| JULY 5 - BIRTHS | |
| Ernst Mayr | |
(source) |
 Born 5
Jul 1904; died 3 Feb 2005.
German-born American biologist known for his work in avian taxonomy, population genetics, and evolution. In 1928, he led the first of three expeditions to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands where he studied the effects of geographic distribution among various animal species. He led development of the modern synthetic theory of evolution (the interplay of gene mutation and recombination, changes in structure and function of chromosomes, reproductive isolation and natural selection). In 1940, he proposed a definition of species that became accepted in scientific circles. He began bird watching as a young boy, and by the age of ten, he could recognize all of the local bird species by call as well as sight. |
| John Howard Northrop | |
(source) |
Born 5
Jul 1891; died 27 May 1987.
American biochemist who received (with James B. Sumner and Wendell M. Stanley) the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1946 for successfully purifying and crystallizing certain enzymes, thus enabling him to determine their chemical nature. During WW I, he conducted research on fermentation processes suitable for the industrial production of acetone and ethyl alcohol. This work led to a study of enzymes essential for digestion, respiration, and general life processes. He crystallized pepsin (1930), a digestive enzyme present in gastric juice, and found that it is a protein, thus resolving the dispute over the nature of enzymes. Using the same chemical methods, he isolated the first bacterial virus (bacteriophage), and found it is a nucleoprotein (1938). |
| Herbert Spencer Gasser | |
(source) |
Born 5
Jul 1888; died 11 May 1963
American physiologist, corecipient (with Joseph Erlanger) of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1944 for fundamental discoveries concerning the functions of different kinds of nerve fibres. They studied the barely detectable electrical impulses carried by isolated mammalian nerve fibres. By 1924, they had succeeded in adapting the oscillograph to physiological research, enabling them to visualize amplified nerve impulses on a fluorescent screen. Using this device, they demonstrated that different nerve fibres exist for the transmission of specific kinds of impulses, such as those of pain, cold, or heat. Their work also made it possible to construct improved recording machines to diagnose brain and nervous disorders. |
| Eugene Lindsay Opie | |
(source) |
Born 5
Jul 1873; died 12 Mar 1971
American pathologist who conducted important research on the causes, transmission, and diagnosis of tuberculosis and on immunization against the disease. Opie published on malaria research and the causes of diabetes. He demonstrated that the islets of Langerhans were involved in the development of diabetes in humans and identified two forms of parasite (hyaline and granular) in crow malaria. Later, he embarked on research in immunology and carcinogenesis, the development of obstruction of the pancreatic duct, and tuberculosis. He remained active in research well into his nineties. |
| Andrew Ellicott Douglass | |
(source) |
Born 5
Jul 1867; died 20 Mar 1962
American astronomer and archaeologist who coined the name dendrochronology for tree-ring dating, a field he originated while working at the Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Ariz. (1894-1901). He showed how tree rings could be used to date and interpret past events. Douglass also sought a connection between sunspot activity and the terrestrial climate and vegetation. The width of tree rings is a record of the rainfall, with implications on the local food supply in dry years. Archaeologist Clark Wissler collaborated in this work by furnishing sections of wooden beams from Aztec Ruin and Pueblo Bonito so Douglass could cross-date the famous sites. Thus the study of tree rings enables archaeologists to date prehistoric remains.«  Andrew
Ellicott Douglass and the Role of the Giant Sequoia in the Development
of Dendrochronology, by Donald J. McGraw. |
| George Henry Falkiner Nuttall | |
(source) |
Born 5
Jul 1862; died 16 Dec 1937
American-born British biologist and physician who contributed substantially to many branches of biology and founded the Molteno Institute of Biology and Parasitology (1921) at the University of Cambridge. He was interested in parasitology and the role of insects and other disease vectors, making studies of immunity reactions and the bacteriology of diptheria. He carried out investigations of the distribution of Anopheline mosquitoes in England in relation to the previous prevalence of malaria there in addition to working on blood precipitin reactions. |
| William John Macquorn Rankine | |
(source) |
Born 5
Jul 1820; died 24 Dec 1872
Scottish engineer and physicist and one of the founders of the science of thermodynamics, particularly in reference to steam-engine theory. As the chair (1855) of civil engineering and mechanics at Glasgow, he developed methods to solve the force distribution in frame structures. Rankine also wrote on fatigue in the metal of railway axles, on Earth pressures in soil mechanics and the stability of walls. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1853. Among his most important works are Manual of Applied Mechanics (1858), Manual of the Steam Engine and Other Prime Movers (1859) and On the Thermodynamic Theory of Waves of Finite Longitudinal Disturbance. |
| Robert Fitzroy | |
(source) |
Born 5
Jul 1805; died 30 Apr 1865
British naval officer, hydrographer, and meteorologist who commanded the voyage of HMS Beagle, aboard which Charles Darwin sailed around the world as the ship's naturalist. That voyage provided Darwin with much of the material on which he based his theory of evolution. Fitzroy retired from active duty in 1850 and from 1854 devoted himself to meteorology. He devised a storm warning system that was the prototype of the daily weather forecast, invented a barometer, and published The Weather Book (1863). His death was by suicide, during a bout of depression. |
| Jonathan Carter Hornblower | |
(source) |
Born 5
Jul 1753; died Mar 1815.
