| FEBRUARY 7 - BIRTHS | |
| Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov | |
(source) |
 Born 7
Feb 1926.
Russian cosmonaut and space engineer From 1955, he was part of the team that would go on to design the Sputnik, Vostok, Voskhod, and Soyuz spacecraft under the leadership of Sergey Korolev. He trained as a cosmonaut, and eventually launched 12 Oct 1964 for 16 earth orbits as one of the crew of Voskhod 1 (with Vladimir M. Komarov and Boris B. Yegorov), the world's first multimanned spaceflight. Only ten people had been into orbit before the Voskhod 1 mission. When his career as a cosomonaut ended for medical reasons, he continued as a space engineer eventually becoming head of the Soviet space design bureau that designed the Salyut and Mir space stations.«  The
Rocket Men: Vostok and Voskhod, by Rex Hall, David Shayler. |
| Ruth Sager | |
(source) |
Born 7
Feb 1918; died 29 Mar 1997.
American cellular geneticist whose research (1950's - 60's) altered the prevailing view about where genetic material was within the cell. In particular, she recognized that a second set of genes were found outside of the cell's nucleus. Even though they were nonchrosomomal, these genes also influenced inherited characteristics. Previously, only the chromosomal genes had been considered to control genetic behaviour. Her research in later life turned to the study of genetic mechanisms involved in cancer. She was among the first to study the role of mutations in suppressor genes that neutralized their restraint on cell reproduction.« Cell
heredity by Ruth Sager and Francis J. Ryan. |
| Ulf von Euler | |
(source) |
Born 7
Feb 1905; died 9 Mar 1983.
Swedish physiologist who shared the 1970 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (with Sir Bernard Katz and Julius Axelrod) for their independent study of transmitter mechanisms of nerve cells. Since 1906, when Thomas Elliott first proposed that nerve cells communicate with each other and the muscles they control by the release of chemicals, there had been efforts to identify these substances. Euler's recognition was for his discovery (1946) of noradrenaline which serves as neurotransmitter at the nerve terminals of the sympathetic nervous system. He further showed how noradrenaline is stored in small nerve granules within the nerve fibres of this system. Euler had earlier, in 1935, discovered the substance he named prostaglandin.« Release
and uptake functions in adrenergic nerve granules, by
Ulf von Euler. |
| Hans Jenny | |
(source) |
Born 7
Feb 1899; died 9 Jan 1992
Swiss agricultural chemist and pedologist (soil scientist) who developed numerical functions to describe soil in terms of five interacting factors in his book Factors of Soil Formation (1941). These related Climate (temperature and moisture); Organisms (those living on the soil and in the soil, vegetation and animals, fungi algae and bacteria, decay of organic matter, humus); Relief (topography, and geomorphic landscape); Parent Material (bedrock or sediment type); and Time (ranging from 100's to 1000's of years while maturity or equilibrium of soil development is attained). He moved to the U.S. in 1926. After retirement, he studied the soil relationships in the unusual ecological community of the Pygmy Forest in California, known for its stunted and twisted confers.« Factors
of Soil Formation: A System of Quantitative Pedology,
by Hans Jenny. |
| Eric Temple Bell | |
(source) |
Born 7
Feb 1883; died 21 Dec 1960.
Scottish-American mathematician and writer who contributed to analytic number theory (in which he found several inportant theorems), Diophantine analysis and numerical functions. In addition to about 250 papers on mathematical research, he also wrote for the layman in Men of Mathematics (1937) and Mathematics, Queen and Servant of Science (1951) among others. Under the name of John Taine, he also wrote science fiction.« The
Search for E. T. Bell: Also Known as John Taine, by Constance
Reid, William Watkins. |
| Godfrey Harold Hardy | |
(source) |
Born 7
Feb 1877; died 1 Dec 1947.
English mathematician known for his work in number theory and mathematical analysis. Hardy's interests covered many topics of pure mathematics - Diophantine analysis, summation of divergent series, Fourier series, the Riemann zeta function, and the distribution of primes. Although Hardy considered himself a pure mathematician, early in his career, he nevertheless worked in applied mathematics when he formulated a law that describes how proportions of dominant and recessive genetic traits will propagate in a large population (1908). Hardy considered it unimportant but it has proved of major importance in blood group distribution. As it was also independently discovered by Weinberg, it is known as the Hardy-Weinberg principle.« A
Mathematician's Apology, by G. H. Hardy . |
| Sir Chester Beatty | |
(source) |
Born 7
Feb 1875; died 19 Jan 1968.
