“Poyekhali!” (”Let’s Go!”) - Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin
On this day in 1934, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was born. Gagarin was the first man in space. He shouted this expression on April 12th, 1961, as the engines fired on the launch-pad to propel him on this historic mission.
On this day in 1618, Johannes Kepler formulated his Third Law of Planetary Motion. This third law states that “the square of the orbital period of a planet is directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit.”
Important stuff, this.
On this day in 1796, English physician Edward Jenner administered the first vaccination against smallpox to an eight-year-old boy. Jenner innoculated an 8-year-old boy, James Phipps, with material from the sores of dairymaid Sarah Nelmes who had a mild case of cowpox. A few weeks later, on 1 Jul, he subsequently tested the boy’s resistance to smallpox, by inoculating Phipps with smallpox virus. Fortunately, the immunization had been successful. This tested a conventional wisdom he had heard that those who had survived cowpox seemed to be immune to the deadly smallpox disease. By 1798 he had 23 cases, which he recorded in An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae. Jenner’s work was rapidly taken up in Europe and America.
Stealing a line from Penn and Teller, “And then there’s this asshole:”
To read about WHY she is an asshole, and why I put her in this post, read this!
On this day in 1811, The original Siamese twins, Chang and Eng, were born of Chinese parents in Siam (Thailand). Upon immigrating in to the U.S., they adopted Bunker as their surname. They were joined at the waist by a band of cartilage, about 8 in. circumference and 4 in. long. Only after their death was it found that this could have been easily separated. Robert Hunter, a British merchant, discovered them in 1829 and contracted with them to be exhibited as a curiosity in a world tour. Later, they went into business for themselves. In 1839, they visited Wilkesboro, N.C. with P. T. Barnum. They found the town appealing and settled there. The twins later became United States citizens, and married two sisters with whom they raised 10 children.
On this day in 1997, the successful cloning of an adult mammal was announced: a female lamb named “Dolly” that was born July 5th, 1996. The accomplishment of a group of scientists supervised by Ian Wilmut at Roslin Institute, Edinburgh, Scotland, was primarily the work of biologist Keith Campbell. Dolly was the first mammal ever successfully cloned from a cell of an adult animal. Using microscopic needles, scientists had replaced the nucleus of an egg cell with the nucleus from a parent udder cell. The resulting embryo was implanted into the womb of a third, surrogate sheep. Dolly’s DNA was matched to show she was a clone. Dolly lived until February 14th, 2003, when she was put down due to the effects of a progressive lung disease.
I genuinely wonder when (NOT if) we humans will ever clone other humans. I’m not sure where I stand on the ethical issue with cloning of humans. I don’t have a fundamental problem with cloning humans (and I certainly don’t have a religious objection), but the practicality of it bothers me; is it really necessary to clone entire humans?
As for cloning organs, I have no problem with that at all. I think that, should research provide a viable process, the production of human organs by means of cloning has the potential to help in a lot of medical ways, providing “donor” organs for people in need of transplants.
Happy 200th birthday to Dr. Charles Darwin. Later this year (in November) we will also be saying happy 150th anniversary to the release of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Indeed today, Darwin Day, is a special day.
Today is also the celebration of the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States and a person largely responsible for the ending of slavery in the U.S. in the 1860’s. Kudos on this day go to you, too, Abe.
On this day 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. By bombarding beryllium with alpha particles, Chadwick discovered the neutron for which he received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1935.
There was a time when it was believed that the atom was the smallest particle there is, that nothing smaller could be discovered. We knew nothing about the neutron, proton, electron, quarks, etc. I think of what has happened in the field of science in the last 150 years, and I’m astonished. It was only about 75 years ago that we first learned of neutrons, but think of the amazingly huge amount of knowledge that is based solely on that discovery. This same line of thinking can be applied to other aspects of physics, biology, genetics, astronomy, medicine, and all the sciences alike.
On this day in varying years, Thomas Edison received several of his patents:
1. In 1886, a patent for an “Electrode for Telephone-Transmitters” (No. 348114). The patent application was dated one year earlier on 12 Jan 1885.
2. In 1897, one of the various patents for a “Phonograph” was issued (No.575151). It was one of several patents relating to Edison’s invention received by the patent office on 3 Dec 1890 that were issued on various dates between 27 Jun 1893 and 30 Sep 1898.
3. In 1909, a U.S. patent for “Waterproofing Paint for Portland Cement Buildings” was issued (No. 909,167) and another for “Waterproofing Paint for Portland Cement Structure” (No. 909,169). Edison also received a patent for “Waterproofing Fibers and Fabrics” (No. 909,806)
4. In 1919, a U.S. patent for a “Method and Means for Improving the Rendition of Musical Compositions” was issued (No. 1,323,218). Edison’s patent application was dated three years earlier, on 12 Jan 1916.
Some people might argue that Edison was not a scientist, but an inventor. What I would say about this is that the study of History of Science includes the study of History of Medicine and History of Technology. Given that Edison’s inventions were largely technological creations, most often come upon through a scientific process, I believe that it is fitting for this page.
Stephen Hawking was born on this day in 1942. Hawking is an English theoretical physicist who is one of the world’s leaders in his field. His principal areas of research are theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity. Hawking is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University (formerly held by Sir Isaac Newton). Afflicted with Lou Gehrig’s disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; ALS), Hawking is confined to a wheelchair and is unable to speak without the aid of a computer voice synthesizer. However, despite his challenges, he has utilized his intelligence, knowledge and abilities to make remarkable contributions to the field of cosmology (the study of the universe as a whole).
“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.”
-Stephen Hawking
George Washington Carver died on this day in 1943. Carver was an American agricultural chemist, agronomist, and experimenter who helped revolutionize the agricultural economy of the South. Carver demonstrated to farmers how fertility could be restored to their land by diversification, especially by planting peanuts and sweet potatoes, to replenish soil impoverished by the regular growth of cotton and tobacco. He showed that peanuts contained several different kinds of oil, and peanut butter was another of his innovations. In all he is reported to have developed over 300 new products from peanuts and over 100 from sweet potatoes.
