| JUNE 12 - BIRTHS | |
| Bert Sakmann | |
(source) |
 Born 12
June 1942
German medical doctor and research scientist who in 1991, (with German physicist Erwin Neher), won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for research into basic cell function and for development of the patch-clamp technique (a laboratory method widely used in cell biology and neuroscience to detect electrical currents as small as a trillionth of an ampere through cell membranes.) |
| Carl I. Hovland | |
(source) |
Born 12
June 1912; died 16 Apr 1961.
Carl Iver Hovland was an American psychologist who pioneered in the study of social communication and the modification of attitudes and beliefs. In 1929, he was one of 30 individuals to work in the communication program founded at Yale University. The program was implemented as a study and became a cooperation research group of 30 individuals. Their mission was to study persuasion communication such as educational programs, publicity campaigns, advertising, propaganda and their effects on behavior and opinion. In 1942, during WW II, Hovland worked on a government study concerning military films and their effect on soldiers’ attitudes, behavior and morale. |
| Lyman Creighton Craig | |
(source) |
Born 12
June 1906
American chemist who pioneered in the careful fractionation of complex mixtures by a variety of methods. In 1960, with his colleagues, Craig isolated and purified parathormone, the active principle of the parathyroid gland. This was a notable achievement, for it was a rare item separated from a complex mixture. |
| Fritz Albert Lipmann | |
(source) |
Born 12
June 1899; died 24 Jul 1986.
German-born American biochemist, who received (with Sir Hans Krebs) the 1953 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of coenzyme A, an important catalytic substance involved in the cellular conversion of food into energy. Coenzyme A is a compound with a rather small molecule, which, when united with the enzyme-protein, acquires the property of binding acetic acid. Acetic acid is normally quite unreactive but when bound in this way it becomes labile and reactive and represents the previously mystical 2-carbon compound which combines with a 4-carbon compound to form citric acid. A new way for the transmission of energy in the cell was demonstrated by this discovery. |
| Robert H. Lowie | |
| Born 12
June 1883; died 21 Sep 1957.
Robert Harry Lowie was an Austrian-born American anthropologist whose extensive studies of North American Plains Indians include exemplary research on the Crow. Lowie was instrumental in the development of the discipline. He helped form the profession and influenced the way in which anthropology is done today 'through such works as Culture and Ethnology (1917), Primitive Society (1920), and Social Organization (1948). Lowie's most intense fieldwork on the culture of the Crow Indians took place every season from 1910 to 1916. It was with this assignment that Lowie began to employ "salvage ethnography," the purpose of which was to salvage a record of what was left of a culture before it disappeared. |
|
| Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston | |
(EB) |
Born 12
June 1858; died 31 Aug 1927.
British explorer, botanist, and pioneer colonial administrator. His interest in zoological specimens gave him a lucrative part-time income, illustrating books for the new sciences of biology, geography and anthropology. The combination of art, languages and a developing interest in the sciences marked Johnston as a new breed of scholar whose skills met colonialism's need for exploration, expansion and documentation.Widely travelled in Africa and speaking many African languages, he was closely involved in what has been called the scramble for Africa by 19th-century colonial powers. He published 40 books on African subjects. |
| Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge | |
 |
Born 12
June 1851; died 22 Aug 1940.
British physicist who perfected his "coherer" to act as a radio-wave detector, the essential part of an early radiotelegraph receiver. On 14 Aug 1894, he made the first demonstration of wireless transmission of information using Morse code at a meeting of the British Association at Oxford. He transmitted a message about 150 yards from the old Clarendon Laboratory to the University Museum. He provided his laborary facilities to conduct the first clinical use of X-rays in England (7 Feb 1896), at the request of surgeon Sir Robert Jones (1855-1933), to examine the wrist of boy who had accidentally shot himself. Lodge invented electric spark ignition, and investigated psychic phenomena with his friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.« 
 Making
of man: A study in evolution, by Oliver Joseph Lodge. |
| Sir David Gill | |
(source) |
Born 12
June 1843; died 24 Jan 1914.