Sir (Alfred) Chester Beatty was an American-born naturalized (1933) British mining engineer and company director. He perfected a method of extracting copper from low grade ore, and was active in developing the copper deposits of central Africa. Beatty had a keen interest in collecting minerals as a child in the U.S. and which grew into a career as a mining engineer. He moved to England in 1911, continuing his career, and eventually owned copper mines all over the world - in Africa, the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Beatty promoted cancer research, and in 1936 he founded the Chester Beatty Research Institute, London. When he died, he donated his significant art collection to Ireland, now the Chester Beatty Library.« |
| Kiyoshi Shiga | |
(source) |
Born 7
Feb 1871; died 25 Jan 1957.
Japanese bacteriologist, who discovered (1897) the dysentery bacillus Shigella, named after him. Shigellosis is the infectious disease caused by this group of bacteria leading to diarrhea, fever, stomach cramps and possible hospitalization. He also developed dysentery antiserum (1900). After appointment (1899) and serving a short time as director of the Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, he spent until 1903 working in Germany on the chemotherapy of trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) with Paul Ehrlich. He returned to Japan and continued his earlier association in research with Kitasato. In 1912, he moved to work again with Ehrlich in Frankfurt, this time focussing on tuberculosis. In his later life he also investigated leprosy and beriberi.« |
| Alfred Adler | |
(source) |
Born 7
Feb 1870; died 28 May 1937.
Austrian doctor and psychologistwho founded the school of individual psychology. Adler began his medical career as an ophthalmologist, but later turned to mental disease and became a prominent member of the psychoanalytical group which formed around Sigmund Freud in 1900. Adler developed a theory of organic inferiority and compensation (inferiority complex). In 1911 he broke with Freud and investigated the psychology of the individual person considered to be different from others. His therapeutic methods were supportive, designed to avoid blame or a superior attitude by the practitioner, to reduce resistance and raise awareness of individual behaviour. He moved to the USA to teach in 1932.« [Image from Adler's U.S. immigration card, which gave date admitted as 24 Sep1933.] Understanding
Human Nature, by Alfred Adler, Colin Brett. |
| Karl August Möbius | |
(source) |
Born 7
Feb 1825; died 26 Apr 1908.
German zoologist whose work in marine biology included the formation of pearls and the anatomy of the whale. He introduced the ecosystem concept of the "life community" ("Biocönose" - life having something in common) which featured in his 1877 study of oyster culture - the order, structure and function of the oyster reef as it relates to the abiotic habitat of a river mouth and the biotic associations of plants, plankton, benthic communities and fisheries in an estuary. He cofounded the Hamburg zoo and aquarium, led expeditions in the tropics, and became director of the natural history museum in Berlin (1887-1905).« [Image: oyster reef] |
| Sir William Huggins | |
(source) |
Born 7
Feb 1824; died 12 May 1910.
English astronomer who explored the spectra of stars, nebulae and comets to interpret their chemical composition, assisted by his wife Margaret Lindsay Murray. He was the first to demonstrate (1864) that whereas some nebulae are clusters of stars (with stellar spectral characteristics, ex. Andromeda), certain other nebulae are uniformly gaseous as shown by their pure emission spectra (ex. the great nebula in Orion). He made spectral observations of a nova (1866). He also was first to attempt to measure a star's radial velocity. He was one of the wealthy 19th century private astronomers that supported their own passion while making significant contributions. At age only 30, Huggins built his own observatory at Tulse Hill, outside London.« |
| Gardner Quincy Colton | |
(source) |
Born 7
Feb 1814; died 9 Aug 1898.
American lecturer who was the first to administer nitrous oxide as an anaesthetic. This followed when one of Colton's public demonstrations of the properties of nitrous oxide, was attended by a dentist. It was Horace Wells, who observed a volunteer paid no heed to any pain when he accidentally gashed leg while stumbling around under the influence of a moderate dose of the gas. Wells suggested the use of the gas as an anaesthetic, and even volunteered to have Colton administer the nitrous oxide while one of Wells' molars was extracted by his partner, dentist John Riggs (11 Dec 1844). Between 1864-97, Colton as anaesthetist administered nitrous oxide while his dental colleagues successfully extracted tens of thousands of teeth.« |
| John Deere | |
(source) |
Born 7
Feb 1804; died 17 May 1886.
