Newsletter for Sunday 7 June.

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TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY

NEWSLETTER • 7 JUNE

Feature for Today

On 7 Jun 1753, the British Museum was founded, the world's oldest public national museum. King George II gave his royal assent to an Act of Parliament to accept the collection of Sir Hans Sloane, a London-based physician, following his death. In his will, Sloane had offered the British nation the collection he built over his lifetime: 71,000 objects, mostly plant and animal specimens.

More of its history can be read in an extract from A General Guide to the British Museum (1898).

Book of the Day

On 7 Jun 1928, Bernard F. Burke was born, the American astronomer who in 1955 discovered that the giant planet Jupiter emits radio waves - the first to be found from a planet in our solar system. Today's book pick is: The Invisible Universe: The Story of Radio Astronomy, by Gerrit Verschuur, who tells the story of radio astronomy for a lay audience, of how radio waves are generated by stars, supernova, quasars, colliding galaxies, and by the very beginnings of the universe itself. You learn what astronomers are doing with those huge dishes, collecting and analyzing their data - "listening" to the radio signals from space, in order to learn what is out there.

It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $22.00. Used from $9.57. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)

Quotations for Today

	Your admission of the late appearance of the great intellectual crown of the whole animal race [man] strikes me as perfectly fatal to the analogy of your system of a continually recurring series of identical terms. — William Conybeare, English geologist, palaeontologist and clergyman (born 7 Jun 1787).
	I would like to emphasize strongly my belief that the era of computing chemists, when hundreds if not thousands of chemists will go to the computing machine instead of the laboratory for increasingly many facets of chemical information, is already at hand. There is only one obstacle, namely that someone must pay for the computing time. — Robert Sanderson Mulliken, American chemist and physician (born 7 Jun 1896).
	It has been aptly said that all Egypt is but the façade of an immense sepulchre. — Amelia Blanford Edwards, English novelist, traveller and Egyptologist (born 7 Jun 1831).

Quiz

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
	Virginia Apgar, born 7 Jun 1909 was an American physician, anesthesiologist, and medical researcher who developed the Apgar Score System. What is the Apgar Score System used for?
	Sir James Young Simpson, born 7 Jun 1811 was a Scottish inventor and obstetrician who was the the father of modern anesthetics. He employed ether for the first time in Britain. A different substance he used was as the first time that anesthetic was used in an operation (1847). Simpson was a natural inventor, always eager to experiment in new directions - the fight against puerperal fever, the invention of new types of forceps and the combating of cholera. Which anesthetic was it that he used for the first time in an operation?
Deaths
	Alan M. Turing (1912-1954) was an English mathematician and logician who pioneered in the field of computer theory and who contributed important logical analyses of computer processes. He made major contributions to mathematics, cryptanalysis, logic, philosophy, and biology and created a new area of computer science. Can you name the new area of computer science he contributed to?
	A German physicist (1787-1826) who first studied the dark lines of the Sun's spectrum, was also the first to use extensively the diffraction grating, a device that dispenses light in much the same way a prism does. His work set the stage for the development of spectroscopy. Can you name this scientist?
Events
	On 7 Jun 1980, the first power plant of this type was dedicated. It was sited at the Natural Bridge National Monument, Utah. Its 100-kilowatt output could provide the power needs for the buildings and facilities of that National Park. The nearest alternate power line was 38 miles away. The National Park System was part of the joint venture with MIT's Lincoln Laboratory and the Dept. of Energy. What type of power plant was this?
	On 7 Jun of a certain year, Thomas S. Hall of Stamford, Conn., received a patent for the first automatic electric block railroad signal system in the U.S. When a train entered a block of track, Hall's electromagnetic device automatically set a signal when the locomotive struck a lever fastened to the rail. The signal was set to danger until the train cleared the block. In what decade was this patent issued?
	On 7 Jun of a certain year, the first U.S. laboratory exclusively built for studies in microbiology was dedicated in New Brunswick, N.J., as part of Rutgers University. In what decade did this dedication take place?

Answers

When you have your answers ready to all the questions above, you'll find all the information to check them, and more, on the June 7 web page of Today in Science History. Or, try this link first for just the brief answers.

Fast answers for the previous newsletter for June 6: buckminsterfullerene, buckyball, a fullerene • fruits and seeds • Sigmund Freud • the decade including the year 1882 • nylon.

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