engineering, human-type insulin. It was also the first biotechnology company to sell its own drug, human growth hormone. Swanson died after a long battle against brain cancer. |
| Alfonso Caso y Andrade | |
(source) |
Died
30 Nov 1970 (born 1 Feb 1896)
Mexican archaeologist and government official who explored the early Oaxacan cultures and is best remembered for his excavation of Tomb Seven at Monte Albán, the earliest-known North American necropolis. His first book, El mapa de Teozacoalco, (1949), is a key to Mixtec history. For 40 years, he studied prehispanic writing, striving to decipher the forgotten inscriptions. His most famous work, Kings and Kingdoms of the Mixteca, was finished only a few days before he died in 1970. |
| Casimir Funk | |
(source) |
Died
30 Nov 1967 (born 23 Feb 1884)
Polish-American biochemist who coined the term "vitamine." In 1912, as had previously been proposed by Sir Frederick Hopkins, Funk pusued the idea that diseases such as beriberi, scurvy, rickets and pellagra were caused by lack of vital substances in the diet. His investigation of Eijkman's anti-beriberi factor had shown that it was an amine (an organic substance wih molecules containing the -NH2 amine group). Funk assumed (though incorrectly) that all similar substances were also amines, and he named such factors vitamines ("life-amines"). When later it was discovered that not all the factors were amines, the spelling of the word was changed to "vitamin." Funk isolated nicotinic acid from rice polishing, later used against pellagra by Warburgh and Elvehjem. |
| John Mercer | |
(source) |
Died
30 Nov 1866 (born 21 Feb 1791)
English chemist and industrialist who invented the mercerisation process for treating cotton which is still in use today and was a pioneer in colour photography. From age 16, and throughout his life, he investigated and developed chemical textile dyes. Late in his life, in 1844, he found that when cotton is treated with caustic chemicals, it became thicker and shorter - thereby stronger and shrink-resistant. Further, the cotton was more easily dyed, needed 30% less dye, more absorbant, and could be given an attractive silk-like lustre. He called his process mercerisation and patented it in 1850. Mercerisation was applied to many other materials, such as parchment and woolen fabric, and remains an important part of the cotton finishing process today. |
| Germain Henri Hess | |
(source) |
Died
30 Nov 1850 (born 7 Aug 1802)
Swiss-born Russian chemist whose studies of heat in chemical reactions formed the foundation of thermochemistry. He formulated an empirical law, Hess's law of constant heat summation (1840), which states that the heat evolved or absorbed in a chemical process is the same whether the process takes place in one or in several steps. It is explained by thermodynamic theory, which holds that enthalpy is a state function. Chemists have made great use of the law of Hess in establishing the heats of formation of compounds which are not easily formed from their constituent elements. His early investigations concerned minerals and the natural gas found near Baku, and he also discovered the oxidation of sugars to yield saccharic acid. |
| John Dollond | |
(source) |
Died
30 Nov 1761 (born 10 Jun 1706)
British maker of optical and astronomical instruments who developed (1758) and patented an achromatic (non- colour- distorting) refracting telescope and a practical heliometer, a telescope used to measure the Sun's diameter and the angles between celestial bodies. In the 1730's, Chester More Hall, an attorney with an interest in telescopes, first discovered that flint glass appeared to have a greater color dispersion than crown glass did at the same magnifications. Hall reasoned that if he cemented the concave face of a flint glass lens to the convex face of a crown glass lens, he could remove the dispersion properties (and thus, chromatic aberration) from both lenses simultaneously. Dollond learned of the technique in the 1750's and developed it. |
| Marcello Malpighi | |
(source) |
Died
30 Nov 1694 (born 10 Mar 1628)
Italian physician and biologist who, in developing experimental methods to study living things, founded the science of microscopic anatomy. After Malpighi's researches, microscopic anatomy became a prerequisite for advances in the fields of physiology, embryology, and practical medicine. Drawing on the work of William Harvey, he studied the circulatory and respiratory systems of all living things and arranged them in a hierarchical system, beginning with plants, above which were insects, then fishes, then the mammals, then man. He was one of the first scientists to study such anatomical structures as the lungs, kidneys, spleen, brain, tongue, and skin at the microscopic level. |
| (Francesco) Bonaventura Cavalieri | |
(source) |
Died
30 Nov 1647 (born 1598)
Italian mathematician who made developments in geometry that were precursors to integral calculus. Cavalieri's theory of indivisibles, presented in his Geometria indivisibilis continuorum nova (1635) was a development of Archimedes' method of exhaustion incorporating Kepler's theory of infinitesimally small geometric quantities. The area and volume of various geometric figures can easily be found with this method. He was largely responsible for introducing logarithms as a computational tool in Italy through his book Directorium Generale Uranometricum, including logarithms of trigonometric functions for astronomers. He also wrote on optics and astronomy. Galileo thought highly of his writing, and corresponded with him. |
| William Gilbert | |
(source) |
Died
30 Nov 1603 (born 24 May 1544)
English scientist, the "father of electrical studies" and a pioneer researcher into magnetism, who spent years investigating magnetic and electrical attractions. Gilbert coined the names of electric attraction, electric force, and magnetic pole. He became the most distinguished man of science in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Noting that a compass needle not only points north and south, but also dips downward, he thought the Earth acts like a bar magnet. Like Copernicus, he believed the Earth rotates on its axis, and that the fixed stars were not all at the same distance from the earth. Gilbert thought it was a form of magnetism that held planets in their orbits. |
| NOVEMBER 30 - EVENTS | |
| Artificial heart | |
(source) |
In 2001, Robert Tools, 59, the first person
in the world to receive
a fully self-contained artificial heart, died in Louisville, Ky. Five months
earlier, on 2 Jul 2001, doctors at Jewish Hospital in Louisville had implanted
the AbioCor heart replacement. He died of internal bleeding and organ
failure after living with the device whirring in his chest for 151 days.
