COKE

Coca-Cola was invented by Dr. John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta, USA. The name was designed Pembertonovým bookseller Frank Robinson . Robinson was not only a good bookseller, but also had excellent handwriting. To date, logo, consisting of 2 main ingredients - cocaine and walnut extracts wheels - he just created.








It was first soft drink to the public sold for 5 cents in a pharmacy in Atlanta Willis Venable 8th května 1886th






Initially sold nine drinks a day. In the first year and sold Coca -Cola for $ 50 , which is not equaled the cost (especially advertising) , which was 70 $. The first year was a loss.






By 1905, to give as a tonic drink containing extracts of cocaine and nut wheels.






At the end of 90 the 19th century. Coca-Cola to become one of jejpopulárnějších soft drinks. When in 1888 the head of Coca-Cola Company received a pharmacist , Asa Griggs Chandler , as sales increased cacolové juice to more than 4000% (1890-1900). The main success of the sale was ad: Coca-Cola was sold throughout the United States and Canada. Around the same time, the company began selling juice filling independent companies that bought her term license. The first was in 1894 Biedenharn Candy Company in Mississippi , which was owned by Joseph A. Biedenharn . This principle applies today. In 1903, when production stopped using cocaine controversial. After Chandler verified death in 1929 the family sold the "Coca-Cola "for 25 million $ a group of businessmen led by Ernest Woodruff . He was president of the company from 1923 until 1955. The current shape of the bottle was patented in 1960, however, is essentially identical to the shape of the bottle from 1915 , designed specifically for Coca-Cola . Previous 2 types of bottles have a classic cylindrical shape.






Currently consumes more than 1 billion drinks a day that even though they are from the dravotního terms for its use raised objections.

The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Serena bags 40th title

The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Serena bags 40th title
I cannot say Serena is not talented, but I doubt whether she can match up to Martina Navratilova or Steffi Graf or Billie Jean King.
Rajan

History pf Medicine and Sorgery in India and Egypt.

THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE IN EGYPT:

When the medicine of ancient Egypt is examined, the picture becomes clearer. The first physician to emerge is Imhotep, chief minister to King Djoser in the 3rd millennium bce, who designed one of the earliest pyramids, the Step Pyramid at Ṣaqqārah, and who was later regarded as the Egyptian god of medicine and identified with the Greek god Asclepius. Surer knowledge comes from the study of Egyptian papyri, especially the Ebers and Edwin Smith papyri discovered in the 19th century. The former is a list of remedies, with appropriate spells or incantations, while the latter is a surgical treatise on the treatment of wounds and other injuries.



Contrary to what might be expected, the widespread practice of embalming the dead body did not stimulate study of human anatomy. The preservation of mummies has, however, revealed some of the diseases suffered at that time, including arthritis, tuberculosis of the bone, gout, tooth decay, bladder stones, and gallstones; there is evidence too of the parasitic disease schistosomiasis, which remains a scourge still. There seems to have been no syphilis or rickets.


The search for information on ancient medicine leads naturally from the papyri of Egypt to Hebrew literature. Though the Bible contains little on the medical practices of ancient Israel, it is a mine of information on social and personal hygiene. The Jews were indeed pioneers in matters of public health.
 
THE HISTORY OF HEALTH AND MEDICINE IN INDIA.
The period of Vedic medicine lasted until about 800 bce. The Vedas are rich in magical practices for the treatment of diseases and in charms for the expulsion of the demons traditionally supposed to cause diseases. The chief conditions mentioned are fever (takman), cough, consumption, diarrhea, dropsy, abscesses, seizures, tumours, and skin diseases (including leprosy). The herbs recommended for treatment are numerous.



The golden age of Indian medicine, from 800 bce until about 1000 ce, was marked especially by the production of the medical treatises known as the Charaka-samhita and Sushruta-samhita, attributed respectively to Charaka, a physician, and Sushruta, a surgeon. Estimates place the Charaka-samhita in its present form as dating from the 1st century ce, although there were earlier versions. The Sushruta-samhita probably originated in the last centuries bce and had become fixed in its present form by the 7th century ce. Of somewhat lesser importance are the treatises attributed to Vagbhata. All later writings on Indian medicine were based on these works.


Because Hindus were prohibited by their religion from cutting the dead body, their knowledge of anatomy was limited. The Sushruta-samhita recommends that a body be placed in a basket and sunk in a river for seven days. On its removal the parts could be easily separated without cutting. As a result of these crude methods, the emphasis in Hindu anatomy was given first to the bones and then to the muscles, ligaments, and joints. The nerves, blood vessels, and internal organs were very imperfectly known.


