TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 17 JUNE
On 17 Jun 1876, Edward Anthony Spitzka was born, American anatomist and brain morphologist who autopsied (29 Oct 1901) the brain of Leon Franz Czolgosz, the assassin of U.S. president William McKinley.
Throughout his career he studied the brain morphology of groups of famous people, different races, and criminals, thought ultimately he was unable to link traits to brain structure.
This conclusion was the topic of a 1906 newspaper article, "Looking for 'The Face Within the Face' in Man," which describes his research, including his examination of Czolgosz's brain.
On 17 Jun 1832, William Crookes was born, a British chemist and physicist who discovered the element thallium, investigated cathode rays, invented the radiometer and much more in a long life of unbroken scientific and business activity, which culminated in his appointment as President of the Royal Society in 1913. Today's book pick is: William Crookes (1832-1919) and the Commercialization of Science (Science, Technology and Culture, 1700-1945), by William H. Brock This, the first biography of William Crookes, gives us the whole man: one of the most complex, public, and interesting figures in the history of science. Professor Brock guides us through the abundant catalogue of Crookes' accomplishments, placing his scientific activities in the context of the business of making a living from science - something that Crookes did principally as a science journalist and editor with his Chemical News, and by business enterprises ranging from water analysis, sewerage schemes, and goldmining to the design of electric light bulbs.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $172.37. Used from $125.77. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | England and all civilised nations stand in deadly peril of not having enough to eat. As mouths multiply, food resources dwindle. Land is a limited quantity, and the land that will grow wheat is absolutely dependent on difficult and capricious natural phenomena... I hope to point a way out of the colossal dilemma. It is the chemist who must come to the rescue of the threatened communities. It is through the laboratory that starvation may ultimately be turned into plenty... The fixation of atmospheric nitrogen is one of the great discoveries, awaiting the genius of chemists. — Sir William Crookes, English physicist and chemist (born 17 Jun 1832).  |
 | It is natural selection that gives direction to changes, orients chance, and slowly, progressively produces more complex structures, new organs, and new species. Novelties come from previously unseen association of old material. To create is to recombine. — François Jacob, French biologist (born 17 Jun 1920). |
| | The idea that the bumps or depressions on a man's head indicate the presence or absence of certain moral characteristics in his mental equipment is one of the absurdities developed from studies in this field that has long since been discarded by science. The ideas of the phrenologist Gall, however ridiculous they may now seem in the light of a century's progress, were nevertheless destined to become metamorphosed into the modern principles of cerebral localization. — Edward Anthony Spitzka, American anatomist and brain morphologist (born 17 Jun 1876). |
| 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 | |
 | George Cormack, born 17 Jun 1870, invented one of today’s brand-name breakfast cereals. In 1921, a health clinician in Minneapolis, while mixing a batch of bran gruel for his patients, spilled some of the mix on a hot stove where it sizzled into a crisp flake. After tasting the very first prototype, he took the idea to the Washburn Crosby Company, where the head miller, George Cormack, took on the task of trying to strengthen the flakes to keep them from turning to dust inside a cereal box. Cormack tested 36 varieties of wheat before he developed the perfect flake. The brand name was chosen by a company wide contest won by Jane Bausman, the wife of the export manager. What is the name of the cereal brand? |
 | On 17 Jun 1867 is the birthday of an Irish-born American inventor of a shorthand system named for him. Can you name this man? |
| Deaths | |
 | Sir Arthur Harden (1865-1940) was an English biochemist who shared the 1929 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for work on the fermentation of sugar. What did he study in the fermentation process? |
| Events | |
 | On 17 Jun 1928, an aviator embarked on a trans-Atlantic flight from Newfoundland to Wales; she was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, though as a passenger in a plane piloted by Wilmer Stultz. In 1932, she became the first woman to fly solo across that ocean. Can you name this woman? |
 | On Jun 17 of a certain year, the first kidney transplant operation was undertaken in Chicago. The 45-minute operation was performed by Dr. Richard H. Lawler. He decided upon the surgery for a the 44-year-old woman because of her urgent medical need at the time. Lawler had no interest in becoming a transplant surgeon. It was four years before there was another successful result from attempts by several other surgeons in the U.S. and France. In what decade did this first operation take place? |
 | On 17 Jun 1947, the first globe-circling passenger airline was inaugurated as it left New York. Can you name this airline? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for June 16: she was the first American woman to win an unshared Nobel Prize • it will predictably joins two carbon atoms from different molecules to form a double bond. • Wernher von Braun • ether • the decade including the year 1903 • Pepsi-Cola.
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