Posted in Daily Story on Feb 28th, 2012
February 29, 1936: Nature magazine published Niels Bohr’s “bowl of balls” explanation of effect of bombarding particles on a nucleus. His follow up article in Science magazine explained that “to understand the typical features of nuclear transmutations initiated by impacts of material particles… A simple mechanical model which illustrates these features of nuclear collisions is [...]
Posted in Daily Story on Feb 28th, 2012
February 28, 1953: James Watson, English scientist, discovered structure of DNA while shuffling cardboard cutout models of the molecules of the DNA bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and thymine (T). After a while, in a spark of ingenuity, he discovered their complementary pairing. He realized that A joined with T had a close [...]
Posted in Daily Story on Feb 26th, 2012
February 27, 1869: Alice Hamilton, American pathologist known for her research on industrial diseases was born. By actively publicizing danger to workers’ health of industrial toxic substances, she contributed to passage of workmen’s compensation laws & development of safer working conditions. As special investigator for U.S. Bureau of Labor, she began field investigations of mines, [...]
Posted in Daily Story on Feb 26th, 2012
February 26, 1993: Bomb exploded in parking garage beneath World Trade Center in New York City where 6 people died & 1,000 were injured. Explosion created crater 200 feet wide & caused $591 million in damage. Investigators at bomb scene found section of Ryder Van at center of the blast. Storage facility owner came forward [...]
Posted in Daily Story on Feb 25th, 2012
February 25, 1984: Gasoline pipeline explosion destroyed shantytown in Brazil where 500+ people died. Thirty miles southeast of Sao Paulo 9,000 people had set up makeshift homes on land that was owned by state-run oil monopoly. Pipelines ran next to slum area. When workers opened wrong pipeline, highly combustible octane gas poured into the ditches. [...]
Posted in Daily Story on Feb 25th, 2012
February 24, 1896: Henri Becquerel reported results of his investigation regarding phosphorescent rays of “double sulfate of uranium & potassium” crystals. He had placed the crystals on the outside of a photographic plate wrapped in sheets of very thick black paper & exposed the whole to the sun for several hours. When he developed photographic [...]
Posted in Daily Story on Feb 23rd, 2012
February 23, 1954: First mass inoculations of new polio vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk were made at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Elementary School. Poliomyelitis was highly contagious disease that emerged in terrifying outbreaks & seemed impossible to stop. Attacking nerve cells & central nervous system, polio caused muscle deterioration, paralysis & even death. Most famous victim [...]
Posted in Daily Story on Feb 22nd, 2012
February 22, 1857: Heinrich (Rudolf) Hertz, German physicist, was born. He was first to broadcast & receive radio waves. Hertz generated electromagnetic waves by means of oscillatory discharge of condenser through a loop provided with a spark gap, & then detecting them with a similar type of circuit. Hertz’s condenser was pair of metal rods, [...]
Posted in Daily Story on Feb 20th, 2012
February 21, 1931: Alka Seltzer was introduced in USA with a heavy radio advertising campaign. During a severe flu epidemic, Hub Beardsley (President of Miles Laboratories) visited a local newspaper office in Elkhart, Indiana. He learned from the editor, that his staff seemed to be resistant to the illness. Newspaper editor explained that at the [...]
Posted in Daily Story on Feb 20th, 2012
February 20, 1947: Chemical mixing error at electroplating plant caused an explosion that destroyed 42 blocks in Los Angeles. Explosion was probably exacerbated by breakdown in plant refrigeration system only an hour earlier. Plant was using new plating process for aluminum, which employed concentrated perchloric acid. The acid is so volatile it must be kept [...]