| JUNE 4 - BIRTHS | |
| Robert F. Furchgott | |
(source) |
 Born 4
June 1916
Robert Francis Furchgott is an American pharmacologist who, along with Louis J. Ignarro and Ferid Murad, was co-awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery that nitric oxide (NO) acts as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system. Their combined work uncovered an entirely new mechanism by which blood vessels in the body relax and widen. Nitric oxide (NO), produced by one cell, acts by penetrating membranes and regulating the function of another cell. Nerves and hormones are well known as signal carriers, but this discovery was a totally new signaling principle in a biological system.  Nitric
Oxide: Basic Research and Clinical Applications, by Ryszard
Gryglewski. |
| Sir Christopher Cockerell | |
 |
Born 4
June 1910; died 1 Jun 1999.
Inventor of the hovercraft. He was an electronics engineer with the Marconi Company (1935-50) where he worked on airborne navigational equipment and on radar. Then he began a boat-hire business. Considering the water drag on the hull of a boat, he had the idea of raising the boat on a cushion of air. In 1954, he performed a crucial experiment using kitchen scales, tin cans, and a vacuum cleaner to show that a stream of air could produce the required lift. The next year he built a working balsa wood model with a model-aircraft engine. The first full-scale prototype, SR-N1, weighed 7 tons and was capable of 60 knots. It crossed the English Channel in 1959 (with Cockerell aboard). Hovercraft entered regular cross-channel service in 1968. |
| Beno Gutenberg | |
(source) |
Born 4
June 1889; died 25 Jan 1960.
American seismologist noted for his analyses of earthquake waves and the information they furnish about the physical properties of the Earth's interior. With Charles Richter, he developed a method of determining the intensity of earthquakes. Calculating the energy released by present-day shallow earthquakes, they showed that three-quarters of that energy occurs in the Circum-Pacific belt. |
| Heinrich Otto Wieland | |
(source) |
Born 4
June 1877; died 5 Aug 1957.
German chemist, winner of the 1927 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his studies of steroid chemistry in which he determined the molecular structure of bile acids. He is also noted for studying the conversion of food into energy. In 1912, he began work on bile acids, secretions of the liver known for the best part of a century to consist of a large number of substances. He studied three of them: cholic acid, deoxycholic acid, and lithocholic acid, finding that they were all steroids, very similar to each other, and all convertible into cholanic acid. After 1921, he studied some curious alkaloids including toxiferin (curare's active ingredient), bufotalin (in venom from toads), and phalloidine and amatine (poisonous ingredients in the deadly amanita mushroom). |
| Jean Antoine Claude Chaptal | |
(source) |
Born 4
June 1756; died 30 July 1832.
French chemist who authored the first book on industrial chemistry. He also coined the name "nitrogen." His technical activity covered a wide field, such as improvements in the manufacture of sulphuric acid, saltpetre for gunpowder, beet-root sugar, wine, dyeing, bleaching and other things. He was the first to produce sulphuric acid commercially in France at his factory at Montpellier. His career covered the stormy period of the French Revolution. He was arrested, but more fortunate than the brilliant Lavoisier, then released to manage the saltpeter works at Grenelle. He also helped to organize the introduction of the metric system |
| Franz Xaver von Zach | |
(source) |
Born 4
June 1754; died 2 Sep 1832.
