Newsletter for Saturday 14 September

TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY NEWSLETTER - 14 SEPTEMBER

Book of the Day

On 14 Sep 1769, Alexander von Humboldt was born, a naturalist with Einsteinian fame in his era for his daring scientific explorations covering thousands of miles through Latin America that altered the course of science. Simon Bolivar called him the “the true discoverer of South America.” Stephen Jay Gould noted he “may well have been the world’s most famous and influential intellectual.” Humboldt cataloged more than 60,000 plants, set an altitude record climbing the volcano Chimborazo, and became the first to study the great cultures of the Aztecs and Incas. In the process, he revolutionized geology and laid the groundwork for a range of modern sciences including climatology, oceanography, and geography. His work largely inspired Charles Darwin. Today's Science Store pick is: Humboldt's Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Latin American Journey that Changed the Way We See the World, by Gerard Helferich who pays a dramatic tribute to one of history’s most audacious adventurers. If you feel sad that his name may be only vaguely familiar to you, join the author as he carves a path through the Amazon and the Andes, with the flies and mosquitoes, the crocodiles, piranha and jaguars, as Humboldt and a small but changing group of assistants lug all manner of scientific instrumentation, boxes of botanical samples and provisions over thousands of miles, through uncharted territories and back again. It is available New from $38.90. Used from $24.40. (As of time of writing.). For picks from earlier newsletters, see the Today in Science Science Store home page.

Quotations for Today
	I shall collect plants and fossils, and with the best of instruments make astronomic observations. Yet this is not the main purpose of my journey. I shall endeavor to find out how nature's forces act upon one another, and in what manner the geographic environment exerts its influence on animals and plants. In short, I must find out about the harmony in nature. - Baron Alexander von Humboldt, German naturalist and archaeologist (born 14 Sep 1769).
	Professor Ayrton said that we were gradually coming within thinkable distance of the realization of a prophecy he had ventured to make four years before, of a time when, if a person wanted to call to a friend he knew not where, he would call in a very loud electromagnetic voice, heard by him who had the electromagnetic ear, silent to him who had it not. “Where are you? ” he would say. A small reply would come, “I am at the bottom of a coalmine, or crossing the Andes, or in the middle of the Atlantic.” Or, perhaps in spite of all the calling, no reply would come, and the person would then know that his friend was dead. Think of what this would mean ... a real communication from a distance based on true physical laws. [His prophecy of cell phones, as a comment on Marconi's paper, �Syntonic Wireless Telegraphy�, read before the Society of Arts, 15 May 1901, about his early radio signal experiments.] - William Edward Ayrton, English physicist and inventor (born 14 Sep 1847).
	No despot ever flung forth his legions to die in foreign conquest, no privilege-ruled nation ever erupted across its borders, to lock in death embrace with another, but behind them loomed the driving power of a population too large for its boundaries and its natural resources. - Margaret Sanger, American birth-control activist (born 14 Sep 1879).
	Logic is the last scientific ingredient of Philosophy; its extraction leaves behind only a confusion of non-scientific, pseudo problems. - Rudolf Carnap, German-American philosopher (died 14 Sep 1970).

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
	Ferid Murat, born 14 Sep 1936, was a co-winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering that a gas acts as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system. This was an entirely new mechanism for how blood vessels in the body relax and widen. What was this gas?
	Robert S. Dietz, born 14 Sep 1914, was an American geophysicist and oceanographer who presented a theory of seafloor spreading in which new crustal material continually upwells from the Earth's depths along the mid-ocean ridges and spreads outward. How much new seafloor is made each year by this spreading?
	Born on 14 Sep 1909, the son of an Antarctic explorer, this British Naturalist founded conservation groups. From 1953-1970, he hosted the BBC TV environmental series Look. Can you name this man?
Deaths
	A French engineer (1839-1882) invented the precursor of the dry cell now providing electrical power for such uses as portable radios. His cell (1866) used a negative zinc terminal, a positive terminal of manganese dioxide in an electrolyte solution of ammonium chloride. It was adopted by the telegraph service of Belgium. Can you name this man?
Events
	On 14 Sep 1716, the first lighthouse in America was lit for the first time. It is now the last lighthouse to be manned in the U.S. Which harbour does it mark?
	In 1959, the Soviet Luna 2 became the first world's space probe to strike the moon, when it crashed east of the Sea of Serenity. How much time was taken for its flight from launch to impact?

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 September 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 September 13: Milton Snavely Hershey • for the identification of bacteria • yellow fever, transmitted by the bite of a mosquito • foghorn • rhinoceros • yellow fever.

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