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THIS MONTH IN SCIENCE:APRIL
1 April
6 April
1960,
the
first
weather
observation
satellite,
Tiros
I, was launched
from
Cape
Kennedy
and
made the first
television picture from space.
1889, the first
commercial
dishwashing
machine
was
marketed
in
Chicago,
designed over a number of years by
Josephine Cochrane (Patent No.355, 139).
1973,
Pioneer
11 (also known
as Pioneer G),
a robotic space
probe
launched
by NASA to study
the asteroid belt,
the environment
around Jupiter and Saturn, solar wind,
cosmic rays, and eventually the far reaches
of the Solar System and heliosphere.
1965, the “Early
Bird”
Intelsat
1,
the
first
commercial
geosynchronous
communications
satellite
was
launched by NASA.
1869, Celluloid, the first thermoplastic
was patented, as an “Improved method
of coating Billiard-Balls” by John Wesley
Hyatt (US88634 A).
2 April
1827,
lead
p e n c i l s
were
first
manufactured
by
Joseph
Dixon.
1845, the first
photograph
showing details
of the Sun were
taken by French
physicists
Armand Fizeau
and
Leon
Foucault.
4 April
1978, patent for "orthodontic pliers” was
granted to Francisco Garcia (Patent No.
4,081,909). The pliers are especially useful
for bending the alignment wire-end
during all phases of the Begg orthodontic
technique.
1969, Dr. Denton
Cooley implanted
the
first
total
artificial heart at
the Texas Heart
Institute, Houston,
Texas. It was used
as a bridge to heart transplantation.
1932,
Vitamin
C was isolated
by Prof. C. Glen
King
of
the
University
of
Pittsburgh.
Science Reporter, APRIL 2016
7 April
2000,
NASA
launched
the
2001
Mars
O d y s s e y
spacecraft on a
Delta 2 rocket.
Stunning images were sent back by the
rocket's TV cameras during its fiery
ascent.
1923, the first
operation
to
remove a brain
tumour
under
local anesthetic
(cocaine on the
patient's scalp)
was performed at Beth Israel Hospital in
New York City by a team of surgeons led
by Dr. Karl Winfield Ney.
1885, patent was granted to Granville
T. Woods for an “Apparatus for
Transmission of Messages by Electricity”
(Patent No. 315,368)
8 April
1886, patent for
the first "dry" cell,
which used zinc
as its primary
ingredient, was
issued to Dr. Carl
Gassner (Patent No. 37,758)
54
1862, the first aerosol
dispenser,
an
"improved bottle for
aerated liquids" was
patented by John D.
Lynde (Patent No.
34,894)
10 April
1662, Robert
Hooke
read
his
first
publication
to the Royal
Society.
1995, the world's
first
national
DNA database
was launched
in England and
Wales.
11 April
1970,
Apollo
13, the third
manned lunar
landing mission,
successfully
launched from
Cape Canaveral,
Florida.
1952, Parkinson's disease was successfully
treated with surgery for the first time
by a team of
Irving Cooper
in Islip, N.Y.
operated on the
brain of patient
R a y m o n d
Walker.
12 April
1988, the first
patent
was
issued for a
genetically
engineered
mouse
to
Philip
Leder
and Timothy Stewart. (Patent No.
4,736,866).
1981,
the
American
Space Shuttle
Columbia, the
first space-rated
Space Shuttle in
NASA's orbiter fleet, was launched into
space by NASA under STS-1 mission.
THIS MONTH IN SCIENCE
1961,
Russian
cosmonaut Yuri
Gagarin became
“the first human
in space”, making
a
108-minute
orbital flight in his
Vostok 1 spacecraft.
1898, Discovery of
Marie Curie that
“substances much
more radioactive
than
uranium”
was
announced
by Prof. Gabriel
Lippmann in a meeting of the French
Academy of Sciences.
13 April
1960,
the
first
U.S. navigational
satellite,
the
Transit-1B
was
launched
from
Cape Canaveral,
Florida
14 April
1611,
the
word
“telescope” was first
used publicly in
honour of Sir Galileo
by Prince Federico
Cesi.
1961,
the
manmade
element 103, Lawrencium
(Lw), was produced in
the United States.
15 April
1923, Insulin,
used in the
treatment
of
diabetes,
b e c a m e
generally
available for the
first time.
1966, the first X-ray three-dimensional
stereo fluoroscopic system was installed
for use in heart catheterization by Richard
J. Kuhn.
16 April
1987, patents on genetic engineering were
first
authorized
by
the
U.S.
government,
the
first nation in the
world to allow such
patent applications.
physicists
at
the Department
of
Energy's
Fermi National
Accelerator
Laboratory.
1827, William Rowan Hamilton presented
his Theory of Systems of Rays at the Royal
Irish Academy in Dublin.
17 April
1967,
the
spacecraft
“Surveyor
-3”
was successfully
launched from
Cape Kennedy,
Florida to study
the surface of the
moon.
24 April
19 April
1 9 7 5 ,
“Aryabhata”,
the
first
satellite
built
in India was
launched from
Volgograd Launch Station, Russia, on a
Soviet Intercosmos C-1 rocket. The 360kg satellite had been built by ISRO in
Peenya, Bangalore, by a team led by Prof.
U. R. Rao.
20 April
1902, Pierre and
Marie Curie isolated
one gram of radium,
the
first
sample
of the radioactive
element.
1862, the first test of pasteurization was
completed by
Louis Pasteur
and
Claude
Bernard.
22 April
1986, the first
virus produced
with
genetic
engineering
was approved
for use as a
vaccine
in
veterinary medicine to fight a form of
swine herpes by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
23 April
1858, Max Karl
Ernst
Ludwig
Planck, a German
theoretical
physicist whose
work on quantum
theory made him
win the Nobel
Prize for Physics in 1918, was born.
1994, the subatomic particle called
the “Top Quark” was discovered by
55
1990,
the
space
shuttle
D i s c o v e r
(STS-31)
was
l a u n c h e d
from
Cape
Canaveral, carrying the Hubble Space
Telescope to be placed into orbit.
26 April
1882,
the
photophone was
demonstrated by
Alexander Graham
Bell and Charles
Sumner Tainter.
28 April
1932, a vaccine for yellow fever for human
immunization was publicly announced at
a meeting of the American Societies for
Experimental Biology at Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
1926, the term "wave mechanics" was
coined by nuclear physicist Erwin
Schrodinger in a letter he sent to Albert
Einstein.
29 April
1953, the first U.S. three-dimensional
television telecast was made by KECA-TV
in Los Angeles, California.
30 April
1897, J. J. Thomson
announced
“the
existence of electrons”
at the Royal Institution.
1878,
Louis
Pasteur lectured
at the French
Academy
of
Science
in
support of his
‘germ theory of disease’, in which he held
that many diseases were caused by tiny
organisms.
Compiled by Vijendra Kumar, Research Intern,
National Science Library, CSIR-NISCAIR,
SV Marg. Email: [email protected]
Science Reporter, APRIL 2016