1943: A biochemistry grad student discovers streptomycin, a synthetic antibiotic used to treat tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.
Sole credit for the discovery initially went to Selman Waksman — who would receive the Nobel Prize in 1952 — who ran the laboratory at Rutgers University where the research was performed. But it was Albert Schatz, a [...]
Posts Tagged ‘nobel prize’
Oct. 19, 1943: A Wonderful Discovery, and a Helluva Row
October 19th, 2010 |
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Oct. 11, 1995: ‘We’re Trashing the Ozone Layer’
October 11th, 2010 |
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1995: Two Americans and a Dutch scientist win the Nobel Prize for chemistry for their research showing that the release of nitrogen oxide through manmade chlorofluorocarbons damages the Earth’s natural ozone layer.
The groundwork for the Nobel was laid by Paul Crutzen, a Dutch chemist working at the Max-Planck-Institut in Germany, who in 1970 released a [...]
August 27, 1874: He’s Ammoniac, Ammoniac at the Fore
August 27th, 2010 |
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1874: Carl Bosch, a chemist whose work would transform agriculture and industry — and eventually enable the Green Revolution — is born.
Bosch’s contribution to humanity was the development of the Haber-Bosch process, a technique for creating ammonia in large quantities.
Ammonia is an essential component of agricultural fertilizers, because it’s rich in nitrogen — which makes [...]
May 7, 1952: The Integrated Circuit … What a Concept!
May 7th, 2010 |
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1952: British radar engineer Geoffrey Dummer introduces the concept of the integrated circuit at a tech conference in the United States. The world is about to change.
At the heart of every electronic device today — from computers to aircraft navigation systems — is a little circuit that has changed computing and ushered in [...]
Feb, 11, 1939: Lise Meitner, ‘Our Madame Curie’
February 11th, 2010 |
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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 the top prize was given. [...]
Aug. 31, 1909: First Chemotherapy Drug Treats Syphilis
August 31st, 2009 |
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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 research career began in the [...]
Improving scientific publishing: Huddled maths
July 29th, 2009 |
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An academic journal provides haven for rejected work
PAUL LAUTERBUR, the father of magnetic-resonance imaging, had his seminal paper rejected when he first submitted it to Nature. Peter Higgs, eponymous predictor of physics’s missing boson, faced similar trouble with Physics Letters. But Lauterbur went on to win a Nobel prize for his work, and Dr Higgs is an odds-on favourite to get one soon. A good, rejected paper, then, is by no means an oxymoron.
And that observation is the basis of Rejecta Mathematica, an open-source academic journal that recently went online. As its name suggests, the new journal publishes only papers that, like Lauterbur’s and Dr Higgs’s, have been previously submitted to, and rejected by, others. With Annals of Mathematics, one of the best, denying entry to more than 300 last year alone, Rejecta could be busy. …
Improving scientific publishing: Huddled maths
July 29th, 2009 |
No Comments
An academic journal provides haven for rejected work
PAUL LAUTERBUR, the father of magnetic-resonance imaging, had his seminal paper rejected when he first submitted it to Nature. Peter Higgs, eponymous predictor of physics’s missing boson, faced similar trouble with Physics Letters. But Lauterbur went on to win a Nobel prize for his work, and Dr Higgs is an odds-on favourite to get one soon. A good, rejected paper, then, is by no means an oxymoron.
And that observation is the basis of Rejecta Mathematica, an open-source academic journal that recently went online. As its name suggests, the new journal publishes only papers that, like Lauterbur’s and Dr Higgs’s, have been previously submitted to, and rejected by, others. With Annals of Mathematics, one of the best, denying entry to more than 300 last year alone, Rejecta could be busy. …