Newsletter for Thursday 29 October.

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TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY

NEWSLETTER • 29 OCTOBER

Feature for Today

On 29 Oct 1831, Othniel Marsh was born, an American paleontologist who held the chair in that field at Yale University. For a short mention of his contributions to vertebrate paleontology, read this Obituary from The Auk: Quarterly Journal of Ornithology (1899).

Book of the Day

On 29 Oct 1923, Carl Djerassi was born, inventor of an oral contraceptive and science-in-drama playwright. Today's book pick is: Oxygen, by Carl Djerassi, Roald Hoffmann. This play considers who deserves credit for the discovery of oxygen. Its premise is that the Nobel Foundation, for its centenary, decides to award a “retro-Nobel” for the discovery of oxygen. But, the committee debates, should it go to Antoine Lavoisier, Joseph Priestly or Carl Wilhelm Scheele? The dramatic action alternates between the rivals in 1777 and judges of their contributions in Stockholm in 2001. So, who will be the awardee? This imaginative play makes an intriging read.

It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $19.50. Used from $5.50. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)

Quotations for Today

	Just go on ... and faith will soon return. [To a friend hesitant with respect to infinitestimals]. — Jean le Rond D’Alembert, French mathematician (died 29 Oct 1783).
	In preparing the present volume, it has been the aim of the author to do full justice to the ample material at his command, and, where possible, to make the illustrations tell the main story to anatomists. The text of such a memoir may soon lose its interest, and belong to the past, but good figures are of permanent value. [Justifying elaborate illustrations in his monographs.] — Othniel Marsh, American paleontologist (born 29 Oct 1831).
	We live in a world where unfortunately the distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly blurred by manipulation of facts, by exploitation of uncritical minds, and by the pollution of the language. — Arne Tiselius, , Swedish biochemist (died 29 Oct 1971).

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
	Othniel Marsh, born 29 Oct 1831, was a U.S. scientist who made extensive scientific explorations of the western U.S. His rivalry with Edward Drinker Cope, America's other great scientist in the same scientific field was known as “The Great __?__ Wars.” What is the missing word in the last sentence?
	On 29 Oct 1920, Baruj Benacerraf was born, a Venezuelan-American geneticist and immunologist who studied the mechanisms and genetic basis of the immunologic response and especially of its role in certain diseases known as the autoimmune diseases. What is an “autoimmune disease.”
Deaths
	Arne Tiselius was a biochemist who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1948 for his work on electrophoresis and other new methods of separating and detecting colloids and serum proteins. In electrophoresis - a method of separating chemically similar charged colloids - an electrical field is applied to the sample, and particles with different sizes migrate at different rates to the pole of opposite charge, enabling them to be detected and identified. What was his nationality?
	Fritz Hofmann (1866-1956) was a German chemist who held the world's first patent for a polymerization method to create synthetic rubber (1909). It began to solve the problem of the high cost of natural rubber as the need increased in the motor transportage age. In the first patent for polymerization, what molecular monomer was used to form synthetic rubber.
Events
	On 29 Oct 1998, a US astronaut was launched into space aboard Space Shuttle Discovery. His first trip into space trip was made 38 years earlier. Can you name this astronaut?
	On 29 Oct of a certain year, the first ball point pen in the U.S. went on sale at Gimbels Department Stores for $12.95. Four months earlier, Chicago businessman Milton Reynolds, in Buenos Aires on unrelated business, saw the Biro pen in a store, recognized the pen’s sales potential and bought a few as samples. Reynolds returned to America and started manufacturing copies. What was the decade in which first U.S. ball point pen was sold?

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 October 29 web page of Today in Science History. Or, try this link first for just the brief answers.

Fast answers for the previous newsletter for October 28: paper chromatography • the decade including 1950 • Eddystone lighthouse • England was the sixth nation to have a satellite • cotton gin.

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