| APRIL 12 - BIRTHS | |
| Peter Safar | |
(source) |
 Born 12
Apr 1924; died 3 Aug 2003.
Austrian-American physician whose pioneering "Kiss of Life" procedure of mouth-to-mouth resuscitations is credited with saving countless lives. In the 1960s the technique was combined with new chest compressions, producing what's known today as CPR, or cardio-pulmonary resuscitation. He also helped create the organization that, in 1976, became the World Association for disaster and Emergency Medicine. Although there are ancient references to the apparent use of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in the Bible, the technique fell out of practice until rediscovered by Safar in the 1950s. Also credited with playing a key role was his colleague, Dr James Elam. Safar survived a Nazi labor camp before emigrating to the U.S. after WW II. |
| Otto Meyerhof | |
(source) |
Born 12
Apr 1884; died 6 Oct 1951.
Otto Fritz Meyerhof was a German biochemist and corecipient, with Archibald V. Hill, of the 1922 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for research on the chemical reactions of metabolism in muscle. In 1940 he emigrated to America. Meyerhof demonstrated that the production of lactic acid in muscle tissue, formed as a result of glycogen breakdown, was effected without the consumption of oxygen (i.e., anaerobically). The lactic acid was reconverted to glycogen through oxidation by molecular oxygen, during muscle rest. This line of research was continued by Gustav Embden and Carl and Gerty Cori who worked out in greater detail the steps by which glycogen is converted to lactic acid - the Embden-Meyerhof pathway. |
| Richard B. Goldschmidt | |
(source) |
Born 12
Apr 1878; died 24 Apr 1958.
Richard B(enedikt) Goldschmidt was a German-born U.S. zoologist who specialized in heredity. He studied the X-chromosomes of butterflies. He produced a theory, now discredited, that there were more decisive factors in inheritance than the qualities of the individual genes. He held that the serial pattern of the chromosomes and the chemical configuration of the chromosome molecule were more important factors. His experiments with the Gypsy Moth revealed that much geographical variation is genetic and not environmental in origin. However, he was able with high temperature to produce phenotypes in fruit flies, and demonstrate an environmental factor could mimic some of the effects of genetic mutation, though not inheritable.«  Material
Basis of Evolution, by Richard B. Goldschmidt. |
| Sir James Mackenzie | |
(source) |
Born 12
Apr 1853; died 26 Jan 1925.
Scottish cardiologist, pioneer in the study of cardiac arrhythmias. He was first to make simultaneous records of the arterial and venous pulses to evaluate the condition of the heart, a procedure that laid the foundation for much future research. Mackenzie also drew attention to the question of the heart's capacity for work, paving the way for the study of the energetics of the heart muscle. His work was particularly important in distinguishing atrial fibrillation and in treating this common condition with digitalis. In 1892, he built a machine for detecting and recording physiological activity, such as pulse rate and blood pressure, since known as a polygraph, and later used as a lie detector. |
| Ferdinand von Lindemann | |
(source) |
Born 12
Apr 1852; died 6 March 1939.
(Carl Louis) Ferdinand von Lindemann was a German mathematician who was the first to prove that 
is transcendental (it is not a solution of any algebraic equation with
rational coefficients). This finally established
the insoluble nature of the classical Greek mathematical problem of squaring
the circle (constructing a square with the same area as a given circle
using ruler and compasses alone.) In 1873, Lindemann visited Hermite
in Paris and discussed the methods which Hermite had used in his proof
that e, the base of natural logarithms, is transcendental. Following
this visit, Lindemann was able to extend Hermite's results to show that
was also transcendental (1882).« |
| Albert Heim | |
(source) |
Born 12
Apr 1849; died 31 Aug 1937.