(baron) German-Hungarian astronomer patronized by Duke Ernst of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Director of observatory near Gotha (1787-1806). There he organized in 1798 the first congress of astronomers with Josef Lalande (1732-1807) as celebrated guest. In last years of the 18th century he formed a group of 24 astronomers chosen from throughout Europe to track down a "missing" planet between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, where they instead discovered the asteroids. His greatest contribution was in the organizational area, for he maintained an enormous correspondence with all the astronomers of his time, and edited 28 volumes of Monatliche Korrespondenz zur Beforderung der Erd- und Himmelskunde (1800-13). |
|
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| JUNE 4 - DEATHS | |
| Katherine Esau | |
c.1930 (source) |
 Died
4 June 1997 (born 3 Apr 1898)
Russian-born American botanist who did groundbreaking work in the structure and workings of plants. She is best known for her research into the effects of viruses upon plant tissues, and her studies of plant tissue structures and physiology. Her research into plant viruses focused on how viruses effect the structure and development of a plant's phloem (its food-conducting tissue). This research enabled her to distinguish between primary and secondary viral symptoms, allowing studies of viral damage to specific plant tissues to be conducted. In addition, she clarified the development phases of plant tissues, particularly the sieve tubes which serve to move solutes throughout a plant. Her definitive work Plant Anatomy (1953, rev.1965) is a classic. |
| Maurice Fréchet | |
(source) |
Died
4 June 1973 (born 2 Sep 1878)
René-Maurice Fréchet was a French mathematician known chiefly for his contribution to real analysis. He is credited with being the founder of the theory of abstract spaces, which generalized the traditional mathematical definition of space as a locus for the comparison of figures; in Fréchet's terms, space is defined as a set of points and the set of relations. In his dissertation of 1906, he investigated functionals on a metric space and formulated the abstract notion of compactness. In 1907, he discovered an integral representation theorem for functionals on the space of quadratic Lebesgue integrable functions. He also made important contributions to statistics, probability and calculus. |
| Lloyd Viel Berkner | |
(source) |
Died
4 June 1967 (born 1 Feb 1905)
U.S. physicist and engineer who first measured the extent, including height and density, of the ionosphere (ionized layers of the Earth's atmosphere), leading to a complete understanding of radio wave propagation and he helped develop radar systems, especially the Distant Early Warning system. He later investigated the origin and development of the Earth's atmosphere. Early in his career, he worked on radio navigation beacons for the Airways division of the Bureau of Lighthouses (1927-28), as radio engineer on the Byrd Antarctic expedition (1928-30). Returning to the U.S. Bureau of Standards (1930-33) he studied the ionosphere using radio-pulse transmissions, then terrestial magnetism with the Carnegie Institution (1933-51). |
| William Beebe | |
(source) |
Died
4 June 1962 (born 29 July 1877)
(Charles) William Beebe was an American biologist, explorer, and writer on natural history who combined careful biological research with a rare literary skill. As director of tropical research for the New York Zoological Society from 1919, he led scientific expeditions to many parts of the world. He was the coinventor of the bathysphere, a spherical diving-vessel for use in underwater observations. In 1934, with Otis Barton, he descended in his bathysphere to a then record depth of 3,028 feet (923 metres) in Bermuda waters on 15 Aug 1934. Later dives reached depths of around 1.5 km (nearly 1 mile). The
Remarkable Life of William Beebe: Explorer and Naturalist,
by Carol Grant Gould. |
| William Thomas Astbury | |
(source) |
Died
4 June 1961 (born 25 Feb 1898)
English physical biochemist who was the first to make use of X-ray diffraction patterns to study the structure of nucleic acids (1937). Astbury researched the method under Bragg for seven years, then investigated the structure of wool in both the stretched and unstretched forms. From the difference in the diffraction patterns, he began to try to work ot the structure of protein molecules. His preliminary determination of the structure of nucleic acids were, in fact, wrong - but it gave impetus to Pauling's work with proteins, and to Crick and Watson's study of DNA structure. His work, slowly decoding the nature of molecular structure of virtually the largest organic materials, fibrous and globular proteins, was valuable to both science and industry. |
| W.H.R. Rivers | |
(source) |
Died
4 June 1922 (born 12 Mar 1864)
William Halse Rivers Rivers was an English medical psychologist and anthropologist.. Rivers, who originally trained as a doctor, did work as a pioneering psychologist in the First World War. This background enabled Rivers to bring a scientific approach to anthropology and to set the trend for anthropologists to go and visit the cultures they are studying rather than stay at home and theorize. River's did his major field work with Torres Strait Australian aborigines and with a hill tribe in Southern India, the Todas. He is known principally for The Todas (1906), a model of precise documentation of a people, and the important History of Melanesian Society, 2 vol. (1914). Medicine,
Magic and Religion, by W.H.R. Rivers. |
| Johannes von Mikulicz-Radecki | |
(source) |
Died
4 June 1905 (born 16 May 1850)
