TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 14 APRIL
On 14 Apr 1882, Henri Giffard died, the French engineer who built the first successful airship. At age 27, on 24 Sep 1852, he travelled from Paris in this airship 28 km (17 miles) to Trappes, at a top speed of 8 km/hr (5 mph). His cigar-shaped balloon, was powered by a lightweight, one-cylinder steam engine which turned a large propeller.
He became rich from inventing an injector for feeding water into the boiler of steam locomotives (1859), which earned the Academie des Sciences prize for mechanics. Later, he constructed successively larger tethered hydrogen balloons. At the 1878 Paris Exposition, one carried 52 passengers on each ascent, returned to the ground by a cable on a steam-powered winch. Giffard died by suicide after becoming blind. He left much money in his will for humanitarian and scientific purposes.
In a lecture, delivered in 1890, to mechanical engineering students, Octave Chanute praised Giffard’s ingenuity in devising a way to change the shape of the known spherical balloons, and add propulsion, to create a navigable balloon.
This lecture was published in Aerial Navigation (1891), which can be read for more information on Giffard’s accomplishment.
On 14 Apr 1950, Francis S. Collins was born, an American geneticist and physician who became the second director at the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the U.S. government. He headed the National Institutes of Health (NIH, an agency of the U.S. government) during the term of President Obama.
A scientific and medical revolution has crept up on us. Twenty-one million Americans are affected by 6,000 so-called rare and orphan diseases, many of which are primarily attributable to misspelled genes. And virtually all diseases have a significant hereditary component. Diabetes, heart disease, the common cancers, mental illness, asthma, arthritis, Alzheimer's disease, and more are having their secrets unlocked through DNA.
Today's book pick is: The Language of Life: DNA and the Revolution in Personalized Medicine, by Francis S Collins. He explains how families that faced common problems, without hope, are now discovering a new world of understanding, treatment, and prevention.
You owe it to yourself to learn about your DNA: how it works, what it reveals, and the benefits and limits of this new knowledge.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $8.48. Used from $1.95. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | Tedious as it may appear to some to dwell on the discovery of odds and ends that have, no doubt, been thrown away by the owner as rubbish ... yet it is by the study of such trivial details that Archaeology is mainly dependent for determining the date of earthworks. ... Next to coins fragments of pottery afford the most reliable of all evidence ... In my judgement, a fragment of pottery, if it throws light on the history of our own country and people, is of more interest to the scientific collector of evidence in England, than even a work of art and merit that is associated only with races that we are remotely connected with. On the importance of pottery to an archaeologist. — Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers, English archaeologist (born 14 Apr 1827).  |
 | ...great difficulties are felt at first and these cannot be overcome except by starting from experiments .. and then be conceiving certain hypotheses ... But even so, very much hard work remains to be done and one needs not only great perspicacity but often a degree of good fortune. — Christiaan Huygens, Dutch physicist and astronomer (born 14 Apr 1629). |
 | [Decoding the human genome sequence] is the most significant undertaking that we have mounted so far in an organized way in all of science. I believe that reading our blueprints, cataloguing our own instruction book, will be judged by history as more significant than even splitting the atom or going to the moon. — Francis S. Collins, American geneticist and physician (born 14 Apr 1950). |
| Before you look at today's web page, see if you can answer some of these questions about the events that happened on this day. Some of the names are very familiar. Others will likely stump you. Tickle your curiosity with these questions, then check your answers on today's web page. | |
| Births | |
| | Christiaan Huygens, born 14 Apr 1629 was a mathematician, astronomer, and physicist, who founded the wave theory of light, discovered the true shape of the rings of Saturn, drew the first maps of Mars and patented the first pendulum clock. What was this scientist's nationality? |
| | On 14 Apr 1827, Augustus Pitt-Rivers was born, the English archaeologist often called the “father of British archaeology.” His London home became so crowded with items such as skulls, stone implements, pottery and other works of art that he decided to open a public display at Bethnal Green. When his collection became too large for Bethnal Green, it was transferred to a university, and a museum built to house it. At which university is the Pitt-Rivers Museum? |
| Deaths | |
 | Rachel Carson, born 27 May 1907, was well known for her writings on environmental pollution and the natural history of the sea. She is most well-known for her warning to the public, in a book she wrote, about the long term effects of misusing pesticides. In the book, she challenged the practices of agricultural scientists and the government, and called for a change in the way humankind viewed the natural world. What is the name of this famous book? |
| Events | |
 | On 14 Apr of a certain year, the first practical commercial black-and-white video recorder was demonstrated at a broadcast convention. The VT-100 by Ampex Corporation of Redwood City was the size of a deep-freeze cabinet, and used 14 inch reels of 2" wide magnetic tape to make a one-hour recording. In which decade was this first video reel recorder demonstrated? |
 | On 14 Apr 1611, at a banquet held in honour of Galileo, a new name for one of his instruments was announced by Prince Federico Cesi (image left), suggested by one of the guests there. Which instrument was so named? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for April 13: RAdio Detection And Ranging • Thomas Jefferson • deafness (after an attack of scarlet fever) • black hole • George Westinghouse.
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