Swiss geologist whose studies of the Swiss Alps greatly advanced knowledge of the dynamics of mountain building and of glacial effects on topography and geology. He studied the formation of overthrusts and nappes in the Alps. He supported the idea of a contracting Earth. He also studied the mechanics of rock deformation, proposing that rocks can deform plastically under pressure and that the same pressure causes metamorphism. After a near-fatal fall in the Alps during which he had a mystical experience, Heim began the first serious study of near-death experiences. Over a period of several decades he collected observations and accounts from numerous survivors of serious accidents. Heim first presented these findings at the Swiss Alpine Club in 1892. |
| John Shaw Billings | |
(source) |
Born 12
Apr 1838; died 11 March 1913.
American surgeon and librarian whose organization of U.S. medical institutions played a central role in the modernization of hospital care and the maintenance of public health. During the Civil War, in the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, he performed many operations and was the first surgeon in the war to attempt, with success, excision of the ankle joint. He was profoundly interested in advancing knowledge by creating libraries, including the New York Public Library, to improve access to books. Billings also had ideas about hospital architectural design. He planned the new Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore with ventilation systems that reflected the best contemporary understanding of industrial hygiene. |
| Grenville Mellen Dodge | |
(source) |
Born 12
Apr 1831; died 3 Jan 1916.
American civil engineer who was responsible for much of the railroad construction in the western and southwestern U.S. during the 19th century. Before the Civil War, he did railroad work in the West. During the war, with the Union forces, his skill in rapidly rebuilding the bridges and railroads destroyed by Confederates was of great value to Grant and Sherman in their Western campaigns. He became a Union general. He was severely wounded at the siege of Atlanta. After campaigning (1865-66) against the Native Americans, he left the army (May 1866). Then as chief engineer of the Union Pacific Railroad, his efficient, rapid construction of that line was his greatest achievement. Dodge was a Republican Congressman from Iowa (1867-69). |
| Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu | |
(source) |
Born 12
Apr 1748; died 17 Sep 1836.
French botanist who developed the principles that served as the foundation of a natural system of plant classification. He was born into a family of eminent botanists from Lyons in France. After graduating from the Jardin du Roi in 1770, he continued to work there. He is remembered for introducing a natural classification system that distinguishes relationships between plants relying a large number of characters, unlike the artificial Linnean system, which uses only a few. He distinguished 15 classes and 100 families, of which 76 remain in botanical nomenclature today. His uncles Antoine, Bernard, and Joseph de Jussieu all made important contributions to botany and his son, Adrien, subsequently continued the family tradition. |
| William Cookworthy | |
| Born 12
Apr 1705; died 17 Oct 1780.
English chemist who pioneered the manufacture of porcelain in Britain. He discovered deposits of kaolin and China stone (forms of decomposed granite) near St. Austell, Cornwall (1756). It was sufficiently pure to make a Chinese-style pure white porcelain. He spent many years experimenting to perfect the product. Also, for Thomas Smeaton's new Eddystone lighthouse, he formulated a hydraulic cement that both set quickly and hard enough to withstand erosion from the sea waves. He patented his porcelain process (17 Mar 1768), and ran a factory ten years before selling out to another manufacturer. China clay is an important industrial product used today in coated paper, toothpaste, paint, rubber, plastics, pharmaceuticals and agricultural products.« |
|
| APRIL 12 - DEATHS | |
| George Wald | |
(source) |
 Died
12 Apr 1997 (born 18 Nov 1906)
American biochemist who received (with Haldan K. Hartline of the U.S. and Ragnar Granit of Sweden) the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1967 for his work on the chemistry of vision. While researching the biochemistry of vision at Harvard University, he disclosed the presence of Vitamin A in the retina of the eye. In later work, he identified visual pigments and their precursors. As a byproduct he described the absorption spectra of the different types of cones serving colour vision. His important discovery of the primary molecular reaction to light in the eye represented a dramatic advance in vision since it plays the role of a trigger in the photoreceptors of all living animals. |
| Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm | |
(EB) |
Died
12 Apr 1971 (born 8 July 1895)
Soviet physicist who shared the 1958 Nobel Prize for Physics with Pavel A. Cherenkov and Ilya M. Frank for his efforts in explaining Cherenkov radiation. Tamm was an outstanding theoretical physicist, after early researches in crystallo-optics, he evolved a method for interpreting the interaction of nuclear particles. Together with I. M. Frank, he developed the theoretical interpretation of the radiation of electrons moving through matter faster than the speed of light (the Cerenkov effect), and the theory of showers in cosmic rays. He has also contributed towards methods for the control of thermonuclear reactions. |
| Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz | |
(source) |
Died
12 Apr 1963 (born 12 Dec 1890)
Polish logician and semanticist who was the chief contributor to the Warsaw school of philosophy and logic. He is credited with developing in 1920 the first deductive theory for the study of logic based on syntax. The dominant theme of Ajdukiewicz's thought was the problem of the dependence of our knowledge and conception of knowledge on language. His main contributions are in the field of logical syntax (with the theory of semantical categories) and in epistemology, with the so-called "radical conventionalism", a doctrine where he claimed that there exist conceptual apparatuses which are not intertranslatable and that scientific knowledge grows through the replacement of one such conceptual apparatus by another. |
| Alfred Métraux | |
(source) |
Died
12 Apr 1963 (born 5 Nov 1902)
Swiss anthropologist noted for his pioneering contributions to South American ethnohistory and the examination of African culture in Haiti. While director of the ethnological institute at the University of Tucumán, Argentina, (1928-34) he wrote two classic works on the ethnohistory of the extinct Tupinambá Indians of Brazil. He made an expedition to Easter Island (1934-35), after which he argued that Easter Island's indigenous population is Polynesian, both culturally and physically, and that the island's well-known monolithic sculptures are native creations rather than Asian or American Indian ones. After travelling the Amazon (1947-48) he studied the Haiti island culture (1949-50). He viewed voodoo as a structured, complex religious system with African origins. |
| Clara Barton | |
(source) |
Died
12 Apr 1912 (born 25 Dec 1821)
American nursing pioneer, died at age 90. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Barton worked as a U.S. Patent Office clerk and collected provisions and medical supplies for the Union Army. Restless with her limited role and undeterred by War Department regulations and prevailing stereotypes, Barton distributed supplies and tended to the wounded and dying despite life-threatening conditions. She became known as "The Angel of the Battlefield." Almost singlehandedly she founded the American Red Cross, which has provided comfort in times of crisis since 1882. |
| Edward Drinker Cope | |
(source) |
Died
12 Apr 1897 (born 28 July 1840)
American paleontologist and prolific taxonomist of vertebrate paleontology. He was also active in ichthyology and herpetology. He was an evolutionist, and was one of the founders of the Neo- Lamarckian school of evolutionary thought. This school believed that changes in developmental (embryonic) timing, not natural selection, was the driving force of evolution. Cope thought that groups of species that shared similar developmental patterns could be grouped into more inclusive groups (i.e. genera, families, and so on). He led many natural history surveys in the American West for the precursors of the U.S. Geological Survey, making many important finds on his trips, including dinosaur discoveries in western North America. |
| Karl Humann | |
(source) |
Died
12 Apr 1896 (born 4 Jan 1839)
German engineer and archaeologist, whose excavation of the ancient Greek city of Pergamum (now Bergama, Tur.) brought to light some of the choicest examples of Hellenistic sculpture and revealed much about Hellenistic city planning. He also excavated the Greek city of Magnesia, another ancient city located in modern Turkey. |
| John Stough Bobbs | |
(source) |
Died
12 Apr 1870 (born 28 Dec 1809)
American physician who performed the first U.S. gallstone operation in Indianapolis, Indiana, becoming known as "the father of cholecystotomy". The surgery was reported, 19-20 May 1868, to the Indiana State Medical Society of which he was president of the surgery section. Bobbs was a commissioner of the state's first hospital, the Indiana Hospital for the Insane. He was the state's first and most vocal advocate for a medical school, and he was founded the Indiana Medical college in 1869 (which was incorporated into the Indiana University School of Medicine in 1908). Earlier, he had served as state senator (1856-60). He was a civilian brigade surgeon during the Civil War.« |
| Antoine de Jussieu | |
(source) |
Died
12 Apr 1758 (born 6 Jul 1686)
French physician and botanist who wrote many papers on human anatomy, zoology, and botany, including one on the flower and fruit of the coffee shrub. |
| APRIL 12 - EVENTS | |
| Internet spam | |
In 1994, the first Internet spamming program was used by an attorney in
Arizona. Laurence Canter created
the software program, a simple Perl script, that flooded Usenet message
board readers with a notice for the "Green Card Lottery" to solicit business
for his law firm of Canter & Siegel (with wife, Martha Siegel.) The
reaction
from the online community was vigorously critical, condemning such a form
of advertising. Thousands of recipients complained, but a new, burgeoning
business of unsolicited mass Internet advertising had been spawned. The
term "spam" was coined
from a sketch in the "Monty Python's Flying Circus" BBC television show
in which a waitress offered a menu full of variations of spam to an unwilling
patron. |
|
| Genetically engineered mouse | |
(source) |
In 1988, the first U.S. patent was issued on a mammal life form to Harvard
scientists Philip Leder and Timothy
Stewart for a genetically engineered mouse (No.