Polish surgeon whose innovations in operative technique for a wide variety of diseases helped develop modern surgery. He contributed prodigiously to cancer surgery, especially on organs of the digestive system. He was first to suture a perforated gastric ulcer (1885), surgically restore part of the oesophagus (1886), remove a malignant part of the colon (1903), and describe what is now known as Mikulicz’ disease. In 1881 he developed improved models of the oesophagoscope and gastroscope. As an ardent advocate of antiseptics he did much to popularize Joseph Lister's antiseptic methods. He used a gauze mask and was one of the first to use gloves during surgery. |
| JUNE 4 - EVENTS | |
| Extinct DNA cloned | |
(source) |
In 1984, the cloning of DNA sequences from an extinct animal was reported
from the quagga
(a brown, horselike beast with zebra stripes on the front of its body,
which inhabited South Africa until it was exterminated by hunters in the
early 19th century). Using samples from an over 140-yr-old quagga skin
in a German museum, three Berkeley scientists
managed to extract enough DNA from the animal's flesh to determine some
of its sequences of "base pairs," the molecular rungs that link the two
spiral halves of a DNA molecule. Technical problems
make the study of ancient DNA difficult, since these molecules are often
greatly fragmented. The scientists could show the quagga DNA was more closely
related
to the zebra than the horse. Ref.: Russell Higuchi et al.,
"DNA Sequences from Quagga, an Extinct Member of the Horse Family," Nature
312 (1984): 282–4. |
| Oldest U.S. animal fossils | |
|
In 1975, the discovery of the oldest animal fossils in the U.S., large
narrow marine worms dating back some 620 million years, was reported in
North Carolina. They were found on the Little River, north of Durham. The
worms were early examples of polychaete annelids - tube building, toothless
marine worms - and are among the oldest fossils in the United States. |
|
| Toy patent | |
(USPTO) |
In 1963, six-year-old Robert Patch received a U.S. patent for a "Toy Truck"
(No. 3,091,888). The toy separated into a chassis, driver's cab, truck
body, wheels and four axles so it could be reassembled in either a closed
van body or dump truck form. When the wheel axles were put into place,
they also held the also cab and body to the chassis. The truck body can
be turned upside down and end for end in order to mount as either a van
body, or a dump truck body with a swinging back end. As a dump truck, the
body pivots on the wheel axles to tip its load, and the back wall swings
open on its own pivots at the top of the wall. |
| First Canadian nuclear power plant | |
(source) |
In 1962, the first electricity from nuclear fission in Canada was generated
at the Nuclear Power Demonstration reactor
(NPD),
3 km east of Rolphton, Ontario, along the Ottawa River's south shore. It
supplied to the Ontario power grid. This was the prototype CANDU
reactor (CANada Deuterium Uranium pressurized heavy water reactor), fuelled
with natural uranium and using heavy water as the moderator and coolant.
Its design
and development was done by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL),
a federal crown corporation established in 1952. Critically was first attained
earlier on 11 Apr 1962, and the first full power was on 28 Jun 1962. It
was shut down for economic reasons on 5 May 1987.« [Image:
NPD aerial view taken in its later years.] |
| Coal pipeline | |
(source) |
In 1957, the first U.S. commercial long-distance coal slurry pipeline,
108 miles long, began delivery from a coal mine (Georgetown Preparation
Plant of the Hanna Coal Company, near Cadiz, Ohio) to a power station (Cleveland
Illuminating Company, in Eastlake, Ohio). Completed on 12 Sep 1956, the
10-3/4 inch diameter pipeline could transport over a million tons of coal
per year. Mixed with an equal amount of water, it delivered 150 tons of
coal per hour. The coal slurry was then processed to remove the water,
and made ready for burning. Slurry pipelines now exist transporting
over twenty types of minerals, including
iron-ore concentrate, copper ore, phosphate rock concentrate, limestone,
clay and mineral sands. Pipelines can be built to the mouth of mines at
lower cost than railroads.« |
| Shopping carts | |
1940 (source) |
In 1937, the first shopping
carts were introduced at the Humpty Dumpty supermarket in Oklahoma
City, invented
by the store owner Sylvan Goldman. With the aid of a mechanic, Fred
Young, Goldman designed the first shopping cart based on the folding chair.
Wheels were placed where the bottoms of the chair legs were. In place of
the chair seat, Young and Goldman, stacked two metal baskets on top of
each other. This cart could be stored by folding it up like a folding chair.
In 1947, Goldman made a big improvement in the design of his shopping cart
with carts that could be stored by simply nesting one cart into another
by pushing the front of each cart into the folding back of the one in front
of it. This basic design is still in use today. |
| Technicolor | |
|
In 1929, George Eastman demonstrated the first Technicolor
movie (Rochester, NY). |
|
| Edison patent | |
(USPTO) |
In 1907, Thomas A. Edison was issued a patent for a "Diaphragm for Talking-Machines"
(U.S. No. 855,562) that "will be readily responsive to vibrations of comparatively
great amplitude." The invention comprised a duplex diaphragm made of at
least two disks, each of which is radially sloted so that each disk constitutes
a series of reeds. By staggering the slots of the disks, a continuous surface
is presented for actuating the sound waves. The disks, made of mica about
one-thousandth of an inch thick, are cemented together with an elastic
cement, such as a solution of gum rubber. |
| Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever | |
 |
In 1906, pathologist Howard T. Ricketts discovered Rocky Mountain Spotted
Fever is caused by an unusual microbe spread by ticks. Its symptoms
are similar to typhus except rash starts at extremities and moves to trunk.
