Newsletter for Friday 21 December

 

 

TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY

NEWSLETTER - DECEMBER 21

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.

On 21 Dec 1890, Hermann Muller was born, an American geneticist who demonstrated that mutations and hereditary changes could be caused by X-rays striking the genes and chromosomes of cells. He was another scientist who used the fruit fly in this productive research. Today's Science Store pick revisits a webmaster's favorite that tells Muller's story along with the work of other significant researchers in the last century: Fly: The Unsung Hero of Twentieth-Century Science, by Martin Brookes. It also outlines the resulting developments up to the present in the field. This is an informative delight to read, an Amazon best in 2001, and at a bargain price. It's enthusiastically recommended by your webmaster, who by reading it  learned much about how that tiny fly seen buzzing around a banana skin in the trash made such a surprisingly huge contribution to science. Several available Used from $0.08 (as of time of writing). Yesterday's pick: It Doesn't Take a Rocket Scientist. For picks from earlier newsletters, see the Today in Science Science Store home page.

Quotations for Today

"These motions were such as to satisfy me, after frequently repeated observation, that they arose neither from currents in the fluid, nor from its gradual evaporation, but belonged to the particle itself." - Robert Brown (born 21 Dec 1773) "As science is more and more subject to grave misuse as well as for human benefit it has also become the scientist's responsibility to become aware of social relations and applications of his subject, and to exert his influence in such a direction as will result in the best applications of the findings in his own and related fields. Thus he must help in educating the public, in the broad sense, and this means first educating himself, not only in science but in regard to the great issues confronting mankind today." (1951) - Hermann Joseph Muller (born 21 Dec 1890) "The Darwinian process of continued interplay of a random and a selective process is not intermediate between pure chance and pure determination, but qualitatively utterly different from either in its consequences." - Sewell Wright, American geneticist (born 21 Dec 1889)

QUIZ

Births

Robert Brown, born 21 Dec 1773, was a Scottish botanist who recognized the fundamental distinction between the conifers and their allies (gymnosperms) and the flowering plants (angiosperms). He recognized, and coined the name for, the cell nucleus (Latin: "little nut"). He is best known for his description of the natural continuous motion of minute particles in solution. By what name is this motion now known?

Deaths

Charles Benjamin Dudley was an American chemical engineer (1842-1909) who helped found the science of materials testing. Through continuing testing, he established the idea of rigorous standards. These covered fuels, lubricants, paints, lighting devices and various mechanical parts of locomotives and rolling stock. What was the first product he researched (published 1878)?

Events

On 21 Dec of a certain year, dried human blood serum was prepared for the first time in the U.S. The powdered, dried blood serum was used successfully for transfusions for the prevention of childhood diseases. Dried blood serum was used during wartime. In which decade was dried blood serum first prepared in the U.S.?

On 21 Dec 1937, Walt Disney's first full-length, animated film opened in Los Angeles, California. What was the name of this first full-length animated film?

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 December 21 web page of Today in Science History. Or, try this link first for just the brief answers.

Fast answers for the previous newsletter for December 20:  Robert Van de Graaff; Cosmos; by the force produced through evaporation from the leaves; the decade containing the year 1892; Albert Michelson.

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