4,736,866). The Oncomouse was altered to be highly susceptible to breast
cancer. It was called the product of the year by a major financial magazine.
Although the patent is owned by Harvard Medical School, because it was
developed with funding from DuPont, an earlier commercialization arrangement
leaves DuPont entitled to exclusive license of the patent. DuPont has claimed
patent protection on any anticancer product ever derived from the mice.
The first patent for a life form was issued on 31 Mar 1981 for a genetically
engineered bacterium. 
[Image: one of the freeze-dried mice donated to the Science Museum, London,
by Harvard Medical School in 1989] |
| Space shuttle | |
(source) |
In 1981, the American Space Shuttle Columbia was launched into space,
NASA flight STS-1, to
become the first of a series
of reusable spacecraft. The mission commander was John
W. Young with pilot Robert Crippen. |
| Nerve gas accident | |
(source) |
In 1968, a sudden outbreak
of startling sheep deaths in Skull Valley, Utah, was attributed to a nerve
gas sprayed earlier by the Army on the nearby Dugway Proving Grounds. The
investigation made by the National Communicable Disease Center was hampered
by the Army's initial denial of responsibility and slowness to provide
adequate gas samples for independent agencies to check. The debacle led
to an overhaul of procedures concerning development of chemical weapons
at Dugway. |
| First Earth orbit by man | |
(source) |
In 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit
the Earth. His spacecraft, Vostok 1, had radio, television and life-support
equipment to relay information on his condition. The flight was automated.
Gagarin's controls were locked to prevent him from taking control of the
ship, although a key in a sealed envelope was provided in case of an emergency.
After e-entry, Gagarin ejected
and made a planned descent with his own parachute. However for many years
the Soviet Union denied this, because the flight would not have been recognized
for various FAI world records unless the pilot had accompanied his craft
to a landing. Gagarin died in a plane crash 7 years later.« |
| German nuclear weapons | |
|
In 1957, in Bonn, leading German physicists ceased all work connected with
nuclear weapons.* |
|
| Salk vaccine field trial | |
(source) |
In 1955, the Salk
vaccine against polio
was announced to work, and be "safe, effective and potent," after a year-long
field trial. Dr. Thomas Francis,
Jr. made the statement at a press conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan,
on the tenth annniversary of the death of Franklin Roosevelt (1945), the
U.S. president who was a victim of the disease. Dr. Francis was a former
professor of Jonas Salk. |
| Oppenheimer suspended | |
 |
In 1954, the American Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) began hearings
to revoke Robert Oppenheimer's
security clearance, thereby severing him from the commission's work. Although
he had led the scientists making the atomic bombs during the WW II Manhattan
Project, he had been affected by the bombs' death toll and chilling descriptions
of radiation sickness. When the Soviet Union detonated an atom bomb in
1949, Edward Teller and Ernest
Lawrence lobbied feverishly to develop the hydrogen bomb. Oppenheimer
chaired the General Advisory Committee AEC, repudiated the hydrogen bomb
as a weapon of "genocide." In May 1953, when Lewis Strauss accepted the
chair of the AEC, he regarded Oppenheimer as a security risk, and wanted
him to be dismissed. |
| Theory of Relativity | |
|
In 1923, American scientists studying Einstein's
Theory of Relativity found further evidence in support of its correctness.* |
|
| Marie Curie's discoveries announced | |
 |
In 1898, Marie Curie observed a meeting
of the French Academy of Sciences,
where one of her teachers, Prof.