American agricultural equipment inventor and pioneer manufacturer. As a blacksmith in a U.S. prairie town, he frequently repaired the wood and cast-iron plows of eastern U.S. design because the local soils were heavy and sticky. By 1838 he had produced three more suitable steel plows of his own new design, and more in following years, which expanded into the agricultural machine business he began upon moving to Moline, Ill. (1847). In another ten years, his annual production had increased ten-fold. Originally using imported English steel instead of cast iron, he converted to U.S. made steel when Pittsburgh steel plants could supply a suitable product. The company diversified with production of harrows, drills, cultivators and wagons.« Genuine
Value: The John Deere Journey, by John J. Gerstner. |
|
Today in Science History Science Store Browse a selection of Bargain Science and Nature Books |
| FEBRUARY 7 - DEATHS | |
| Alan MacDiarmid | |
(source) |
 Died
7 Feb 2007 (born 14 Apr 1927)
New-Zealand-born American chemist who shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with Alan Heeger and Hideki Shirakawa) "for the discovery and development of conductive polymers." Plastics (formed of repeated units in long-chain polymer molecules) most often do not conduct electricity, and are used for insulation. At the end of the 1970's, these scientists devised polymer materials that were semi-conductors, able to conduct electricity. Practical applications now include conductive polymers in "smart" windows able to exclude sunlight, light-emitting diodes, solar cells and displays for mobile telephones and small television screens. Research has been stimulated to attempt to produce transistors consisting of individual molecules with which to dramatically reduce the size of computers.« |
| Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov | |
(source) |
Died
7 Feb 1960 (born 12 Jan 1903)
Soviet nuclear physicist who from 1932 conducted nuclear science research in the Soviet Union, during which time his team built a cyclotron, a proton accelerator and studied artificial radioactivity and neutron-proton interactions. During WW II, he was chosen as director for the development of his country's first atomic bomb, detonated 29 Aug 1949. Meanwhile, in Dec 1946, Kurchatov demonstrated a working prototype reactor, though limited to producing only a few watts and by Jun 1948, a plutonium production reactor. He subsequently produced the world's first practical thermonuclear bomb (1952). Before 1978, the Soviet name for element-104 was kurchatovium (Ku), though subsquently rutherfordium (Rf) became the accepted name.« I.V.
Kurchatov:: A Socialist-Realist Biography of the Soviet Nuclear Scientist,
by I. N. Golovin |
| Harvey S. Firestone | |
(source) |
Died
7 Feb 1938 (born 20 Dec 1868)
Harvey S(amuel) Firestone was an American industrialist who developed straight-side pneumatic tyres used on the Model T Fords. In his early career, from 1893, he had made his living selling buggies in Detroit, Michigan. Subsequently he moved to Akron, Ohio, and started the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in 1900. His success grew when, in 1906, he teamed up with Henry Ford to provide tyres for his popular Model T cars. By the late 1930's, nearly a quarter of all tyres being used in the United States were made by Firestone. His innovations in the industry changed the design and production of pneumatic tyres, including nonskid tyre treads, low-pressure balloon tyres, and farm tractor tyres.« Men
and Rubber: The Story of Business, by Harvey S. Firestone. |
| Henri-Émile Bazin | |
(source) |
Died
7 Feb 1917 (born 10 Jan 1829)
French hydraulic engineer who assisted the research of H.-P.-G. Darcy (1803-58) and reported in Recherches hydrauliques (1865) their results of open channel flow experiments, which he continued and completed after Darcy's death. He also studied wave propagation and fluid flow through orifices. In 1854, he improved the Canal de Bourgogne, important for French inland commercial navigation, and made it profitable. Bazin's additions to the canal included sluice enlargement, tunnel improvement, and water supply from an enhanced reservoir. In 1867, his suggestion to use pumps for dredging rivers led to the construction of the first suction dredgers. In 1886, he was appointed Inspecteur General of the Ponts et Chausses Corps.« |
| Robert Wood Johnson | |
(source) |
Died
7 Feb 1910 (born 15 Feb 1845)
American manufacturer who, with his two brothers, founded the Johnson & Johnson Corporation, to make surgical dressings (1885), and was its first President. In 1876, he had been inspired by a lecture by noted English surgeon Sir Joseph Lister, the pioneer of antiseptic surgery. Johnson set out to create a ready-made, surgical dressing that could be used without risk of contamination. He worked to develop a dressing that could remain as germ-free as practical between his factories and their medical uses around the country. He further worked to improve sanitary practices in the nineteenth century. Over time, the company diversified into many more consumer products, and now sells a comprehensive range of health care products worldwide.« |