The Hindus believed that the body contains three elementary substances, microcosmic representatives of the three divine universal forces, which they called spirit (air), phlegm, and bile (comparable to the humours of the Greeks). Health depends on the normal balance of these three elementary substances. The seven primary constituents of the body—blood, flesh, fat, bone, marrow, chyle, and semen—are produced by the action of the elementary substances. Semen was thought to be produced from all parts of the body and not from any individual part or organ.


Both Charaka and Sushruta state the existence of a large number of diseases (Sushruta says 1,120). Rough classifications of diseases are given. In all texts, “fever,” of which numerous types are described, is regarded as important. Phthisis (wasting disease, especially pulmonary tuberculosis) was apparently prevalent, and the Hindu physicians knew the symptoms of cases likely to terminate fatally. Smallpox was common, and it is probable that smallpox inoculation was practiced.


Hindu physicians employed all five senses in diagnosis. Hearing was used to distinguish the nature of the breathing, alteration in voice, and the grinding sound produced by the rubbing together of broken ends of bones. They appear to have had a good clinical sense, and their discourses on prognosis contain acute references to symptoms that have grave import. Magical beliefs still persisted, however, until late in the classical period; thus, the prognosis could be affected by such fortuitous factors as the cleanliness of the messenger sent to fetch the physician, the nature of his conveyance, or the types of persons the physician met on his journey to the patient.


Dietetic treatment was important and preceded any medicinal treatment. Fats were much used, internally and externally. The most important methods of active treatment were referred to as the “five procedures”: the administration of emetics, purgatives, water enemas, oil enemas, and sneezing powders. Inhalations were frequently administered, as were leeching, cupping, and bleeding.


The Indian materia medica was extensive and consisted mainly of vegetable drugs, all of which were from indigenous plants. Charaka knew 500 medicinal plants, and Sushruta knew 760. But animal remedies (such as the milk of various animals, bones, gallstones) and minerals (sulfur, arsenic, lead, copper sulfate, gold) were also employed. The physicians collected and prepared their own vegetable drugs. Among those that eventually appeared in Western pharmacopoeias were cardamom and cinnamon.


As a result of the strict religious beliefs of the Hindus, hygienic measures were important in treatment. Two meals a day were decreed, with indications of the nature of the diet, the amount of water to be drunk before and after the meal, and the use of condiments. Bathing and care of the skin were carefully prescribed, as were cleansing of the teeth with twigs from named trees, anointing of the body with oil, and the use of eyewashes.


In surgery, ancient Hindu medicine reached its zenith. Operations performed by Hindu surgeons included excision of tumours, incision and draining of abscesses, punctures to release fluid in the abdomen, extraction of foreign bodies, repair of anal fistulas, splinting of fractures, amputations, cesarean sections, and stitching of wounds.


A broad array of surgical instruments were used. According to Sushruta, the surgeon should be equipped with 20 sharp and 101 blunt instruments of various descriptions. The instruments were largely of steel. Alcohol seems to have been used as a narcotic during operations, and bleeding was stopped by hot oils and tar.


In two types of operations especially, the Hindus were outstanding. Stone in the bladder (vesical calculus) was common in ancient India, and the surgeons frequently removed the stones by lateral lithotomy. They also introduced plastic surgery. Amputation of the nose was one of the prescribed punishments for adultery, and repair was carried out by cutting from the patient’s cheek or forehead a piece of tissue of the required size and shape and applying it to the stump of the nose. The results appear to have been tolerably satisfactory, and the modern operation is certainly derived indirectly from this ancient source. Hindu surgeons also operated on cataracts by couching, or displacing the lens to improve vision.

The great inventions of Mankind

The great inventions of Mankind



The young will probably expect to see frivolities such as the iPod included in this list. But we are only interested in major human advances.






1. Language? No. Language is innate. No society exists without a good working language. Language has evolved, probably over millions of years, as our intellectual abilities gradually increased. Even insects can communicate, maybe far better than we yet understand.






2. Writing? Yes. Writing was an invention. It’s difficult to envisage an ‘advanced’ society getting far without some kind of writing. But plenty of ‘less advanced’ peoples do very well.






3. The wheel? No question. The mind boggles at the thought of not having wheels. But the wheel is an old-world invention. No new-world civilisation had it. It’s interesting that it seems impossible to pin down who first came up with the idea, or even when or where they might have lived. Like other great Inventions, it appears to have been made by unsung folk well away from any centre of civilisation (Civilisation, good or bad?).






