Mary Anderson patented the windshield wiper in 1905.
Picture: Mary Anderson
Patent drawing Mary Anderson's windshield wiper Related History • The History of the Automobile • Women Inventors Prior to the manufacture of Henry Ford's Model A, Mary Anderson was granted her first patent for a window cleaning device in November of 1903. Her invention could clean snow, rain, or sleet from a windshield by using a handle inside the car. Her goal was to improve driver vision during stormy weather - Mary Anderson invented the windshield wiper. During a trip to New York City, Mary Anderson noticed that streetcar drivers had to open the windows of their cars when it rained in order to see, as a solution she invented a swinging arm device with a rubber blade that was operated by the driver from within the vehicle via a lever. The windsheld wipers became standard equipment on all American cars by 1916.

Instant Photography

Snapshot affair: the enduring power of the Polaroid

The Polaroid camera ought to be remembered as a powerful tool for photographic artists.

Long before the world was digital and we realised that it was made of bytes and pixels, there was instant still photography.
Polaroids were the creation of an American engineer called Edwin Land, who is said to have invented the process after his daughter asked him why she couldn't see the holiday snapshots they took together as soon as they took them. Plenty of fathers of course would like to make that kind of wish come true, but Land's daughter was lucky. Her dad wasn't just an indulgent parent, he was an engineer and inventor of genius — a 20th-Century Edison.
Land was said to wrap himself so intently in his work that his staff erected a barrier outside the front door of his office to prevent him from walking straight out into the traffic. The world still lives with his inventions — polarising lenses that eliminate glare and the high-flying cameras in U2 planes and satellites that gave the United States the edge in the Cold War.
His first instant camera had to be manufactured with extraordinary precision so that a system of tiny rollers squeezed the developing chemicals out of the thick padded film at just the right rate. The science and the manufacturing processes were complex, but the vision behind them was simple: Land wanted to give families photographs that developed in their hands. He had an artistic vision too, based on giant studio cameras he designed — behemoths the size of bedroom closets that produced large format (20 x 24 inch) prints.

Compact Disc

Compact Disc: Changing the Music Industry


The first phonograph was invented in 1877 and twenty-one years later, the audiocassette was invented. As the twentieth century progressed, scientists began to look for a more efficient and higher quality method to reproduce sound. In records, for example, after many years of use, the sound quality significantly goes down because of the stress that the needle places on the groove. Scientists were interested in developing a medium that would not have to be touched in order to be read!
Digital Recording’s First Use

Rather than attempt to create a new analog method for sound recording, where a physical reproduction of the sound wave is created, scientists wanted to create a digital recording, where samples of the sound wave are taken and stored in binary format (1’s and 0’s). The first person to suggest this method for recording was the French mathematician Jean Joseph Fourier (1768-1830). He noted that if enough samples of a wave were taken, the wave could be exactly reproduced. In 1928, Bell Labs mathematician Harry Nyquist found out that in order to maximize the accuracy of the reproduction, each wave would have to be sampled twice. Because the human ear can only hear frequencies as high as 20 kilohertz (20,000 Hz), a sampling of 40 kilohertz, or 40,000 times a second would produce a recording that would sound perfect to the human ear (Travers 154).
During the 1970’s Sony and Phillips saw the potential of a digital recording method and decided to join forces in developing a practical solution. They also realized that by joining forces in the research that they would hopefully avoid the “standards battle” that ensued after the introduction of the VCR (See VCR). The first product of their research was the videodisk, which was a plastic disc similar to the phonograph that had spiral grooves that held the recorded information (this was analog, not digital). For playback, a laser rather than a needle, read the information and passed it on to a television. The quality of the videodisk’s picture was much better than that of a VCR, nonetheless they did not gain much popularity except in Japan (Travers 456).
A little over ten years later, during the 1980’s, Sony and Phillips released yet another product, the compact disc (CD). While the videodisk used analog methods for recording, the compact disc was recorded digitally. This enables it to have a much higher quality sound and also conserve space. The compact disc basically a thin sheet of gold or aluminum coated with a film of protective plastic or glass. A high-energy laser burns “pits” in the metallic sheet to represent the 1’s and 0’s. A “pit” is the equivalent of a 1, while a smooth, unburned area corresponds to 0. A low-energy laser in the CD player then reads these 1’s and 0’s and converts them to sound (Travers 456).
The Compact Disc Today

The compact disc has taken the music industry by storm. The format has become so popular that it has completely replaced phonographs and audiocassettes. The popularity of compact disc has even made a dent in the computer industry, it is the most common method for data storage. Because of their huge capacity, companies can put software titles that include high quality sounds and multimedia on a single disc. Still, a replacement for the compact disc is in the works. The DVD or digital versatile disc, is a double-sided disc the same size as a CD than can hold about 25 times the data of a CD. DVDs are most often used for watching movies because they are much sharper than traditional VCR’s, and they can hold a single movie in up to 7 different languages.