British mining engineer who invented the first compound steam engine for which he claimed better efficiency, using two cylinders of unequal size attached to the same beam. Steam acts first in a small high-pressure cylinder, leaving at a lower pressure, but still sufficient to expand further in a larger cylinder. He obtained a patent on 13 Jul 1781 (UK No. 1298), but his engine still used a separate condenser, thus infringing on patents held by James Watt's company (Boulton & Watt), so he had to abandon that design. In 1798 and 1805, he patented rotary forms of steam engine (never built). He also invented a machine for sweeping chimneys with a blast of air. His compound steam engine principle was revived in 1804 by Arthur Woolf.«  |
| Ami Argand | |
(source) |
Born 5 Jul 1750; died Oct 1803.
François-Pierre Amis Argand was a Swiss chemist who invented (1781) the Argand lamp, an oil burner with a tubular wick inside a glass chimney which induced an updraft of air through two iron tubes, concentric with the wick, resulting in better combustion. It burned ten times brighter than a simple oil lamp, with less smoke and smell. The rape oil used was viscous, so the fuel feed was provided by gravity from an elevated vessel. He manufactured the lamp for only a few years because during the French Revolution his factories were destroyed. By 1793, having no compensation for his losses, Argand moved to England. He is also known for assisting the Montgolfier brothers with their balloon flights, and for his work for distilleries.« [Image right: Argand lamp] Brandy,
Balloons, & Lamps: Ami Argand, 1750-1803, by John
J. Wolfe. |
|
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages: Custom Quotations Search - custom search within only our quotations pages: Today in Science History Science Store Click here to browse a selection of Bargain Science and Nature Books |
| JULY 5 - DEATHS | |
| Clyde E. Wiegand | |
 Died
5 Jul 1996 (born 23 May 1915)
U.S. physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project (which produced the atomic bomb during WW II). In the 1950's, he was part of a team that discovered the antiproton, using the bevatron particle accelerator at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Although two other members of the research team (Owen Chamberlain and Emilio Segrè) won the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physics for this work, Wiegand's crucial contribution was not so recognized. |
|
| Georg Charles von Hevesy | |
(source) |
Died
5 Jul 1966 (born 1 Aug 1885)
Hungarian-Danish-Swedish chemist who was awarded the 1943 Nobel Prize for developing isotopic tracer techniques which enabled understanding of the chemical paths of life processes. For example, a radioactive isotope of phosphorus, prepared in solutions of sodium phosphate can be injected into animals and humans, and blood samples analysed. This show that the radio-phosphorus content in human blood falls after only 2 hours to just 2% of its original amount as it changes places with the phosphorus atoms within the tissues, organs and skeleton. He also discovered, with Dirk Coster, the element hafnium (1923). He published Adventures in Radioisotope Research in two volumes (1962). |
| Oskar Bolza | |
(source) |
Died
5 Jul 1942 (born 12 May 1857)
German mathematician who moved to the U.S. in 1888. He published The elliptic s-functions considered as a special case of the hyperelliptic s-functions in 1900. From 1910, he worked on the calculus of variations. Bolza wrote a classic textbook on the subject, Lectures on the Calculus of Variations (1904). He returned to Germany in 1910, where he researched function theory, integral equations and the calculus of variations. In 1913, he published a paper presenting a new type of variational problem now called "the problem of Bolza." The next year, he wrote about variations for an integral problem involving inequalities, which later become important in control theory. Bolza ceased his mathematical research work at the outbreak of WW I in 1914.« |
| Chester Greenwood | |
(source) |
Died
5 Jul 1937 (born 4 Dec 1858)