4. The arch? Probably. We don’t cover it elsewhere so we’ll go into it a bit here. This grossly undervalued engineering marvel was also an old-world invention. Again the new world didn’t have it. And again I’ve not been able to pin down when or where it was invented. The Phoenicians and early civilisations apparently had the arch. But they thought it a low-status technology, fit only for drains and culverts. To me this is sad. The Parthenon may be a wonder of ancient architecture. But it is crude and chunky compared with the soaring domes that the Romans achieved – or the glorious cathedrals, mosques and temples that came later The first people to appreciate the full potential of the arch were apparently the Etruscans. We don’t cover them. You will have to look on the Internet. The Romans took the arch to their hearts in a big way. Indeed, they could never have watered their cities without it. Nor could they have built the famous roads that were the arteries of their empire.






How does an arch stay up? It’s easy. If you make the blocks slightly trapezoidal (wider at the top) then no single block can be the first to drop out. You could grease the blocks and the arch would still stay up, though maybe it wouldn’t take as much weight. You can also use bricks and mortar, like this one on a canal near my home. The mortar is not there to glue the bricks together, although it does that to a certain extent. It’s there to fill in the gaps. A good brick arch can take enormous punishment before it actually falls down. Stone arches tend to have a ‘keystone’ or ‘capstone’ at the top. Some web sites attribute magical properties to the keystone. Without it, they say, the arch would collapse. Others describe it as purely an architectural feature – which makes much more sense. This bridge doesn’t bother with them. It’s just bricks and mortar all the way across.






5. Mathematics? This is a poser, because it’s terribly dependent on the notation you use. Can you imagine doing simple long-division using Roman numerals? (I’ve read that it’s possible.) The key to modern mathematics seems to be the adoption of Arabic notation – and, believe it or not, the invention of the ‘zero’. Incidentally I’ve read that both these key tools originally came from India. It may be that once you have these vital building blocks, the development of mathematics becomes inevitable. If so then it’s these two tools that are the great inventions, not the mathematics that stems from them.






6. The harnessing of steam and the railways? They would certainly be on my list. There’s no question that they transformed people’s lives in a big way. However if you follow the link you will detect certain lack of objectivity on the subject.






7. The computer? I would have said so. My working life covers both the before and the after. I still have slide rules and logarithm tables, to remind me what pre-computer life was like. In fact when I started out a ‘computer’ was a girl punching a mechanical adding machine. Incredible things they were too. They could even take square roots, an amazing achievement for a mechanical device. I also have a stack of old computer cards for use as shopping lists.






But after that, the fog descends. I would like to see those two boons, the word processor and the Internet, included. But maybe these will come to be regarded as inevitable developments of the original breakthrough. We may have to wait a hundred years before it becomes clear which if any subsequent developments deserve the accolade of Great invention.

The Invention of the Camera.

Here is more of the camera's complication history of invention:



5th-4th Centuries B.C. Chinese and Greek philosophers describe the basic principles of optics and the camera.


c1021 Ibn al-Haytham (965 - 1039) The acknowledged father of modern optics, author of the greatly influential 'Book of Optics' and the giant on whose shoulders Newton stood, gave the first clear description and correct analysis of the camera obscura and the defraction of light.


1664-1666 Isaac Newton discovers that white light is composed of different colors.


1727 Johann Heinrich Schulze discovered that silver nitrate darkened upon exposure to light. 1794 First Panorama opens, the forerunner of the movie house invented by Robert Barker.


1814 Joseph Nicphore Nipce achieves first photographic image with camera obscura - however, the image required eight hours of light exposure and later faded.


1837 Daguerre's first daguerreotype - the first image that was fixed and did not fade and needed under thirty minutes of light exposure.


1840 First American patent issued in photography to Alexander Wolcott for his camera.


1841 William Henry Talbot patents the Calotype process - the first negative-positive process making possible the first multiple copies.


1843 First advertisement with a photograph made in Philadelphia.


1851 Frederick Scott Archer invented the Collodion process - images required only two or three seconds of light exposure.


1859 Panoramic camera patented - the Sutton.


1861 Oliver Wendell Holmes invents stereoscope viewer.


1865 Photographs and photographic negatives are added to protected works under copyright.


1871 Richard Leach Maddox invented the gelatin dry plate silver bromide process - negatives no longer had to be developed immediately.


1880 Eastman Dry Plate Company founded.


1884 Eastman invents flexible, paper-based photographic film.


1888 Eastman patents Kodak roll-film camera.


1898 Reverend Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film.


1900 First mass-marketed camera the Browning.





1913/1914 First 35mm still camera developed.


