science newsletter: Newsletter for Sunday 14 October

Κυριακή 14 Οκτωβρίου 2012

Newsletter for Sunday 14 October

Newsletter - 14 October - Today in Science History

TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER - 14 OCTOBER

Feature for Today

Book of the Day

On 14 Oct 1946, Craig Ventner was born, American molecular geneticist who pioneered the automatation of gene sequencing and was first to sequence the human genome. Today's Science Store pick is A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life, by J. Craig Venter. In this autobiography, he reveals his experience of the contentious politics of big science. Available Used from $0.01. Or, for an independent viewpoint, read The Genome War: How Craig Venter Tried to Capture the Code of Life and Save the World, by James Shreeve. New $~~16.00~~, Price $12.00 Available Used from $2.75. (Prices as of time of writing).
Yesterday's pick: 21st Century Complete Guide to Fermilab, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. For picks from earlier newsletters, see the Today in Science Science Store home page.

Quotations for Today
	"It is my belief that the basic knowledge that we're providing to the world will have a profound impact on the human condition and the treatments for disease and our view of our place on the biological continuum." - Craig Ventner, (born 14 Oct 1946)
	"If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing." - W. Edwards Deming, (born 14 Oct 1900)
	"The secret to my success was that somehow I always managed to live to fly another day." - Test pilot, in the quiz below, who became the first human to break the sound barrier on 14 Oct 1947.

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
	W. Edwards Deming, born 14 Oct 1900 was an American statistician, educator, and consultant who advocated quality-control methods in industrial production. *What country's economic recovery was aided by his quality control methods?*
Deaths
	Heinrich Kayser (1853-1940) was a German physicist who discovered the presence of an element in the Earth's atmosphere. Prior to that scientists had detected this element only in the sun and in some minerals. What was this element?
Events
	On 14 Oct of a certain year, the 4th legal definition of the metre was made to be 1,650,763.73 wavelengths in vacuum of the orange-red light radiation of the krypton-86 atom (transition between levels 2p10 and 5d5). This was now 100 times more accurate than the previous 3rd legal definition adopted in 1889. In what decade was this definition made?
	On 14 Oct 1947, a WW II fighter pilot, became the first human to fly faster than the speed of sound, breaking through the sound barrier in a rocket powered Bell XS-1 airplane over Murac Dry Lake, California. Can you name this pilot?

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 October 14 web page of Today in Science History. Or, try this link first for just the brief answers.

Fast answers for the previous newsletter for October 13: German; transistor; the decade containing the year 1953; meridian passing through the principal Transit Instrument at the Observatory at Greenwich.

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