20 Monday 2010..Sachin Tendular...First to score 50 centuries in test matches

Tendulkar hits 50th test century

Michael EdwaTONY EASTLEY: The man regarded by many as the greatest batsman since Bradman has just hit his 50th test century – 37-year-old Sachin Tendulkar, known as cricket's Little Master, has again rewritten cricket's history books.

J. Michael Bishop

Harold E. Varmus

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1989 was awarded jointly to J. Michael Bishop and Harold E. Varmus "for their discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes"

Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal (täzh muhäl', täj muhŭl') [key], mausoleum, Agra, Uttar Pradesh state, N India, on the Yamuna River. It is considered one of the most beautiful buildings in the world and the finest example of the late style of Indian Islamic architecture. The Mughal emperor Shah Jahan ordered it built after the death (1631) of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The building, which was completed between 1632 and 1638, was designed by the local Muslim architect Ustad Ahmad Lahori; set in its carefully laid out grounds, it is a reflection of the gardens of Paradise to which the faithful ascend. The entire complex, with gardens, gateway structures, and mosque, was completed in 1648.

Antiseptics

Antiseptic, agent that kills or inhibits the growth of microorganisms on the external surfaces of the body. Antiseptics should generally be distinguished from drugs such as antibiotics that destroy microorganisms internally, and from disinfectants, which destroy microorganisms found on nonliving objects. Germicides include only those antiseptics that kill microorganisms. Some common antiseptics are alcohol, iodine, hydrogen peroxide, and boric acid. There is great variation in the ability of antiseptics to destroy microorganisms and in their effect on living tissue. For example, mercuric chloride is a powerful antiseptic, but it irritates delicate tissue. In contrast, silver nitrate kills fewer germs but can be used on the delicate tissues of the eyes and throat. There is also a great difference in the time required for different antiseptics to work. Iodine, one of the fastest-working antiseptics, kills bacteria within 30 sec. Other antiseptics have slower, more residual action. Since so much variability exists, systems have been devised for measuring the action of an antiseptic against certain standards. The bacteriostatic action of an antiseptic compared to that of phenol (under the same conditions and against the same microorganism) is known as its phenol coefficient. Joseph Lister was the first to employ the antiseptic phenol, or carbolic acid, in surgery, following the discovery by Louis Pasteur that microorganisms are the cause of infections. Modern surgical techniques for avoiding infection are founded on asepsis, the absence of pathogenic organisms. Sterilization is the chief means of achieving asepsis.

Binoculars..How they work

Binoculars are essentially a pair of identical refracting telescopes; they have a large objective lens at the front and a number of smaller lenses to enable an image to be brought into sharp focus.
Prisms are used so that larger objective lenses can be used - otherwise they would be limited by the distance between the eyes. The prisms reflect the image through two right angles in the binoculars. The prisms also reverse the inversion that occurs in refracting telescopes.

Joseph E. Murray

E. Donnall Thomas

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1990 was awarded jointly to Joseph E. Murray and E. Donnall Thomas "for their discoveries concerning organ and cell transplantation in the treatment of human disease"

Bar Code

BAR CODE
Bar codes (also called Universal Product Codes or UPC's) are small, coded labels that contain information about the item they are attached to; the information is contained in a numerical code, usually containing 12 digits. UPC's are easily scanned by laser beams. UPC's are used on many things, including most items for sale in stores, library books, inventory items, many packages and pieces of luggage being shipped, railroad cars, etc. The UPC may contain coded information about the item, its manufacturer, place of origin, destination, the owner, or other data. The first "bullseye code" was invented by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver, from work which they began in 1948. On October 20, 1949, they patented their bullseye code (a series of concentric circles that were scannable from all directions, using regular light). Woodland and Silver patented a new UPC in October 1952; the UPC was also improved and adapted by David J. Collins in the late 1950's (to track railroad cars). UPC's were first used in grocery stores in the early 1970's.