| James Glaisher | |
(source) |
Died
7 Feb 1903 (born 7 Apr 1809)
English meteorologist and aeronaut. Between 1862-66, mostly with Henry Tracey Coxwell, he made balloon ascents, many of which were arranged by a committee of the British Association. The object was to carry out scientific observations such as the variation in temperature and humidity of the atmosphere at high elevations. On 5 Sep 1862, ascending from Wolverhampton, Glaisher and his companion attained the greatest height that had then been reached by a balloon carrying passengers. The precise altitude at the highest point is unknown because Glaisher lost consciousness and was unable to read the barometer, but estimated at 7 miles high. He produced dew-point tables (1847) and wrote several scientific books including Travels in the Air .« 
Travels
in the air, by James Glaisher. |
| Galileo Ferraris | |
(source) |
Died
7 Feb 1897 (born 31 Oct 1847)
Italian physicist who studied optics, acoustics and several fields of electrotechnics, but his most important discovery was the rotating magnetic field. He produced the field with two electromagnets in perpendicular planes, and each supplied with a current that was 90º out of phase. This could induce a current in a incorporated copper rotor, producing a motor powered by alternating current. He produced his first induction motor (with 4 poles) in May-Jun 1885. Its principles are now applied in the majority of today's a.c. motors, yet he refused to patent his invention, and preferred to place it at the service of everyone.« |
| Antoine-Joseph Sax | |
(source) |
Died
7 Feb 1894 (born 6 Nov 1814)
Sax, who took the name Adolphe, was a Belgian-French musical instrument designer from age 15, and inventor of the saxophone (mid 1840's, patented 1846), saxtromba, and sax horn (mid to late 1830's). Sax created the distinctive saxophone sound by combining the clarinet's single reed and mouthpiece with a widened oboe's conical bore. His first saxophones were of wood. Although he soon switched to brass, they remain classified as a woodwind instrument. Sax patented many new instruments, but although they were adopted by French army bands, he had no factory production and made little profit, yet he spent ten years in court protecting his patents. In the last years of his life, Sax was living in poverty.« |
| Henry Engelhard Steinway | |
(source) |
Died
7 Feb 1871 (born 15 Feb 1797)
German-born American inventor of the overstrung iron-frame grand piano (1859). He began business in Germany, building his first piano in 1836. The Revolution of 1848 caused him to emigrate to America with his wife and sons where they continued innovating and building these instruments. Creating an iron frame design permitted greater string tension without the twisting and stability problems of wood, and he incorporated longer bass strings by orienting them obliquely over the others in his overstrung design. He exhibited this at the N.Y. Industrial Exhibition of 1855, taking first prize, leading to new prosperity. By 1856 he produced his first grand, and in 1862 the first upright. In 1864 he Anglicized his family to become known as Steinway.« Steinway
& Sons, by Richard K. Lieberman. |
| FEBRUARY 7 - EVENTS | |
| Untethered space walk | |
McCandless (source) |
In 1984, the first untethered spacewalks
were made by Challenger astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert
L. Stewart, each using a manned maneuvering unit (MMU), during the tenth
flight of a Space Shuttle, mission 41-B, in orbit 150 nautical miles above
the Earth. McCandless, with his MMU, was the first to leave the cargo bay,
becoming the first person to fly free, untethered in space. Stewart also
flew the MMU. They checked out the equipment, maneuvered within the cargo
bay, flew away from and back to the orbiter, made docking exercises, recharged
the MMU nitrogen tanks, and collected engineering data. These MMU flights
demonstrated capabilities
needed in the planned retrieval of the Solar Max satellite on a later shuttle
mission.« |
| "Bubble" boy | |
(source) |
In 1984, a 12-year-old boy publicly identified only as "David," born without
immunity
to disease, touched his mother for the first time after he was removed
from a plastic "bubble." He died two weeks later on 22 Feb. He had lived
since birth in this protective, germ-free environment since birth at Texas
Children's Hospital, Houston. Born with a rare disorder called severe combined
immune deficiency, or SCID, David
Vetter lacked T-cells. In the 18 Feb 1999 New England Journal of
Medicine, Duke University researchers reported that early treatment
with bone marrow from a parent or sibling can now save most SCID
patients. After a few months, the transplanted marrow stem cells - precursors
to blood cells - evolve and become the patient's own T-cells.