Scottish astronomer known for his measurements of solar and stellar parallax, showing the distances of the Sun and other stars from Earth, and for his early use of photography in mapping the heavens. From his first training as a watchmaker, he progressed to the timekeeping requirements of astronomy. He designed, equipped, and operated a private observatory near Aberdeen. In 1877, Gill and his wife measured the solar parallax by observing Mars from Ascension Island. To determine parallaxes, he perfected the use of the heliometer, a telescope that uses a split image to measure the angular separation of celestial bodies. He later redetermined the solar parallax to such precision that his value was used for almanacs until 1968. |
| John Augustus Roebling | |
(source) |
Born 12
June 1806; died 22 Jul 1869.
German-American engineer who pioneered the design and construction of suspension bridges. In 1831 he immigrated to Saxonburg, near Pittsburgh, Pa., and shortly thereafter was employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad Corp. to survey its route across the Allegheny Mountains. He then demonstrated the practicability of steel cables in bridge construction and in 1841 established at Saxonburg the first U.S. factory to manufacture steel-wire rope. Roebling utilized steel cables in the construction of numerous suspension bridges including a railroad suspension bridge over the Niagara River at Niagara Falls (1851-55). He designed the Brooklyn Bridge. He died from injuries while supervising preliminary construction operations. Builders
of the Bridge: The Story of John Roebling and His Son,
by David Barnard Steinman. |
| JUNE 12 - DEATHS | |
| Karl von Frisch | |
(source) |
 Died
12 June 1982 (born 20 Nov 1886)
Zoologist whose studies of communication among bees added significantly to the knowledge of the chemical and visual sensors of insects and simple animals. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with animal behaviourists Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen. He showed that bees have the ability to recognize different odours and tastes, and discovered their famous "waggle dance" used by bees to communicate among with others in the hive. This sequence of body movements indicates the direction and distance to food. He showed polarized light is used by the bees as a "compass" for navigation, even when the sun is not visible. In fish, he demonstrated their acute hearing, and ability to distinguish colours and brightness. |
| Silvanus Phillips Thompson | |
(source) |
Died
12 June 1916 (born 19 Jun 1851)
British physicist and historian of science. He was a recognised authority upon electricity, magnetism and acoustics and his writings are numerous including Elementary Lessons in Electricity and Magnetism published in 1881 which ran through some 40 editions and reprints. He was also known for contributions in electrical machinery, optics, and X rays. In 1884, he published his epoch-making work Dynamo-electric Machinery: a Manual for Students of Electrotechnics. Practically every designer of electrical machines gleaned his first information on the subject from this work. His lectures to the Royal Institution on Light, visible and invisible in book form and Polyphase Electric Currents and Motors were published in 1896. |
| Ferdinand Zirkel | |
| Died
12 June 1912 (born 20 May 1838)
German geologist and pioneer in microscopic petrography, the study of rock minerals by viewing thin slices of rock under a microscope and noting their optical characteristics. He travelled in the U.S. through the Park Range mountains of the Continental Divide with the King Survey in 1871, and his name was given to the 12,180 foot tall peak as Mount Zirkel, in northwestern Colorado. The King Survey was one of the four "Great Surveys," the federally sponsored expeditions to the West resumed after the Civil War. These differed from their pre-Civil War surveys in their greater inclusion of civilian specialists, particularly scientists. Zirkel wrote one of the 7 volumes of the King expedition Report, Vol. VI: Microscopial Petrography (1876). |
|
| Fleeming Jenkin | |
(source) |
Died
12 June 1885 (born 25 Mar 1833)
British engineer noted for his work in establishing units of electrical measurement. After earning an M.A. (1851), he worked for the next 10 years with engineering firms engaged in the design and manufacture of submarine telegraph cables and equipment for laying them. In 1861 his friend William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) procured Jenkin's appointment as reporter for the Committee of Electrical Standards of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He helped compile and publish reports that established the ohm as the absolute unit of electrical resistance and described methods for precise resistance measurements. A