Gabriel Lippmann announced her discovery of substances much more radioactive
than uranium. Working since Dec 1897, she had verified that the radiant
activity of various compounds was directly related to the amount of uranium
present, whether solid, powdered, or in a wet state. She proposed the radiant
activity was an atomic property, for it was independent of physical or
chemical state. She announced that in pitchblende and charcolite she had
discovered compounds
even more active than uranium. (She had not, in fact, found a new element,
but was the first to identify thorium's powerful radioactivity.)« |
| Alfred Nobel's premature obituary | |
 |
In 1888, a French newspaper mistakenly published an obituary for Albert
Nobel, inventor of dynamite, calling him "a merchant of death." The
mistake was that it was actually Albert's brother, Ludwig Nobel, who had
just died (at age 56, due to heart trouble). However, shocked by the newspaper's
report, Albert Nobel began to seek a change in public opinion, which led
to his decision to establish the Nobel Prizes. [Image:
Alfred Nobel] |
| Portable typewriter | |
 |
In 1892, the first U.S. patent for a portable typewriter, the Blickensderfer,
was issued to George Blickensderfer of Stamford, Connecticut (No. 472,692). |
| Fire-proof safe | |
(source) |
In 1833, the first U.S. patent for a fireproof safe was issued to Charles
A. Gaylor of New York City, as a "fire-proof iron chest." He called his
product the "Salamander Safe," and made it from two chests, one within
the other, with a space between to "inclose air of any non-conductor of
heat." Its name derives from the salamander, a mythical animal having the
power to endure fire without harm. |
| Railroad tunnel | |
(source) 
(source) |
In 1831, the first U.S. railroad tunnel was started between Hollidaysburg
and Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Driven through slate, the Staple Bend Tunnel
was 901 feet long, 25 feet wide and 21 feet high and lined throughout with
masonry 18 inches thick. It was for the Allegheny Portage Railroad, the
first railroad to go west of the Alleghany Mountains. The project engineer
was Solomon White Roberts. The tunnel was completed 18
Mar 1834. The restored
tunnel is now a National
Historic Site |
| Siberia | |
(source) |
In 1829, the explorer-naturalist
Alexander von Humboldt, age 59, began a scientific expedition to uncharted
regions of Siberia at the invitation of Tsar Nicholas who also financed
the journey. Humboldt crossed Asia, from Russia and Siberia to Mongolia.
He recorded temperatures and noted that temperatures varied at the same
latitude in accordance with distance from the ocean. As temperature data
was collected from a series of Russian weather stations, von Humboldt constructed
a world map of temperature, being an early use of isotherms, which he found
did not neatly follow latitude. From this he developed the theory of continentality.
The expedition ended on 28 Dec 1829. His 3-volume work on Asie Centrale
was published several years later. |
| Comb-cutting machine | |
|
In 1799, the first US patent for a comb-cutting machine was issued to Phineas
Pratt of Connecticut as a "machine for making combs." He and his son ,
Abel Pratt, cut the plates with handsaws and the teeth with circular saws
operated by a windmill and waterpower at Ivoryton,
Conn. Previous manufacturing of combs in the U.S. began with the first
commercial scale comb factory by Enoch Noyes of West Newbury, Mass. (1759),
who made combs from flattened animal horns. The first U.S. made ivory comb
was made at Centerbrook, Conn. (1789) by Andrew Lord, who cut the plate
and teeth with a handsaw. |
|
| Galileo trial | |
|
In 1633 Galileo Galilei’s second trial before the Inquisition began. At
its conclusion, his belief that the Earth was not the centre of the Universe
was pronounced heretical.*« |
|