1927 General Electric invents the modern flash bulb.


1932 First light meter with photoelectric cell introduced.


1935 Eastman Kodak markets Kodachrome film.


1941 Eastman Kodak introduces Kodacolor negative film.


1942 Chester Carlson receives patent for electric photography (xerography).


1948 Edwin Land markets the Polaroid camera.


1954 Eastman Kodak introduces high speed Tri-X film.


1960 EG&G develops extreme depth underwater camera for U.S. Navy.


1963 Polaroid introduces instant color film.


1968 Photograph of the Earth from the moon.


1973 Polaroid introduces one-step instant photography with the SX-70 camera.


1977 George Eastman and Edwin Land inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.


1978 Konica introduces first point-and-shoot, auto-focus camera.


1980 Sony demonstrates first consumer camcorder.


1984 Canon demonstrates first electronic still camera.


1985 Pixar introduces digital imaging processor.


1990 Eastman Kodak announces Photo CD as a digital image storage medium.

The invention of the safety matches.

In 1669, phosphorous was discovered - phosphorous was soon used in match heads.







In 1680, an Irish physicist named Robert Boyle (Boyle's Law) coated a small piece of paper with phosphorous and coated a small piece of wood with sulfur. He then rubbed the wood across the paper and created a fire. However, there was no useable match created by Robert Boyle.






In 1827, John Walker, English chemist and apothecary, discovered that if he coated the end of a stick with certain chemicals and let them dry, he could start a fire by striking the stick anywhere. These were the first friction matches. The chemicals he used were antimony sulfide, potassium chlorate, gum, and starch. Walker did not patent his "Congreves" as he called the matches (alluding to the Congreve's rocket invented in 1808). Walker was a former chemist at 59 High Street, in Stockton-on-Tees, England. His first sale of the matches was on April 7, 1827, to a Mr. Hixon, a solicitor in the town. Walker made little money from his invention. He died in 1859 at the age of 78 and is buried in the Norton Parish Churchyard in Stockton. (br1781- d1859).
 
One Samuel Jones saw Walker's "Congreves" and decided to market them, calling his matches "Lucifers" "Lucifers" became popular especially among smokers, but they had a bad burning odor.







In 1830, the French chemist, Charles Sauria, created a match made with white phosphorous. Sauria's matches had no odor, but they made people sick with a ailment dubbed "phossy jaw". White phosphorous is poisonous.






In 1855, safety matches were patented by Johan Edvard Lundstrom of Sweden. Lundstrom put red phosphorus on the sandpaper outside the box and the other ingredients on the match head, solving the problem of "phossy jaw" and creating a match that could only be safely lit off the prepared, special striking, surface.







In 1889, Joshua Pusey invented the matchbook, he called his matchbook matches "Flexibles". Pusey's patent was unsuccessfully challenged by the Diamond Match Company who had invented a similar matchbook (their striker was on the outside, Pusey's was on the inside). His patent was later purchased by the Diamond Match Company in 1896 for $4,000 and a job offer.






In 1910, the Diamond Match Company patented the first nonpoisonous match in the U.S., which used a safe chemical called sesquisulfide of phophorous.






United States President William H. Taft publicly asked Diamond Match to release their patent for the good of mankind. They did on January 28, 1911, Congress placed a high tax on matches made with white phosphorous.



Evolution of the Match


The lucifer match has attained its present high state of perfection by a long series of inventions of various degrees of merit, the most important of which resulted from the progress of chemical science.






Match Definition


A match consists of three basic parts: a head, which initiates combustion via various materials like phosphorous; a tinder substance to pick up and burn the flame, usually a piece of wood or cardboard; and a handle, often the same as the tinder.

Invention of the sewing machine.

Hand sewing is an art form that is over 20,000 years old. The first sewing needles were made of bones or animal horns and the first thread was made of animal sinew. Iron needles were invented in the 14th century. The first eyed needles appeared in the 15th century.


Birth of Mechanical Sewing






The first possible patent connected to mechanical sewing was a 1755 British patent issued to German, Charles Weisenthal. Weisenthal was issued a patent for a needle that was designed for a machine, however, the patent did not describe the rest of the machine if one existed.


Several Inventors Attempt to Improve Sewing






The English inventor and cabinet maker, Thomas Saint was issued the first patent for a complete machine for sewing in 1790. It is not known if Saint actually built a working prototype of his invention. The patent describes an awl that punched a hole in leather and passed a needle through the hole. A later reproduction of Saint's invention based on his patent drawings did not work.


