science newsletter: Newsletter for Friday 15 March

Newsletter - March 15 - Today in Science History

TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER - 15 MARCH

Feature for Today

On 15 Mar 1815, Germain Sommeiller was born, the French-Italian engineer who built the world's first important mountain tunnel - the 8 mile long Mount Cenis Tunnel through the Alps. He made the triumph of engineering possible by introducing industrial-scale pneumatics for tunnel boring.

The Sommeiller boring machine is dwarfed by today's aggressive TBM's (tunnel boring machines) but in his day, the immense increase in productivity over arduous hand labour was an awesome achievement. To better understand the daunting challenge Sommeiller overcame, and to see a picture of his machine, begin by reading The Mont Cenis Tunnel.

No doubt you have wondered how can two tunnels meet when bored from two sides of a mountain? That question is answered in Surveying the Mont Cenis Tunnel.

For more insight into the tunnel workers' environment, read Underground, or Life Below the Surface (1876).

Book of the Day

On 15 Mar 1813, John Snow was born, the pioneer epidemiologist who solved the urgent problem of how the contagious disease cholera was being transmitted in mid-19th century London. After painstaking research, he acted by removing the pump handle of a community water supply. Today's Science Store pick is Cholera, Chloroform and the Science of Medicine: A Life of John Snow, by Peter Vinten-Johansen, Howard Brody, Nigel Paneth, Stephen Rachman, Michael Russell Rip, whose six years of collaborative research produced this fine biography of an iconic pioneer in public health. The authors detail his visionary experiment, the investigation into the supply of water to districts in South London and the book makes clear the real importance of the way that Snow used his medical authority to persuade local officials to take action. New $46.39. Available Used from $37.99 (as of time of writing).

Yesterday's pick: Cast-Iron Architecture in America: The Significance of James Bogardus, by Margot Gayle and Carol Gayle
For picks from earlier newsletters, see the Today in Science Science Store home page.

Quotations for Today
	"So long as the fur of the beaver was extensively employed as a material for fine hats, it bore a very high price, and the chase of this quadruped was so keen that naturalists feared its speedy consideration. When a Parisian manufacturer invented the silk hat, which soon came into almost universal use, the demand for beavers' fur fell off, and this animal–whose habits, as we have seen, are an important agency in the formation of bogs and other modifications of forest nature–immediately began to increase, reappeared in haunts which we had long abandoned, and can no longer be regarded as rare enough to be in immediate danger of extirpation. Thus the convenience or the caprice of Parisian fashion has unconsciously exercised an influence which may sensibly affect the physical geography of a distant continent." - George Perkins Marsh, American conservationist was the first to reveal the menace of environmental misuse, to explain its causes, and to prescribe reforms. (born 15 Mar 1801)
	"There was once an Editor of the Chemical Society, given to dogmatic expressions of opinion, who once duly said firmly that 'isomer' was wrong usage and 'isomeride' was correct, because the ending 'er' always meant a 'do-er'. 'As in water?' snapped Sidgwick." - Nevil Vincent Sidgwick, English chemist. (died 15 Mar 1952)
	"I had an immense advantage over many others dealing with the problem inasmuch as I had no fixed ideas derived from long-established practice to control and bias my mind, and did not suffer from the general belief that whatever is, is right. " - Sir Henry Bessemer, English industrialist and inventor. (died 15 Mar 1898)

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
	E. Donnall Thomas, born 15 Mar 1920, was an American physician who in 1990 was corecipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work in a type of transplantation from one person to another - an achievement related to the cure of patients with acute leukemia and other blood cancers or blood diseases. *Thomas worked with what type of transplantation?*
	Waldemar Mordecai Wolfe Haffkine was a Russian-British bacteriologist who took a particular interest in a certain disease. He prepared an attenuated strain and tested it on himself. He then went to India, where the disease was endemic and reduced the death rate by 70% among those he inoculated. *What was disease he worked against?*
Deaths
	An American physicist (1892-1962) was a joint winner, with C.T.R. Wilson of England, of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1927 for his discovery and explanation of the change in the wavelength of X rays when they collide with electrons in metals, an effect now known by his name. *Can you name this scientist?*
	Sir Joseph William Bazalgette (1819-1891) was a British civil engineer, who built some major bridges in London, but he is remembered for a much greater accomplishment. *For what great accomplishment is Bazalgette most remembered?*
Events
	On 15 Mar of a certain year, the first escalator was patented by inventor Jesse W. Reno of New York City. *In what decade was this escalator patented?*

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 March 15 web page of Today in Science History. Or, try this link first for just the brief answers.

Fast answers for the previous newsletter for March 14: explanation of the photoelectric effect; Kodak; the decade including the year 1960; Florida; cotton gin.

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