science newsletter: Newsletter for Saturday 25 February

Newsletter - February 25 - Today in Science History

TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER - 25 FEBRUARY

Feature for Today

On 25 Feb 1682, Giovanni Battista Morgagni was born, an Italian medical scientist who laid the foundations of pathological anatomy as an exact science.

He lived to the age of nearly 90, quite remarkable for his era. Even more remarkable is how productive he continued to be, even late in life.

You can read more in this biography of Giovanni Battista Morgagni.

Book of the Day

On 25 Feb 1682, Giovanni Battista Morgagni was born, whose works helped make anatomy an exact science. Today's Science Store pick is Doctors: The Biography of Medicine, by Sherwin B. Nuland. This book has a chapter on Morgagni, and the book as a whole shows how he contributed to the developing field of medicine. He followed the pioneers Hippocrates, Galen, Vesalius, Paré and Harvey and set the stage for others who came after him. Morgagni established the anatomical concept of disease. No longer would doctors seek the causes of disease in the foggy vapours of the four humours, but would instead know to look for the seat of the illness in particular organs. As a faculty member of the Yale School of medicine, the author is knowledgeable, revealing his enthusiasm as he describes the personalities and careers of the most significant medical innovators. In this outstanding book, Nuland conveys an excitement that sweeps the reader through the landmarks of medical history. New: $~~16.95~~. Save 32% Price $11.53. Also available Used from $0.86 (as of time of writing).

Yesterday's pick: Thomas Newcomen, The Prehistory of the Steam Engine, by L. T. C Rolt.
For picks from earlier newsletters, see the Today in Science Science Store home page.

Quotations for Today
	"Knowing what we know from X-ray and related studies of the fibrous proteins, how they are built from long polypeptide chains with linear patterns drawn to a grand scale, how these chains can contract and take up different configurations by intramolecular folding, how the chain- groups are penetrated by, and their sidechains react with, smaller co-operating molecules, and finally how they can combine so readily with nucleic acid molecules and still maintain the fibrous configuration, it is but natural to assume, as a first working hypothesis at least, that they form the long scroll on which is written the pattern of life. No other molecules satisfy so many requirements." - William Thomas Astbury, English physical biochemist (born 25 Feb 1898)
	"Architecture aims at Eternity." - Sir Christopher Wren, English architect, mathematician and astronomer (died 25 Feb 1723)
	"Those who have dissected or inspected many bodies have at least learnt to doubt; while others who are ignorant of anatomy and do not take the trouble to attend it are in no doubt at all." - Giovanni Battista Morgagni, Italian anatomist and pathologist (born 25 Feb 1682)

QUIZ
Before you look at today's web page, see if you can answer some of these questions about the events that happened on this day. Some of the names are very familiar. Others will likely stump you. Tickle your curiosity with these questions, then check your answers on today's web page.
Births
	Ida Noddack, born 25 Feb 1896, was a German chemist who, working with her future husband Walter Noddack, co-discovered (1925) element 75, rhenium. They found trace amounts in the mineral columbite. Some years later, she commented on the possibility of fission upon hearing the reports of Fermi's 1934 observations of the neutron bombardment of uranium. *From what was the element rhenium named?*
Deaths
	Glenn T. Seaborg (1912-1999) was an American nuclear chemist. During 1940-58, Seaborg and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, produced nine of the transuranic elements (plutonium to nobelium) by bombarding uranium and other elements with nuclei in a cyclotron. He coined a name for the elements in this series. What name did Seaborg give this series of elements?
	Louis Carl Heinrich Friedrich Paschen (1865-1947) was a German physicist who was an outstanding experimental spectroscopist. He matched the newly discovered terrrestrial helium with corresponding lines in the solar spectrum. His name is associated with a series of spectral lines of hydrogen. In which range of the electromagnetic spectrum is the Paschen Series found?
Events
	On 25 Feb of a certain year, Thomas Davenport patented the first practical electrical motor as "an application of magnetism and electro-magnetism to propelling machinery." The rotating electromagnets have cores of soft iron, wound with copper wire insulated with layers of silk. The wires from the coil run parallel down the shaft to touch copper contacts on the base. These wires make contact with different plates at each half-turn. *In which decade was this patent issued?*
	On 25 Feb 1616, because of his assertion that the earth moves around the sun, a scientist was ordered by Cardinal Bellarmine "to give up altogether the false doctrine... and if you should refuse... you should be imprisoned." Given such a choice, the scientist made a renouncement, but he knew that would not change the real facts of the Earth's motion. *Who was this scientist?*

Answers

When you have your answers ready to all the questions above, you'll find all the information to check them, and more, on the February 25 web page of Today in Science History. Or, try this link first for just the brief answers.

Fast answers for the previous newsletter for February 24: submarine; coal mines; Henry Cavendish; the decade including the year 1968; red iron oxide.

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