In 1810, German, Balthasar Krems invented an automatic machine for sewing caps. Krems did not patent his invention and it never functioned well.






Austrian tailor, Josef Madersperger made several attempts at inventing a machine for sewing and was issued a patent in 1814. All of his attempts were considered unsuccessful.






In 1804, a French patent was granted to Thomas Stone and James Henderson for "a machine that emulated hand sewing." That same year a patent was granted to Scott John Duncan for an "embroidery machine with multiple needles." Both inventions failed and were soon forgotten by the public.






In 1818, the first American sewing machine was invented by John Adams Doge and John Knowles. Their machine failed to sew any useful amount of fabric before malfunctioning.






Barthelemy Thimonnier - First Functional Machine & a Riot
The first functional sewing machine was invented by the French tailor, Barthelemy Thimonnier, in 1830. Thimonnier's machine used only one thread and a hooked needle that made the same chain stitch used with embroidery. The inventor was almost killed by an enraged group of French tailors who burnt down his garment factory because they feared unemployment as a result of his new invention.


Walter Hunt & Elias Howe


Elias Howe



In 1834, Walter Hunt built America's first (somewhat) successful sewing machine. He later lost interest in patenting because he believed his invention would cause unemployment. (Hunt's machine could only sew straight steams.) Hunt never patented and in 1846, the first American patent was issued to Elias Howe for "a process that used thread from two different sources."


Elias Howe's machine had a needle with an eye at the point. The needle was pushed through the cloth and created a loop on the other side; a shuttle on a track then slipped the second thread through the loop, creating what is called the lockstitch. However, Elias Howe later encountered problems defending his patent and marketing his invention.






For the next nine years Elias Howe struggled, first to enlist interest in his machine, then to protect his patent from imitators. His lockstitch mechanism was adopted by others who were developing innovations of their own. Isaac Singer invented the up-and-down motion mechanism, and Allen Wilson developed a rotary hook shuttle.






Isaac Singer Vs Elias Howe - Patent Wars

Sewing machines did not go into mass production until the 1850's, when Isaac Singer built the first commercially successful machine. Singer built the first sewing machine where the needle moved up and down rather than the side-to-side and the needle was powered by a foot treadle. Previous machines were all hand-cranked. However, Isaac Singer's machine used the same lockstitch that Howe had patented. Elias Howe sued Isaac Singer for patent infringement and won in 1854. Walter Hunt's sewing machine also used a lockstitch with two spools of thread and an eye-pointed needle; however, the courts upheld Howe's patent since Hunt had abandoned his patent.


If Hunt had patented his invention, Elias Howe would have lost his case and Isaac Singer would have won. Since he lost, Isaac Singer had to pay Elias Howe patent royalties. As a side note: In 1844, Englishmen John Fisher received a patent for a lace making machine that was identical enough to the machines made by Howe and Singer that if Fisher's patent had not been lost in the patent office, John Fisher would also have been part of the patent battle.






After successfully defending his right to a share in the profits of his invention, Elias Howe saw his annual income jump from three hundred to more than two hundred thousand dollars a year. Between 1854 and 1867, Howe earned close to two million dollars from his invention. During the Civil War, he donated a portion of his wealth to equip an infantry regiment for the Union Army and served in the regiment as a private.

Life-Changing Science Discoveries

Life-Changing Science Discoveries


Try to imagine life without antibiotics. We wouldn’t live nearly as long as we do without them. Here’s a look at some discoveries that have changed the world. It’s impossible to rank their importance, so they’re listed in the order they were discovered.

The Copernicum System


In 1543, while on his deathbed, Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus published his theory that the Sun is a motionless body at the center of the solar system, with the planets revolving around it. Before the Copernicum system was introduced, astronomers believed the Earth was at the center of the universe.
Gravity

Isaac Newton, an English mathematician and physicist, is considered the greatest scientist of all time. Among his many discoveries, the most important is probably his law of universal gravitation. In 1664, Newton figured out that gravity is the force that draws objects toward each other. It explained why things fall down and why the planets orbit around the Sun.
MICHAEL FARADAY AND ELECTRICITY

If electricity makes life easier for us, you can thank Michael Faraday. He made two big discoveries that changed our lives. In 1821, he discovered that when a wire carrying an electric current is placed next to a single magnetic pole, the wire will rotate. This led to the development of the electric motor. Ten years later, he became the first person to produce an electric current by moving a wire through a magnetic field. Faraday's experiment created the first generator, the forerunner of the huge generators that produce our electricity.
Evolution


When Charles Darwin, the British naturalist, came up with the theory of evolution in 1859, he changed our idea of how life on earth developed. Darwin argued that all organisms evolve, or change, very slowly over time. These changes are adaptations that allow a species to survive in its environment. These adaptations happen by chance. If a species doesn't adapt, it may become extinct. He called this process natural selection, but it is often called the survival of the fittest.
Louis Pasteur



Before French chemist Louis Pasteur began experimenting with bacteria in the 1860s, people did not know what caused disease. He not only discovered that disease came from microorganisms, but he also realized that bacteria could be killed by heat and disinfectant. This idea caused doctors to wash their hands and sterilize their instruments, which has saved millions of lives.