American inventor and manufacturer of earmuffs, which, while a teenager, he designed and patented (U.S. No.188,292 issued 13 Mar 1877). He had experienced very uncomfortable cold ears while skating in winter, and solved his problem with beaver fur pads on a wire frame. By his mid-twenties, he had a factory and 11 workers producing Greenwood Champion Ear Protectors in his hometown of Farmington producing 50,000 earmuffs yearly. Distribution grew to 400,000 pairs by the year he died. He patented many other inventions. In 1977, the Maine state legislature officially declared 21 Dec, the first day of winter, as the annual Chester Greenwood Day. His hometown celebrates with a parade in early December.«
[Image: Greenwood wearing the earmuffs from a promotional photo.] |
| René-Louis Baire | |
| Died
5 Jul 1932 (born 21 Jan 1874)
French mathematician whose study of irrational numbers and whose concept to divide the notion of continuity into upper and lower semi-continuity greatly influenced the French School of Mathematics. His doctoral thesis led to the solution of the problem of the characteristic property of limited functions of continuous functions and helped establish the theory of functions of real variables. |
|
| Erland Nordenskiöld | |
| Died
5 Jul 1932 (born 19 Jul 1877)
Nils Erland Herbert Nordenskiöld was a Swedish ethnologist and archaeologist who was a foremost student of South American culture. His work influenced the study of anthropoly in Sweden and Denmark. He made zoological expeditions to Patagonia (1899) and Agentina and Bolivia (1901-02), then turned to archeological research in the mountains of Peru and Boliva (1904-05). A later expeditions led to a paper dealing with mounds and urn burials in Bolivia (1912). On his last expedition (1927) he studied the Chocó and Cuna Indians of Columbia and Panama. |
|
| Albrecht Kossel | |
| Died
5 Jul 1927 (born 16 Sep 1853)
German biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1910 for his contributions to understanding the chemistry of nucleic acids and proteins. He discovered the nucleic acids that are the bases in the DNA molecule, the genetic substance of the cell. |
|
| George Johnstone Stoney | |
(source) |
Died
5 Jul 1911 (born 15 Feb 1826)
Irish physicist who introduced the term electron for the fundamental unit of electricity. At the Belfast meeting of the British Association in Aug 1874, in a paper: On the Physical Units of Nature, Stoney called attention to a minimum quantity of electricity. He wrote, "I shall express 'Faraday's Law' in the following terms ... For each chemical bond which is ruptured within an electrolyte a certain quantity of electricity traverses the electrolyte which is the same in all cases." Stoney offered the name electron for this minimum electric charge. When J.J. Thomson identified cathode rays as streams of negative particles, each carrying probably Stoney's minimum quantity of charge, the name was applied to the particle rather than the quantity of charge. |
| Joseph-Louis Proust | |
(source) |
Died
5 Jul 1826 (born 26 Sep 1754)
French chemist who proved (1808) that the relative quantities of any given pure chemical compound's constituent elements remain invariant, regardless of the compound's source, and thus provided crucial evidence in support of John Dalton's "law of definite proportions," which holds that elements in any compound are present in fixed proportion to each other. |
| Sir Austen Henry Layard | |
(source) |
Died
5 Jul 1894 (born 5 Mar 1817)
English archaeologist whose excavations in Mesopotamia revealed the palaces of the great Assyrian kings, Sennacherib and Assurbanipal, yielding much evidence of both the antiquity and the cultural achievement of the ancient civilizations. He began excavations at Nimrud in 1845, aged 28, making detailed drawing of his discoveries. The artifacts he uncovered included huge winged bulls, hawk-winged lions with human heads, many other statuary reliefs, and alabaster slabs with cuneiform inscriptions. He shipped immense scuptures and other finds back to England. However, he was not a scholar. He wrote popular narrative books on his travels and discoveries. Later in life, he abandoned archaeology and turned to politics.« The
Man Who Found Nineveh: The Story of Austen Henry Layard,
by Robert Silverberg. |