Victorian Scientist and Engineer: Fleeming Jenkin and the Birth of Electrical
Engineering, by Colin Hempstead,
Gillian Cookson |
| Edward Troughton | |
| Died
12 June 1835
English scientist and instrument maker. Troughton soon established himself as the leading maker of instruments in England. Not only did he make great improvements in the design of existing instruments, but he also invented many new instruments. He began his instrument making career with instruments to aid navigation, for example, he designed the 'pillar' sextant, patented in 1788, the dip sector, the marine barometer and the reflecting circle built in 1796. Other instruments which he designed were for use in surveying. He designed the pyrometer, the mountain barometer and the large surveying theodolites. His famous instruments were astronomical ones. He made the Groombridge Transit Circle in 1805 and a six foot Mural Transit Circle in 1810 which was erected at the Observatory in Greenwich in 1812. |
|
| JUNE 12 - EVENTS | |
| Human powered flight | |
(source) |
In 1979, the Gossamer Albatross flew across the English Channel,
an airplane powered solely by human power. Cyclist Bryan Allen used a pedalling
mechanism. |
| Blue galaxies | |
|
In 1965, the Big Bang theory of the creation of the universe is supported
by the announcement of the discovery of new celestial bodies know as blue
galaxies. |
|
| Electrobasograph | |
|
In 1933, the electrobasograph invented by Dr R. Plato Schwartz (1894-1965)
of The Myodynamics Laboratory of the University of Rochester, N.Y., was
first exhibited in the U.S. to the American Medical Association convention
in Milwaukee, Wisc. The device could make a record on film of "the walking
gait of individuals, to distinguish between actual and spurious limps
in damage claims for injuries." In conjunction with Dr. Schwartz's separate
researches into poliomyelitis and cerebral palsy in the late 1940s and
1950s, the Laboratory extended its prior electromyographic researches into
the effects of poliomyelitis and cerebral palsy on muscle function. |
|
| First animated cartoon | |
|
In 1913, the first animated cartoon made in the U.S. by modern techniques
was released. John Randolph Bray invented
and patented the process, producing a movie called The Artist's Dream
(also known as The Dachsund) in which a dog eats sausages until
it explodes. Bray began his career as an artist for a newspaper. He soon
began selling cartoons to magazines. After signing a contract with Pathe
to make cartoons,
Bray set up his own studio with other artists. He patented many of his
improvements on the animation process, realizing early on the business
potential of these developments. One of these innovations was the use of
translucent paper to make it easier to position objects in successive drawings. |
|
| Rotherhithe Road Ttunnel | |
1907 (source) |
In 1908, the Rotherhithe-Stepney tunnel beneath the Thames in South London
was opened for road vehicle traffic. It was built by Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice
between 1904 and 1908. With a length of 4860 feet (1481 metres) excluding
the approaches, it remains the largest iron-lined subaqueous tunnel
in the world. It was constructed partly by tunnelling and partly by the
cut and cover method. The area around the entrances was cleared resulting
in 3,000 people being rehoused. It is located close to the Rotherhithe-Wapping
Thames
Tunnel built (1825-43) by Marc Brunel
and his son, Isambad K. Brunel.
which was the world's first tunnel beneath a navigable river.« |
| Sound movies | |
|
In 1906, sound movies were patented by John Ballance (U.S. No. 823,022). |
|
| Swiss army knife | |
|
In 1897, the Swiss Army Knife was patented by Carl Elsener. |
|
| Nitrogen fixing bacteria | |
|
In 1893, evidence that bacteria are necessary to process nitrogen into
a form useable by living creatures was presented by Sergius Winogradsky
to the French Academy of Sciences. |
|
| Railroad air brake | |
|
In 1860, a "Railroad air brake" was patented by Nehemiah Hodge (U.S. No.
28,670). |
|
| Gas Mask | |
|
In 1849, the forerunner of modern gas masks is patented by Lewis Phectic
Haslett of Louisville, Ky. His "inhaler or lung protector" design used
woolen fabric (or other porous material) to filter dust and other material
from the air (U.S. No. 6,529). |
|
| British telegraph | |
|
In 1837, British inventors William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone received
a patent for their electromagnetic telegraph. Their invention was put in
public service in 1839, five years before the more famous Morse telegraph. |
|