The disease causes high morbidity with about 70% of cases requiring hospitalization,
without which, the untreated mortality rate is about 7% of cases. |
| Marconi patent | |
|
In 1901, Guglielmo Marconi received a reissued patent (Re. 11,913) for
"Wireless Telegraphy." |
|
| First Ford road tested | |
(source) |
In 1896, the first road test of the first Ford car was delayed an hour
because the car was wider than the door of the shed in which Henry
Ford built it. With an ax, he ripped out the door frame. After that
problem was solved, he made a successful first test run with his car on
a nighttime drive through the streets of Detroit. This self-propelled vehicle,
the
Quadricycle,
had four wire wheels that looked like heavy bicycle wheels, was steered
with a tiller like a boat, and had only two forward speeds with no reverse.
Although Ford was not the first to build a self-propelled vehicle with
a gasoline engine, he was, however, one of several automotive pioneers
who helped this country become a nation of motorists. |
| Bread crumbing machine | |
(USPTO) |
In 1895, black American inventor Joseph
Lee was issued a patent for a "Bread Crumbing Machine" (U.S. No. 540,553).
The invention was intended "for use in hotels or restaurants, where a large
quantity of bread crumbs are used in cooking." A series of rotating combs
of crumbling or tearing fingers on several axles are driven by pinions
from a handle. The enclosure has a perforated bottom to collect the crumbs
in a trough below. The patent suggested the use to crush and crumb the
scraps and crusts of bread which come from the table, "effecting a great
saving" in bread waste. Fresh bread, also, could be readily crumbed and
reduced to proper fineness. The previous year he received a patent for
a "Kneading Machine."
The
Inventive Spirit of African Americans: Patented Ingenuity,
by Patricia Carter Sluby. |
| Vaseline | |
(source) |
In 1872, a process for making vaseline
was patented by Robert Chesebrough of New York City (U.S. No. 127,568).
He was an English-born chemist who emigrated to the U.S., and had worked
in the oil-fields of Pennsylvania. The vaseline is a product from petroleum,
made from the residue of petroleum distillation left in the still after
all oil has been vaporized. Distillation by heat under vacuum involves
less heating than without the vacuum, and yields a better quality of vaseline.
It is then filtered through bone-black. the patents claims its uses include
currying, stuffing and oiling all kinds of leather. The finest grade of
vaseline is also adapted to use as a pomade for the hair. It is also an
excellent substance for glycerine cream for chapped hands. |
| Sowing machine | |
|
In 1845, Hatch's
sowing machine was first demonstrated (sowed wheat, oats and other
grasses). |
|
| Natural gas illumination | |
(source) |
In 1825, the first time natural gas was used for illumination
was in Fredonia, in western N.Y. A pipeline was laid from a well to a residence
where a reception was held for General Lafayette. The house was brightly
illuminated by natural gas, using about 30 burners. This was regarded as
a great curiosity. Fredonia residents had seen bubbles of gas rising from
a creek
in 1821. When a gunsmith, William Hart ("father
of natural gas") heard reports of this "creek that burned," he dug the
first U.S. natural gas well on the bank of the creek, and covered it to
accumulate the gas. A 1825 newspaper article reported that natural gas
from this well was being used to light the lamps of two stores, two shops
and a grist mill near the creek. |
| Joseph Priestley | |
 |
In 1794, Joseph Priestley (1733-1804),
chemist and natural philosopher, arrived at New York in the United States,
having emigrated from England. Soon thereafter, he settled at Northumberland,
Pennsylvania. Although now remembered for his scientific work (including
the discovery of oxygen and other gases), in his time he became unpopular
in England for his political opinions and support of the French Revolution.
His home and laboratory were set on fire in 1791, and by 1794 he decided
to leave his home country and pursue his scientific studies in America.«
Joseph
Priestley: Adventurer in Science and Champion of Truth,
by F W. Gibbs. |
| Solar eclipse | |
(source) |
In 780 BC, the first total solar eclipse reliably recorded by the Chinese
was noted. A clay tablet retrieved from the ancient city of Ugarit, Syria
(as it is now) gives the oldest eclipse record, with two interpretations
of the date being regarded as plausible. The date most favoured by recent
authors on the subject is 5
Mar 1223, although alternatively 3
May 1375 has also been proposed as plausible.« [Image:
a modern photograph of a total solar eclipse.] |
