On May 27, 1907, Rachel Louise Carson was born. She spent her entire life loving the natural world, particularly the ocean. She studied English and marine biology and wrote copy for weekly education broadcasts for U.S. Bureau of Fisheries [later named the U.S. Fish…
On May 10, 1946, primatologist Biruté M. F. Galdikas was born. As scientist, conservationist, and educator, she has made uninterrupted study of and invaluable contributions to the scientific understanding of Indonesia’s biodiversity. The orangutan was a species barely known to science before Galdikas initiated…
On April 21, 1838, John Muir was born. Muir was a naturalist who championed the creation of the first National Forests in the United States of America and co-founded the Sierra Club. As an explorer and writer, he inspired President Theodore Roosevelt’s innovative wildlife…
On April 14, 1912, sightings of large icebergs were radioed ship-to-ship in the North Atlantic. Little was generally known about icebergs except that they could damage a ship and the navigational strategy of the day was to avoid them. Moved by ocean current and…
On March 14, 1854, German physician, biochemist and bacteriologist Dr. Paul Ehrlich was born. German universities teemed with brilliant doctor-scientist-researchers during Ehrlich’s time. He began as an assistant to bacteriologist Dr. Robert Koch, one of the founders of microbiology, who was only 10 years…
On March 7, 1974, Swiss molecular biologist Martin Oeggerli was born. Although he was 26 when he received his first digital camera and enjoyed the clarity of its close-up detail, Oeggerli came to prefer the images available to him from the Scanning Electron Microscope.…
On March 5, 1512, Gerhard Mercator was born in Flanders. He received as fine an education as he could from church tutors and used this formal education and his selection of master craftsmen to work with to become a cross-discipline 16th century businessman –…
On March 4, 1901, Dr. Wilbur Rounding Franks was born. This Canadian scientist and cancer researcher developed anti-gravity devices in the 1940s with his colleagues at the Banting and Best Medical Research Institute at the University of Toronto. The first devices Dr. Franks developed…
On February 23, 1879, British botanist Agnes Arber was born. From her mid-teens through early career, she was able to spend time assisting plant morphologist Ethel Sargant from whom she acquired her research interest and style of investigation. Arber taught at University College, London,…
On February 15, 1852, inventor and educator Alfred Carlton Gilbert was born. He paid for some of his university expenses by performing as a magician and launched a company to manufacture and sell magic kits. Upon graduating from Yale medical school, Gilbert chose to…