All Resource articles – Page 77

Resource
On This Day - Apr 11 : Percy Julian was born

He was a pioneer in pharmacological chemical synthesis. He held over 130 chemical patents including the industrial scale synthesis of the human steroids progesterone and testosterone, and the plant sterols stigmasterol and sitosterol.
Resource
On This Day - May 11 : Koji Nakanishi was born

He pioneered the use of spectroscopic and chemical methods to determine the structure of complex natural products. To date, he has determined the structures of over 200 biologically active animal and plant products including ginkgolides, new nucleic acids and antibiotics.
Resource
On This Day – Jul 11 : Samuel Goudsmit was born

He introduced the concept of electron spin along with George Eugene Uhlenbeck in 1925. This phenomenon explains many aspects of atomic behaviour that cannot be explained by classical physics.
Resource
On This Day – Aug 11 : Solar eclipse visible

This was the first visible total eclipse from the UK since 29th June 1927. Scientists at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory used the eclipse as an opportunity to carry out experiments on radio waves and investigate the composition of the Earth’s ionosphere.
Resource
On This Day – Sep 11 : Rudolf Schoenheimer died

He developed the technique of “tagging” molecules with radioactive isotopes. This made it possible to trace the pathways of organic molecules in animals and plants, and revolutionized metabolic studies.
Resource
On This Day - Nov 11 : Discovery of cosmic rays

Cosmic rays are particles that bombard the Earth from outside its atmosphere. They were investigated as early as 1911 by Victor Francis Hess, a Nobel laureate in physics, however the name ‘cosmic rays’ was only coined in 1925.
Resource
On This Day - Dec 11 : Explosion at Buncefield

Although the accident did not cause any fatalities, the immense scale of the explosion made it Europe’s biggest fire in peacetime.
Resource
On This Day - Mar 12 : William Perkin was born

Credited with founding the organic chemical industry, Perkin discovered mauveine dye by accident when working with coal tar. Realising the commercial potential of this new purple dye, Perkin patented his synthetic process when he was just 18.
Resource
On This Day - Jun 12 : Fritz Lipmann was born

Lipmann was awarded half the 1953 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery of coenzyme A and its role in nutrition. Coenzyme A is a molecule required in the synthesis and oxidation of fatty acids.
Resource
On This Day – Jul 12 : Discovery of xenon

The British chemists used a powerful machine that cooled and liquefied air to obtain krypton (Kr). They then repeatedly distilled the krypton until an even denser substance separated out, which they named xenon (Xe).
Resource
On This Day – Aug 12 : Phenol used in surgery

The British surgeon was a pioneer of antiseptic surgery and pushed the idea of sterile surgery while working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Using sterile instruments and cleaning wounds were of great success and vastly reduced the number of people dying from post-operation infections from 50% to 15%.
Resource
On This Day – Sep 12 : Irène Joliot-Curie born

Like her parents, she was also a scientist. She and her husband Frédéric bombarded stable atoms with alpha particles to transmute them into different radioactive elements. They created nitrogen (N) from boron (B), phosphorus (P) from aluminium (Al), and silicon (Si) from magnesium (Mg).
Resource
On This Day - Oct 12 : Iron lung respirator

An iron lung is a cylindrical container, encasing a person’s entire body apart from the head. It regulates air pressure to help a person breathe, and was first used to save the life of a young girl with polio.
Resource
On This Day - Nov 12 : Water declared a compound

This revelation was announced to the French Royal Academy of Sciences where the French nobleman performed an experiment using hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O). The product of a reaction between these elements was found to be water, which proved its composition.
Resource
On This Day - Dec 12 : Compounds of californium

By treating californium (Cf) with steam and hydrochloric acid, Burris Cunningham and James Wallman of the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory of the University of California had created californium trichloride, oxychloride, and oxide.
Resource
On This Day - Apr 13 : Tellurium discovered

This semi-metal was discovered by Austro-Hungarian mineralogist Baron Franz Muller von Reichenstein. It is obtained as a grey powder and its compounds are not only poisonous, but even the tiniest amounts can lead to unpleasant body odours!
Resource
On This Day - May 13 : Johannes Thiele was born

He made a huge contribution to our knowledge of nitrogen (N)-containing compounds, leading to the discovery of numerous new compounds and synthetic processes. During WW1 he developed a gas mask against the effects of carbon monoxide (CO).
Resource
On This Day - Jun 13 : James Maxwell was born

Maxwell helped to formulate electromagnetic theory, which links magnetism, electricity and light. He also investigated the kinetic theory of gases and developed part of the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, which helps scientists to understand the effects of temperature on reaction rates.
Resource
On This Day – Aug 13 : Discovery of argon

The first noble gas to be discovered was argon, named after the Greek word ‘argos’ (meaning ‘lazy’) because it was completely unreactive. For this work, Sir William Ramsey was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and Lord Rayleigh the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1904.
Resource
On This Day – Sep 13 : Americium was made

This radioactive metal was first produced by B.B. Cunningham and L.B. Werner. Most americium is produced by bombarding uranium (U) or plutonium (Pu) with alpha particles – one tonne of spent nuclear fuel contains about 100 grams of americium. It has few uses other than in smoke alarms.