| Nicéphore Niepce | |
(source) |
Died
5 Jul 1833 (born 7 Mar 1765)
(Joseph-)Nicéphore Niepce was a French inventor who was the first to make a permanent photographic image. In 1807, with his brother Claude, he invented the pyréolophore, an internal combustion engine fueled by lycopodium powder. Although never practical, the engine was able to move a 2-m model boat upstream. By 1813, Niepce had taken up lithography, which led to his invention of photography. By letter, in May 1816, he told Claude of an apparatus that produced a (negative) image using a paper coated with silver chloride fixed with nitric acid. After further experimentation, by 1826, he achieved the first fixed positive image. Approaching bankruptcy, in 1829, he signed an agreement of cooperation with Daguerre. |
| Antonio de Ulloa | |
(source) |
Died
5 Jul 1795 (born 12 Jan 1716)
Spanish scientist and naval officer who discovered the element platinum (atomic number 78). In 1735, the French and Spanish governments sent an scientific expedition to Peru and Equador to measure a degree of meridian at Quinto, close to the equator. Ulloa was one of the officers appointed to take charge of the expedition. In 1744, the ship on which he returned was captured by the British, and he was taken prisoner, though treated respectfully by the English naval officers for they "were not at war with the arts and sciences." The log of his voyage to Peru published in 1748 contains a description of platinum. He established the first museum of natural history and the first metallurgical laboratory in Spain, as well as the Cadiz observatory. |
| JULY 5 - EVENTS | |
| Mars Pathfinder problem | |
In 1997, NASA scientists brainstormed to fix problems that left Mars
Pathfinder's robot rover stuck aboard the lander. dt |
|
| Dolly | |
(source) |
In 1996, Dolly, a cloned sheep, was born at the Roslin Institute, Edinburgh,
Scotland. Scientists had replaced
the nucleus of an egg cell with the nucleus from a parent cell - in Dolly's
case, an udder cell from a a Finn Dorset sheep. Somehow, the egg cell reprogrammed
the donated DNA contained within its new nucleus, and Dolly was the result.
The manipulation
was done using microscopic needles, a method pioneered in human fertility
treatments in the 1970s. The resulting embryo was implanted into the womb
of a third, surrogate sheep. Biologist Keith Campbell is recognised as
having the key role in the team's work, which was supervised by Ian Wilmut.
The birth of Dolly was announced in early
1997.«
The
Second Creation: Dolly and the Age of Biological Control,
by Ian Wilmut, et al. |
| Saturn rocket | |
(source) |
In 1966, a Saturn I-B rocket, an unmanned Apollo test
flight, the first Apollo orbital mission, was launched
at Cape Kennedy and made 4 orbits at an altitude of about 113 miles (180-km).
The AS-203 mission successfully evaluated the performance of the S-IVB
instrument unit stage under orbital conditions and to obtain flight information
on venting and chill-down systems, fluid dynamics and heat transfer of
propellant tanks; attitude and thermal control system, launch vehicle guidance,
and checkout in orbit. The Saturn rocket was designed for lofting humans
to the moon, requiring a rocket larger and more powerful than any built
before or since. It combined five F-1 rocket engines to yield more than
7.5 million pounds of thrust. |
| Last London tram | |
(source) |
In 1952, thousands of onlookers watched the run of London's last
tram, which ran from Woolwich to New Cross. At the beginning of the
century, a large, integrated tram system had been developed in London
and its suburbs. But by the 1920's and 30's trams came to be seen as noisy
and dangerous to other road users, and by the early 1930s the golden age
of the tram was drawing to a close. A Royal Commission in 1931 recommended
that trolleybuses replace trams. Conversion had began in 1931, and by 1940
more than half of London's trams had been scrapped. The tram system had
a brief respite during WW II when it was necessary to sustain the current
system as production turned to wartime manufacturing. * |
| Junction transistor | |
(source) |
In 1951, the invention of the junction
transistor was announced by Dr.