Theory of Relativity



Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity, which he published in 1905, explains the relationships between speed, time and distance. The complicated theory states that the speed of light always remains the same—186,000 miles/second (300,000 km/second) regardless of how fast someone or something is moving toward or away from it. This theory became the foundation for much of modern science.


The Big Bang Theory


Georges Lemaître

Nobody knows exactly how the universe came into existence, but many scientists believe that it happened about 13.7 billion years ago with a massive explosion, called the Big Bang. In 1927, Georges Lemaître proposed the Big Bang theory of the universe. The theory says that all the matter in the universe was originally compressed into a tiny dot. In a fraction of a second, the dot expanded, and all the matter instantly filled what is now our universe. The event marked the beginning of time. Scientific observations seem to confirm the theory.


Penicillin

Antibiotics are powerful drugs that kill dangerous bacteria in our bodies that make us sick. In 1928, Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic, penicillin, which he grew in his lab using mold and fungi. Without antibiotics, infections like strep throat could be deadly.
DNA


On February 28, 1953, James Watson of the United States and Francis Crick of England made one of the greatest scientific discoveries in history. The two scientists found the double-helix structure of DNA. It’s made up of two strands that twist around each other and have an almost endless variety of chemical patterns that create instructions for the human body to follow. Our genes are made of DNA and determine how things like what color hair and eyes we’ll have. In 1962, they were awarded the Nobel Prize for this work. The discovery has helped doctors understand diseases and may someday prevent some illnesses like heart disease and cancer.

Periodic Table


The Periodic Table is based on the 1869 Periodic Law proposed by Russian chemist Dmitry Mendeleev. He had noticed that, when arranged by atomic weight, the chemical elements lined up to form groups with similar properties. He was able to use this to predict the existence of undiscovered elements and note errors in atomic weights. In 1913, Henry Moseley of England confirmed that the table could be made more accurate by arranging the elements by atomic number, which is the number of protons in an atom of the element.






X-Rays


Wilhelm Roentgen, a German physicist, discovered X-rays in 1895. X-rays go right through some substances, like flesh and wood, but are stopped by others, such as bones and lead. This allows them to be used to see broken bones or explosives inside suitcases, which makes them useful for doctors and security officers. For this discovery, Roentgen was awarded the first-ever Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.

Quantum Theory


Danish physicist Niels Bohr is considered one of the most important figures in modern physics. He won a 1922 Nobel Prize in Physics for his research on the structure of an atom and for his work in the development of the quantum theory. Although he help develop the atomic bomb, he frequently promoted the use of atomic power for peaceful purposes.






Atomic Bomb






The legacy of the atomic bomb is mixed: it successfully put an end to World War II, but ushered in the nuclear arms race. Some of the greatest scientists of the time gathered in the early 1940s to figure out how to refine uranium and build an atomic bomb. Their work was called the Manhattan Project. In 1945, the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tens of thousands of civilians were instantly killed, and Japan surrendered. These remain the only two nuclear bombs ever used in battle. Several of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project later urged the government to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes only. Nevertheless, many countries continue to stockpile nuclear weapons. Some people say the massive devastation that could result from nuclear weapons actually prevents countries from using them.






HIV/AIDS






In 1983 and 1984, Luc Montagnier of France and Robert Gallo of the United States discovered the HIV virus and determined that it was the cause of AIDS. Scientists have since developed tests to determine if a person has HIV. People who test positive are urged to take precautions to prevent the spread of the disease. Drugs are available to keep HIV and AIDS under control. The hope is that further research will lead to the development of a cure.

Edward B. Lewis                       












The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1995 was awarded jointly to Edward B. Lewis, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and Eric F. Wieschaus "for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development".
 
Edward B. Lewis, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and Eric F. Wieschaus







for their discoveries concerning "the genetic control of early embryonic development".






Summary


The 1995 laureates in physiology or medicine are developmental biologists who have discovered important genetic mechanisms which control early embryonic development. They have used the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as their experimental system. This organism is classical in genetics. The principles found in the fruit fly, apply also to higher organisms including man.






