SciHi Blog

The Discovery of the Taung Child

The Discovery of the Taung Child

On November 28, 1924, workers at the Buxton Limeworks near Taung, South Africa, showed a fossilised primate skull to Raymond Dart, an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, who described it as a new species in the journal Nature in 1925. The fossil was soon nicknamed the Taung Child and the new species was named Australopithecus africanus – the “southern ape from Africa” – and described by Dart as “an extinct race of apes…
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Veerabhadran Ramanathan and the Brown Clouds

Veerabhadran Ramanathan and the Brown Clouds

On November 24, 1944, Indian atmospheric scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan was born. He has contributed to many areas of the atmospheric sciences including developments to general circulation models, atmospheric chemistry, and radiative transfer. But, he is best known for his 1999 discovery of the “Asian Brown Cloud” – wandering layers of air pollution as wide as a continent and deeper than the Grand Canyon. Veerabhadran Ramanathan – Background Ramanathan was born in Chennai, India.…
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Yuri Knorozov and the Decipherment of the Mayan Language

Yuri Knorozov and the Decipherment of the Mayan Language

On November 19, 1922, Soviet linguist epigrapher and ethnographer Yuri Knorozov was born. Knorozov is particularly renowned for the pivotal role his research played in the decipherment of the Maya script, the writing system used by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica. “There are no indecipherable writings, any writing system produced by man can be read by man.” — Yuri Knozorov, Epigraphic Atlas of Petén Phase 1 Youth and Education Yuri Knorozov was born…
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Elmer McCollum and the Discovery of Vitamins

Elmer McCollum and the Discovery of Vitamins

On November 15, 1967, American biochemist Elmer McCollum passed away. McCollum is known for his work on the influence of diet on health. Together with Marguerite Davis McCollum discovered the first vitamin, named A, in 1913. He also helped to discover vitamin B and vitamin D and worked out the effect of trace elements in the diet. Elmer McCollum – Youth hand Family Background Elmer McCollum was born on March 3, 1879,…
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French Aviation Pioneer Robert Esnault-Pelterie

French Aviation Pioneer Robert Esnault-Pelterie

On November 8, 1881, French aviation pioneer Robert Albert Charles Esnault-Pelterie was born. Esnault-Pelterie improved the design of the Wright brothers 1902 glider and invented the aileron, a movable airfoil at the edge of the wing. In 1907, he built one of the first monoplanes, and proposed the idea of the ballistic missile for military bombardment. Robert Esnault-Pelterie – Background Robert Esnault-Pelterie was born on November 8, 1881 in Paris as the son…
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C. V. Raman and the Raman Effect

C. V. Raman and the Raman Effect

On November 7 1888, Indian physicist and Nobel Laureate Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was born. Raman carried out ground-breaking work in the field of light scattering, which earned him the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics. He discovered that when light traverses a transparent material, some of the deflected light changes in wavelength. This phenomenon, subsequently known as Raman scattering, results from the Raman effect. C.V. Raman – Early Years C. V. Raman was…
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Wilhelm Reich and the Overall Structure of Character

Wilhelm Reich and the Overall Structure of Character

On November 3, 1957, Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich passed away. A member of the second generation of analysts after Sigmund Freud, Reich became known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry. He developed a system of psychoanalysis that concentrated on overall character structure, rather than on individual neurotic symptoms. Wilhelm Reich – Early Years Wilhelm Reich was born in 1897, the first of two sons of the landowner…
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The Fantastic and Visionary Worlds of Leo Perutz

The Fantastic and Visionary Worlds of Leo Perutz

On November 2, 1882, Austrian novelist and mathematician Leo Perutz was born. Perutz was a mathematician who formulated an algebraic equation which is named after him and worked as a statistician for an insurance company. He is best known as author of fantasy novels, which gained the admiration of Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Ian Fleming, Karl Edward Wagner and Graham Greene. Early Life and Education Leo Perutz was born in Prague,…
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Gustav Hertz and the Franck-Hertz Experiment

Gustav Hertz and the Franck-Hertz Experiment

On October 30, 1975, German experimental physicist and Nobel Prize winner Gustav Ludwig Hertz passed away. A nephew of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, he received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1925 together with James Franck for the Franck-Hertz experiment, which confirmed the quantum theory that energy can be absorbed by an atom only in definite amounts and provided an important confirmation of the Bohr atomic model. Early Years and Education Gustav Hertz was…
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Marian Koshland and Effects of Different Composition of Amino Acids

Marian Koshland and Effects of Different Composition of Amino Acids

On October 25, 1921, American immunologist Marian Elliott Koshland was born. Koshland discovered that the differences in amino acid composition of antibodies explains the efficiency and effectiveness with which they combat a huge range of foreign invaders. “When something comes along and is really important to your career and important to science, important enough so that lots of other people are working on it, you have got to do it in a…
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