Doctors said the death was not caused by problems with the AbioCor heart
device. They blamed the severe abdominal bleeding on long-standing health
problems. Unlike earlier artificial hearts (such as the Jarvik-7) the AbioCor
has no wires or tubes that stick out of the chest and connect to a big
compressor. The battery-powered, plastic-and-titanium device is the size
of a softball. |
| Meteorite strikes woman | |
(source) |
In 1954, in Sylacauga, Alabama, USA, Ann Hodges, 32, was bruised on the
arm and hip by a meteorite that fell through the roof of her house into
her living room. It smashed the case of her wooden radio and struck her
as she lay resting on her sofa. The 9-lb (4-kg), 6 in (15 cm) diameter
fragment came from a larger, likely more than 150-lb, chondrite meteorite
that exploded over central Alabama about 2 pm, according to reports from
people in several states that saw a bright flash across the sky. This remains
(2006) the only recorded instance of a person being hit by a meteorite.
She donated it in 1956 to the Alabama Museum of Natural History, and it
is known by her name as the Hodges Meteorite.« [Image:
Under the hole broken through the ceiling by the falling meteorite, Ann
Hodges poses with the Sylacauga mayor and Police Chief ] |
| Crystal Palace fire | |
(source) |
In 1936, London's famed Crystal Palace, constructed for the International
Exhibition of 1851, was destroyed in the most spectacular fire seen in
Britain for many years. It started about 8 pm and spread with such amazing
rapidity that within half an hour the great building was ablaze from end
to end. Flames rose 300-ft despite the efforts of 90 engines and 500 firemen.
Only the two towers escaped destruction. When built, constructed mainly
of glass and iron, it was nicknamed "The Crystal Palace" by Punch
magazine. Within the Crystal Palace was a large concert hall which could
accommodate audiences of at least 4000 people, and had its own resident
orchestra, The Crystal Palace Orchestral Society. Regular concerts
were held there, until the palace was destroyed by fire. |
| Transatlantic radio photo fax | |
|
In 1924, the first photographs sent by radio across the Atlantic as a public
demonstration were received in New York. and published next day in the
New York Herald Tribune. Pictures of officials were accompanied
by a photo of the Oxford team winning in a relay race at Cambridge, a steamship
aground on the banks of the Thames, and an image of the written proverb,
"One picture is worth a thousand words." (A relay was made on 6 Jul 1924
when a picture of Charles E Hughes, Secretary of State, was transmitted
on a circuit beginning at the RCA Laboratories, by wire to New Brunswick,
N.J., then radio to Brentwood, England and wire to London. By further wire
and radio links, the signal was recorded back at the origin.) |
|
| Aluminium conductor | |
|
In 1899, aluminium was first used commercially in the U.S.as an electrical
transmission conductor. The Hartford
Electric Light Company of Hartford, Connecticut for a transmission
to Hartford, Conn. from its waterpower plant at Tariffville, Conn., on
Farmington River, at Spoonville, just before Case’s Island. The company'a
250-foot concrete dam created a 29 foot head of water which was used to
power their hydroelectric
plant. The dam powered 2 pairs of 1300-hp water wheels, each connected
to a 750-kilowatt generator in a brick powerhouse. The plant opened on
Thanksgiving day in 1899 providing electricity from there to Hartford.
It was washed away in the flood of 1955. |
|
| Black American patent | |
(USPTO) |
In 1897, a U.S. patent for a "Device for Rolling Cigarettes" was issued
to black American inventor J.A. Sweeting (No. 594,501). A concave mantrel
would carry tobacco while cigarette paper from a contained roll was turned
around the contents, thus producing a perfectly and conveniently formed
cigarette. By wetting a strip of the paper along the line of the roller
with a finger, further turning of the mantrel would apply tension and separate
the paper in a straight line. The wetted portion in contact with the formed
cigarette wrapper would adhere to it and prevent unwinding of the wrapper.
The
Inventive Spirit of African Americans: Patented Ingenuity,
by Patricia Carter Sluby. |
| A.C. power plant | |
|
In 1886, the first commercially successful U.S. alternating current power
plant was opened at Buffalo, N.Y. by George
Westinghouse. Compared to Edison's direct currect ventures, AC transmission
distance could be increased by miles using transformers at the source for
transmission at much higher voltage, which also decreased energy losses.
