ICT magazine

1790: John Frederic Daniell, a 19th-century scientific and academic heavyweight, inventor of the first practical electric battery and all-around geek, is born in London, England. Daniell, the son of a prominent London attorney, attended prestigious schools in Europe where he excelled in science — especially when it came to performing experiments ...

1939: Austrian-born physicist Lise Meitner publishes her discovery that atomic nuclei split during some uranium reactions. Her research will be overlooked by the Nobel committee when it awards a prize for the work. Meitner is a prominent example of a woman whose gender put her in the back seat when ...

Veteran supermodels Eva Herzigova, 36, Helena Christensen, 40, and Claudia Schiffer, 39, have proved that age is no object when it comes to looking stunning. The models wore just leather thigh boots and a saucy wink for the naked mag shoot. Claudia said it was the chemistry of the three old-school catwalk ...

Photo by Jason Bergman It's not even a year old yet, but Fucked Up's sprawling, brawny opus The Chemistry of Common Life already sounds like a modern hardcore classic. And on November 5, the band will cement that classic status just a little bit more when they play the whole album ...

1909: After searching through hundreds of potential chemicals, a German immunologist discovers a compound that can selectively kill the parasitic spirochete that causes syphilis. The following year, he sends 65,000 free samples of the drug, now known as the first modern chemotherapy agent, to doctors all over the world. Since his ...

1887: Intent on observing a solar eclipse, a celebrated Russian chemist uses a hot-air balloon to make a solo ascent above the clouds near Moscow, even though he has never been in a balloon before and has no idea how to land one. Even if Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev had never gotten ...

1868: A French astronomer spots an unknown element, now known as helium, in the spectrum of the sun during a much-anticipated total eclipse. The event marks the first discovery of an “extraterrestrial” element, as helium had not yet been found on Earth. Astronomers had been eagerly awaiting a total solar eclipse ...

1903: A Japanese chemist living in Chicago receives the first U.S. patent for instant coffee. Hundreds of millions of caffeine-craving addicts will rue the day, but others have no grounds for complaint. Water-soluble “instant” coffees first saw light of cup in Britain in 1771. But the product had a short shelf ...

Reports indicate that the newest supercomputer, which can perform more than 160 trillion calculations per second, is ready to take on problems in areas such as climate science, hydrogen storage and molecular chemistry. The 21.4 million dollar Chinook supercomputer, built by HP, is almost 15 times faster than its predecessor, ...

Brit actor Robert Pattinson and American actress Kristen Stewart are said to have an undeniable chemistry between them. Pattinson, 23, and Stewart, 19, have worked together in the ‘Twilight’ sequel ‘New Moon’, and their co-star Ashley Greene, who joined the duo at Comic-Con in San Diego to promote the new film, ...

1999: After five decades of denial, the U.S. government owns up to poisoning thousands of defense, aerospace and atomic energy workers by exposing them to beryllium. President Bill Clinton asks Congress to enact legislation to compensate the sickened workers and their survivors. The element beryllium (Be, atomic number 4) is a ...