William Shockley in Murray Hill, N.J. This new type of transistor
overcame the problems of the earlier point-contact transistor. The junction
transistor was a three-layer sandwich. The outer layers were semiconductors
with too many electrons (known as N-type) and the inner layer was the opposite
with too few (known as P-type).They weren't up to the point-contact transistor's
ability to handle signals that fluctuated extremely rapidly, but in every
other way they were superior. The NPN transistors were much more efficient,
used very little power to work, and they were so much quieter that they
could handle weaker signals than the type-A transistors ever could.
Broken
Genius: Rise and Fall of William Shockley, Creator of the Electronic Age,
by Joel N. Shurkin. |
| Rocket airplane | |
(source) |
In 1944, Harry Crosby took the first rocket airplane, MX-324, for its maiden
flight, at Harper Dry Lake, Calif. It was built by Northrop.
The rocket motor in the MX-324 used monoethylaniline and red fuming nitric
acidAfter a tow to 8,000 feet from a P-38, the Aerojet motor was ignited
and it began to produce 200 lb. of thrust. The flight lasted over four
minutes and ended with a safe landing. The gliders were constructed of
a metal tubing center section, with plywood elsewhere. The pilot lay prone,
thus allowing this to be a true all-wing aircraft, with no protruding cockpit.
This also had the advantage of allowing the pilot to withstand high g-forces
during maneuvering. A vertical fin was added for higher speeds. |
| Electric gun | |
|
In 1908, in Paris, a French officer displayed a new powderless electric
gun. * |
|
| Dynamo | |
|
In 1882, dynamo was tested in New York City. |
|
| Mastodon skeleton | |
(source) |
In 1879, a near-complete skeleton of a mastodon was discovered near Newburgh,
N.Y., by a farmer's son while digging a ditch. The area had been a bog
until drained and cultivated 50 years earlier. From a 5-foot deep trench
over the next three days, neighbours unearthed about 200 petrified bones
of ribs, spine, legs, feet and a skull complete with teeth and lower jaw.
No tusks were found by the time it was reported in The New York Times
on 8 and 9 Jul 1879. This was only one of over a dozen such skeletons reported
in that newspaper in the century, many of them found in New York State.
In the U.S., the first nearly complete mammoth skeleton was found in that
State, excavated in 1801 for
Peale's Museum, Philadelphia.« [Image:
Mastodon bone size illustrated in otherwise unrelated photo from early
1900's showing St. Louis paleontologist C. W. Beehler (holding a mastodon
tooth) at the Kimmswick Bone Bed, Missouri.] |
| Speed limit | |
|
In 1865, a lower speed limit - of 2 mph in town and 4 mph in the country
- was imposed in Britain under the Locomotives and Highways Act. The "Red
Flag" Act also required
three drivers for each vehicle - two on the vehicle and one to walk ahead
carrying a red flag. It was repealed in 1896, after nearly two decades
of strong support from horse interests. The repeal of the act was celebrated
by a 60 mile car run from London to Brighton - at the new and previously
illegal speed of 12 mph. That first run is now commemorated each year on
the first Sunday in November at 7:30 am. Vehicles built before 1904 take
part in the London to Brighton run. Bronze medals are awarded to drivers
arriving in Brighton by 4:00 pm. |
|
| Excursion train | |
|
In 1841, Thomas Cook (1808-1892) arranged a special train between Leicester
and Loughborough in England for a temperance meeting. It is believed to
be the first publicly advertised excursion train in England. From this
initiative grew the worldwide travel agency Thomas Cook and Son. |
|
| Tornado | |
|
In 1643, an exceptionally strong wind occurred in Essex County, Mass. The
description
by Governor John Winthrop is the first record suggestive of a tornado in
the U.S.: "There arose a sudden gust so violent for one-half hour as it
blew down multitudes of trees. It lifted up their meeting house at Newbury,
the people being in it. It darkened the air with dust, yet through God’s
great mercy it did no hurt, but only killed one Indian with the fall of
a tree." However, no tornado-like funnel shape - so likely to be noted,
if seen - was not included in his log. So, it was
likely
not a tornado, in fact, but a severe straight-line squall with strong downburst
winds. Reverend Increase Mather cited a likely tornado in Jul 1680 storm
at Cambridge, Mass.« |
|