(Earlier in the year, on 6 Mar 1886,
he operated an experimental facility, the first AC power plant in the U.S.,
at Great Barrington, Mass. where he demonstrated transmission at 500 volts
for 4000 feet, stepped down to 100-volt for lights in stores. It began
generating commercial power two weeks later, but it was shortly abandoned
when it became damaged by an accident.) «
A
Life of George Westinghouse, by Henry G. Prout |
|
| Oat-crushing machine | |
(USPTO) |
In 1875, the first U.S. patent for an oat-crushing machine was issued to
Asmus.J. Ehrrichson, of Akron, Ohio (No. 170,536). The patent description
gave that previously this had been done "by crushing the grain between
rollers, or grinding with burrs or millstones, and subsequently screening
... into different grades." This, it said, resulted in inferior quality
due to excessive amounts of flour that was too fine. The invention instead
used a series of horizontal knives fixed in a frame through which oats
fall from a hopper with a perforated metal bottom. Lateral motion of the
hopper causes grain moving through the holes to be sheared against the
knives thus producing a desirable coarse grain meal.« |
| Black American patent | |
(USPTO) |
In 1875, a U.S. patent was issued for a "Biscuit Cutter" was issued to
black American inventor Alexander P. Ashbourne (No. 170,460). The device
consisted of a number of metal cutters, which could have various plain
or fancy shapes, mounted on a hinged plate attached to a molding board
on which dough for cake or biscuits would be rolled out. The plate was
then closed over the dough, allowing the cutters to cut through the dough,
forming many shapes simultaneously. When the hinged plate was lifted, to
simplify removal of the cut shapes, each cutter contained a spring-loaded
plate of similar shape to eject the cut dough. Provision was made to store
the rolling pin in a concave cross-bar along the back of the hinges.«
The
Inventive Spirit of African Americans: Patented Ingenuity,
by Patricia Carter Sluby. |
| First U.S. river tunnel | |
(source) |
In 1866, work began on the first traffic tunnel
under a river in the U.S. - the Washington Street Tunnel in Chicago, Ill,
under the Chicago River. It was built to alleviate traffic congestion at
the river's swing bridges and completed 1 Jan 1869. It had a total length
of 1,605-ft including approaches. It had two roadways 13-ft wide by 11-ft
high, and a footway 10-ft wide by 10-ft high. Cable car companies used
the tunnel from the 1880's to 1906. It was replaced with a deeper tunnel
in 1900 to give a deeper draft to the river. Electric streetcar service
through that tunnel began in 1911-12. The tunnel was closed in 1953. The
world's first tunnel under a waterway was the Thames
Tunnel, London, opened on 25 Mar 1843.«  [Image:
Washington Street Tunnel from an undated stereo viewer card.] |
| Mason jar | |
(source) |
In 1858, John Landis Mason received a U.S. patent for his invention known
by his name - the Mason
jar (No. 22,186).
Although hundreds of men and women obtained patents for fruit jars, probably
the most well known in the industry has been the Mason jar. It has become
a common term for the preserved food jar. Mason developed and patented
a shoulder-seal jar with a zinc screw cap. The "Mason jar" had a threaded
neck which fit with the threads in a metal cap to screw down to the shoulder
of the jar and in this way form a seal. In 1869, a top seal above the threads
and under a glass lid was introduced to the jar, thus effecting an excellent
seal. [Image:
The Gem
mason jar, made by Hero Glass Works, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, circa
1869] |
| First free air meteorological observations | |
(source) |
In 1784, American physician and scientist
John Jeffries recorded the first scientific data for free air, to a height
of 9,309-ft, during a balloon flight in London, England, including twelve
observations of temperature, pressure, and humidity. Jeffries' values agree
closely with modern determinations. Jeffries had provided himself with
thermometer, barometer, electrometer, hygrometer and timepiece. He also
took air samples at different elevations for Cavendish,
who subsequently made a chemical analysis of the air. This was the first
of two balloon
flights
Jeffries financed. He flew with Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard,
who had experience in balloon flight. On 7 Jan 1785, they made the first
balloon crossing of the English Channel. Image:
Jeffries posed as if in balloon, holding barometer. |
| Galileo's moon drawing | |
(source) |
In 1609, the modern face of the moon first emerged when Galileo Galilei
in Padua turned his telescope toward the moon, noted the irregularities
of the crescent face, and made a drawing
to record his discoveries. He made at least five more drawings of the moon
over the next eighteen days, prepared careful watercolor sketches from
these drawings, and then selected four of these to be engraved for his
revolutionary Starry Messenger, which appeared the following March.
Galileo's treatise announced to an astonished public that the moon was
a cratered chunk of elements - a world - and not some globe of quintessential
perfection. It was a new land, to be explored, charted, and named. Image:
engraving, the second in the series, based on a sketch made on 3 Dec 1609. |
|
Note: Sale of first concentrated milk, often seen stated for 30 Nov 1950, should be 2 Nov 1950. |
|