DVD
- The American Experience: The Boy in the Bubble (2006) |
| Monopoly | |
(source) |
In 1935, Monopoly was first marketed by Charles
Darrow, with the symbol of Rich Uncle Pennybags. He had invented the
game on 7 Mar 1933. A patent
was
issued for the game 31 Dec 1935, assigned to Parker Brothers, Inc.(No.
2,026,082). The patent described a "Board Game Apparatus... intended primarily
to provide a game of barter, thus involving trading and bargaining" in
which "much of the interest in the game lies in trading and in striking
shrewd bargains." Illustrations showed the playing board, pieces, 22 "Title
cards of the respective Real Estate holdings," Utilities, Chance and Community
Chest cards, and scrip money. On the throw of the dice, the players may
move onto Real Estate locations which may be acquired.«
Monopoly,
game by Parker Brothers. |
| Train wireless message | |
|
In 1915, the first wireless message sent from a moving train to a station
was received. |
|
| Neutron | |
Chadwick (source) |
In 1932, the "neutron" was described in an article in the journal Nature
by its discoverer, James Chadwick,
who coined the name for this neutral particle he discovered
present in the nucleus of atoms. He was an English physicist
who studied
at Cambridge, and in Berlin under Geiger, then worked at the Cavendish
Laboratory with Rutherford, where he investigated the structure of
the atom. He worked on the scattering of alpha particles and on nuclear
disintegration. By bombarding beryllium with alpha particles, Chadwick
discovered the neutron for which he received the Nobel Prize for Physics
in 1935. He led the UK's work on the atomic bomb in WW II, and was knighted
in 1945.«
The
Neutron and the Bomb: A Biography of Sir James Chadwick,
by Andrew P. Brown. |
| First British X-ray | |
(source) |
In 1896, radiology began in England when X-rays were first used to discover
the location of a bullet in a 12-yr-old boy's wrist who shot himself the
previous month. When the pellet could not be found on probing, surgeon
Sir
Robert Jones had been consulted. Jones, having heard about the recently
discovered X-rays, asked Oliver Lodge,
head of the physics department at Liverpool University, if he could help
with the new X-rays. On this day, the boy was brought to Lodge’s laboratory.
The pellet was identified embedded in the third carpo-metacarpal joint.
Jones and Lodge reported the case in The Lancet on 22
Feb 1896. Charles Thurstan Holland
who had been in attendance subsequently pioneered in clinical radiological
examinations.« [Image:
X-ray from 1896 of hand with buckshot made at Columbia University, USA] |
| Newlands' Law of Octaves | |
Newlands (source) |
In 1863, John Newlands, an English
chemist (1837-1898), organized the known elements by listing them in order
by atomic weight, according to his "Law of Octaves." This was based on
noticing that after each interval of eight elements, similar physical and
chemical properties reappeared. He thus created natural families and periods.
The article"On
relations among the Equivalents," appeared in Chem News, vol. 7,
pp. 70-2. The English Chemical Society ridiculed the idea. So little significance
was then attached to atomic weights, he was once asked why not just order
elements by their initial letters. He was belatedly recognized in 1887
by the Royal Society with the award of the Davy Medal, but only after Mendeleev
had more successfully introduced his table. |
| First U.S. public street light | |
(source) |
In 1817, the first public gas street light in the U.S. was lit in Baltimore,
Maryland. From 19 Jun 1816,
the Gas
Light Company of Baltimore had been laying pipes with the approval
of the City Council in the first city ordinance of its kind in the U.S.
Earlier in 1816, artist and entrepreneur Rembrandt Peale had learnt about
gas lighting by travelling to England. On his return, he displayed his
"Ring of Fire" gas-powered light in his Baltimore museum on the corner
of Baltimore and Holiday Streets. Peale’s successful demonstration of the
power and value of gas led to a plan to light the streets of the city,
and the first gas company in America. [Image:
A lamp (from 1920-30's) kept burning on the site that Peale first constructed
his in 1817.] |