Using Drosophila Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus were able to identify and classify a small number of genes that are of key importance in determining the body plan and the formation of body segments. Lewis investigated how genes could control the further development of individual body segments into specialized organs. He found that the genes were arranged in the same order on the chromosomes as the body segments they controlled. The first genes in a complex of developmental genes controlled the head region, genes in the middle controlled abdominal segments while the last genes controlled the posterior ("tail") region. Together these three scientists have achieved a breakthrough that will help explain congenital malformations in man.






What controls the development of the fertilized egg?


The fertilized egg is spherical. It divides rapidly to form 2, 4 , 8 cells and so on. Up until the 16-cell stage the early embryo is symmetrical and all cells are equal. Beyond this point, cells begin to specialize and the embryo becomes asymmetrical. Within a week it becomes clear what will form the head and tail regions and what will become the ventral and dorsal sides of the embryo. Somewhat later in development the body of the embryo forms segments and the position of the vertebral column is fixed. The individual segments undergo different development, depending on their position along the "head-tail" axis. Which genes control these events? How many are they? Do they cooperate or do they exert their controlling influence independently of each other?


This year's laureates have answered several of these questions by identifying a series of important genes and how they function to control the formation of the body axis and body segments. They have also discovered genes that determine which organs that will form in individual segments. Although the fruit fly was used as an experimental system, the principles apply also to higher animals and man. Furthermore, genes analogous to those in the fruit fly have been found in man. An important conclusion is that basic genetic mechanisms controlling early development of multicellular organisms have been conserved during evolution for millions of years.






Brave decision by two young scientists


Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and Eric Wieschaus both finished their basic scientific training at the end of the seventies. They were offered their first independent research positions at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg. They knew each other before they arrived in Heidelberg because of their common interest: they both wanted to find out how the newly fertilized Drosophila egg developed into a segmented embryo. The reason they chose the fruit fly is that embryonic development is very fast. Within 9 days from fertilization the egg develops into an embryo, then a larvae and then into a complete fly.










Fig. 1. Regions of activity in the embryo for the genes belonging to the gap, pair-rule, and segment-polarity groups. The gap genes start to act in the very early embryo (A) to specify an initial segmentation (B). The pair-rule genes specify the 14 final segments (C) of the embryo under the influence of the gap genes. These segments later acquire a head-to-tail polarity due to the segment polarity genes.






They decided to join forces to identify the genes which control the early phase of this process. It was a brave decision by two young scientists at the beginning of their scientific careers. Nobody before had done anything similar and the chances of success were very uncertain. For one, the number of genes involved might be very great. But they got started. Their experimental strategy was unique and well planned. They treated flies with mutagenic substances so as to damage (mutate) approximately half of the Drosophila genes at random (saturation mutagenesis). They then studied genes which, if mutated would cause disturbances in the formation of a body axis or in the segmentation pattern. Using a microscope where two persons could simultaneously examine the same embryo they analyzed and classified a large number of malformations caused by mutations in genes controlling early embryonic development. For more than a year the two scientists sat opposite each other examining Drosophila embryos resulting from genetic crosses of mutant Drosophila strains. They were able to identify 15 different genes which, if mutated, would cause defects in segmentation. The genes could be classified with respect to the order in which they were important during development and how mutations affected segmentation. Gap genes (Fig 1) control the body plan along the head-tail axis. Loss of gap gene function results in a reduced number of body segments. Pair rule genes affect every second body segment: loss of a gene known as "even-skipped" results in an embryo consisting only of odd numbered segments. A third class of genes called segment polarity genes affect the head-to-tail polarity of individual segments.






The results of Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus were first published in the English scientific journal Nature during the fall of 1980. They received a lot of attention among developmental biologists and for several reasons. The strategy used by the two young scientists was novel. It established that genes controlling development could be systematically identified. The number of genes involved was limited and they could be classified into specific functional groups. This encouraged a number of other scientists to look for developmental genes in other species. In a fairly short time it was possible to show that similar or identical genes existed also in higher organisms and in man. It has also been demonstrated that they perform similar functions during development.






The fly with the extra pair of wings


Already at the beginning of this century geneticists had noted occasional malformations in Drosophila. In one type of mutation the organ that controls balance (the halteres), was transformed into an extra pair of wings (Fig. 2). In this type of bizarre disturbance of the body plan, cells in one region behave as though they were located in another. The Greek word homeosis was used to describe this type of malformations and the mutations were referred to as homeotic mutations.










