On September 16, 1921, physicist and metallurgist Ursula Franklin was born in Munich, Germany. Franklin’s view of her world formed as she grew from a young woman who suffered wartime workcamp imprisonment, through a doctorate in experimental physics, to emigration to a renewed life…
On September 14, 1907, Jasper Forest Park was established, expanding into national park status in 1930. With its 11,000 km² (4200 mi² ) area, Jasper National Park of Canada is larger than the country of Jamaica. On hundreds of individual sites throughout Jasper, there…
On September 12, 1940, close to the town of Lascaux, four teenaged boys enlarged the entrance to an old river cliff cave so they could explore. They found it to be so large and complex … they got their teacher involved and… anthropologist Henri…
On September 11, 1847, American astronomer Mary Watson Whitney was born. She excelled in mathematics and nature studies. Whitney was one of Vassar’s first students in the college’s opening year and one of its first students in its new department of astronomy. In a…
On September 7, 1914, American space scientist James Alfred Van Allen was born. In the International Geophysical Year [July 1, 1957 to December 31, 1958] Van Allen reconfigured the radiation detectors he had designed for one rocket system to fly on a different system…
On August 6, 1881, doctor and bacteriologist Sir Alexander Fleming was born. As a doctor in the British Army Medical Corps (WWI), Fleming relied on his own skills in titration, the continuous measurement and adjustment in balancing a medication or treatment. He noticed that the…
On June 21, 1868, English zoologist Edwin Stephen Goodrich was born. As a promising student at the Slade School of Art, Goodrich became interested in zoology eventually specializing in comparative anatomy – a study that uses the data and achievements of anatomy, embryology, and…
On June 16, 1902, biologist Barbara McClintock was born. McClintock studied courses in genetics before it was accepted as a discipline. Using maize cobs as her exploratory medium, she noticed colour spots on kernels that could not be explained by Mendelian genetics. Immediately attracted…
On June 14, 1868, Austrian-American immunologist and serologist Dr. Karl Landsteiner was born. Early in his research of blood properties, he had concluded that agglutinin, a substance that causes particles to aggregate in a thickened mass, varied between blood types. He demonstrated how human…
On May 17, 1749, English country surgeon Dr. Edward Jenner was born. In the 18th century, smallpox was a disease that killed about 20% of victims who contracted it and, if it didn’t kill, it often disfigured or blinded many survivors. When an epidemic…