Fig. 2. Comparison of a normal and a four-winged fruit fly. The third thoractic segment has developed as a duplicate of the second due to a defectic homeotic gene. In the normal fly only the second segment develops wings.






The fly with the extra pair of wings interested Edward B. Lewis at the California Institute of Technology in Los Angeles. He had, since the beginning of the forties, been trying to analyze the genetic basis for homeotic transformations. Lewis found that the extra pair of wings was due to a duplication of an entire body segment. The mutated genes responsible for this phenomenon were found to be members of a gene family ( bithorax-complex) that controls segmentation along the anterior-posterior body axis (Fig. 3). Genes at the beginning of the complex controlled anterior body segments while genes further down the genetic map controlled more posterior body segments (the colinearity principle). Furthermore, he found that the regions controlled by the individual genes overlapped, and that several genes interacted in a complex manner to specify the development of individual body segments. The fly with the four wings was due to inactivity of the first gene of the bithorax complex in a segment that normally would have produced the halteres, the balancing organ of the fly (Fig 3). This caused other homeotic genes to respecify this particular segment into one that forms wings.






Edward Lewis worked on these problems for decades and was far ahead of his time. In 1978 he summarized his results in a review article and formulated theories about how homeotic genes interact, how the gene order corresponded to the segment order along the body axis, and how the individual genes were expressed. His pioneering work on homeotic genes induced other scientists to examine families of analogous genes in higher organisms. In mammalians, the gene clusters first found in Drosophila have been duplicated into four complexes known as the HOX genes. Human genes in these complexes are sufficiently similar to their Drosophila analogues they can restore some of the normal functions of mutant Drosophila genes.










Fig. 3. The principle of colinearity in Drosophila (A-C) and mouse (Mus musculus, D-F) embryos. The horizontal bars indicate in which areas the homeotic genes 1-9 are active along the body axis. Gene 1 is active in the head region (left in A and F, respectively); gene 9 is active in the tail region (right). Gene 7 of the bithorax complex was inactive in the fly with four wings. The bar showing its normal range of activity is indicated with an asterisk.






The individual genes within the four HOX gene families in vertebrates occur in the same order as they do in Drosophila , and they exert their influence along the body axis (Fig 3 D-F) in agreement with the colinearity principle first discovered by Lewis in Drosophila. More recent research has suggested that the segments where shoulders and the pelvis form is determined by homeotic genes.






Congenital malformations in man


Most of the genes studied by Nüsslein-Volhard, Wieschaus and Lewis have important functions during the early development of the human embryo. The functions include the formation of the body axis, i.e. the polarity of the embryo, the segmentation of the body, and the specialization of individual segments into different organs. It is likely that mutations in such important genes are responsible for some of the early, spontaneous abortions that occur in man, and for some of the about 40% of the congenital malformations that develop due to unknown reasons. Environmental factors such as very high doses of vitamin A during early pregnancy are also known to disturb the regulation of HOX-genes, thus inducing severe congenital malformations.






In some cases have mutations been found in human genes related to those described here for Drosophila. A human gene related to the Drosophila gene paired will cause a condition known as Waardenburg's syndrome. It is a rare disease which involves deafness, defects in the facial skeleton and altered pigmentation of the iris. Another developmental gene mutation causes a complete loss of the iris, a condition known as aniridia.

Remarkable Facts

Remarkable Facts



•Living US presidents cannot be featured on US currency.


•The only mammals that cannot jump are elephants.


•Symbolics.com is the first ever internet domain registered in 1985.


•A pound of potato chips costs 200 times more than a pound of raw potatoes.


•Cats have over 100 vocal sounds whereas dogs have about 10.


•Lima beans contain cyanide.


•The people in Bali only have one of four names: Wayan, Made, Nyoman, and Ketut


•Frogs use their eyes to help them eat their food.


•Some in Japan bath in coffee grounds that were fermented with pineapple pulp to improve their skin and reduce wrinkles.


•Human eye can detect 10 million colors.


•A snail can sleep for three years


•Moderate dancing burns 250 to 300 calories an hour.


•February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.


•Impotence is grounds for divorce in 26 U.S. states.


•There are more pyramids in Peru than in Egypt.


•The length of your thumb and nose is same.


•The state official motto of Alaska is " North to the Future".


•The most popular pets in the United States are cats.


•Twitchers are the [eople who chase after rare birds.


•The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king (shah) is dead (mat)."


•Butterflies smell with their feet.


•Infants spend more time dreaming than adults do.


•Pigs can't look up in the sky and Horses can't vomit.


•In Germany, an official approval is needed before a new born is named.


•