Stories tagged history
I would so not do this: Joseph Kittinger jumps out of the Excelsior III balloon at 102,800 feet.
Courtesy US Air ForceI attended yet another great Cafe Scientifique event put on by the Bell Museum the other night called: Art and Aeronautics—A Conversation with Tomás Saraceno. Tomás and his teammate Alberto are artists in residence at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and have been working with the Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics department at the University of Minnesota. In short they are building a giant balloon out of reclaimed trash--primarily plastic bags. This talk got me on an balloon science research kick and thought I would share some links:
First off, check out some of the pics of Tomás and Alberto's project, the Museo Aero Solar.
There was lots of talk at the presentation about women's important role in the early days of flight when ballooning dominated. There was even some debate about whether a woman was the first person in space...via balloon...in the 1920s! I couldn't immediately find any information on this claim on ye old internets, but I would love to hear from any buzz readers who might know more information.
Getting to space by balloon might seem crazy, but that's exactly what the Air Force was trying to do before our attempts with rockets. Check out Project Manhigh(yep its really called that) and Project Excelsior. Several of these early space balloons were piloted by Air Force Colonel Joseph Kittinger, the first, possibly only, man to ever break the speed of sound, without a vehicle. He did it by jumping out of a balloon about 20 miles up.
Students are getting into the high altitude balloon game all over the place as well: reusable experiment platform goes to the edge of space, pics at the edge of space, and legos in space.
I think balloons are my new favorite science obsession.
Tags : Scientific Frontline has a video celebrating 50 years of exploration by NASA which was created Oct. 1, 1958.
Researchers have used a solar eclipse to determine that Odysseus returned home from the Trojan Wars on April 16, 1178 B.C. Not bad for a character widely thought to be fictional.
Today's the 38th national celebration of Earth Day. Step outside, Buzzers, and appreciate this blue planet of ours, and then make a pledge to yourself to do more reducing, reusing, and recycling.
If you are interested in learning more about cholera go to Science Museum of Minnesota's Disease Detectives website and explore cholera and four other important diseases through time. Cholera is also highlighted in a New-York Historical Society exhibition called PLAGUE in GOTHAM! Cholera in Nineteenth-Century New York. Click here to read an article about the exhibition in the New York Times.
The 1507 Waldseemuller map was the first to identify North and South America by that name. The map recently went on display at the Library of Congress.
Chocolate love began 3000+ yrs ago
Courtesy Fir0002
Food of the gods
The scientific name for the cacao tree is Theobroma cacao—"food of the gods." Research now verifies that we have been enjoying this treat for more than 3000 years. Although cacao is a blend of more than 500 chemical compounds, the signature chemical is a compound called theobromine. The chocolate residue (theobromine) was found in several jars from the site of Puerto Escondido in Honduras.
Scientists used "high performance liquid chromatography coupled to atmospheric-pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry"
Dated from around 1100 B.C., this is the earliest evidence to date of the use of cacao.
Chocolate ingredients first use was in beer
"Ancient beer makers used the cacao's seedpods to make their drinks. The pods—which were a little smaller than a modern American football—were fermented, and then the pod pulp was used to make the beer." NationalGeographic.com.
"It was beer with a high kick," said study author Rosemary Joyce, an anthropologist at University of California, Berkeley.
"But it would not have tasted anything like the chocolate we have today."
Previous research on "chocolate teapots" dated chocolate drinks to about 2600 years ago.
Click this to read more about the history of chocolate.
Science Town, USA: Also the place where the zipper was invented.
A panel of scientists has produced a list of the ten most significant scientific achievements developed in the Chicago area:
- The first controlled nuclear reaction
- Invention of the cell phone
- Hormone treatment for prostate and breast cancer
- Invention of magnetic recording
- Developing treatment for malaria
- The first skyscraper
- Discovery of the top quark
- Discovering chromosome abnormalities in cancer
- Inventing carbon-14 dating
- Discovering how the human body makes insulin
(Not sure if I consider #2 a noteworthy achievement, but there it is...)
Chicago also has an annual program called Science in the City. Wouldn't it be cool to do this for the Twin Cities, too?
The family farm is home to fewer and fewer families: Photo by chefranden at Flickr.com
Almost lost in a lengthy report by the International Labor Organization was this astonishing tidbit: for the first time ever in the history of civilization, agriculture is not the world's dominant industry.
Farming developed about 10,000 years ago, as early hunter-gatherer societies discovered ways to grow crops and ensure a steady food supply. This allowed societies to support larger populations, and before you know it, you've got civilizations popping up all over the place. Surplus food allows civilizations to support new classes of workers not directly involved in food production: rulers, priests, artists, soldiers, chartered accountants, bicycle repairmen, telephone sanitizers.
But they were always in the minority, until now. The explosive growth of the service sector in recent years has catapulted it to first place, ahead of agriculture and manufacturing.
This may seem like old news to Americans. According to various websites I have not read thoroughly, about 75% of Americans were farmers in 1800. That percentage had dropped to 40% by 1900; was down to 15% in 1950; and had sunk to a mere 2% or so by 2000. In much of the rest of the world, however, farming was still by far the #1 occupation.
No more. The rapid growth of cities worldwide in recent decades has tilted the balance. Farmers, while still vitally important, are no longer the majority or even a plurality.
Dig here for treasure: The former site of two outhouses in Ventura, Calif., is proving to be a hot spot for finding historical artifacts. But it's not the most desireable place to be digging.
Photo courtesy Dave Bullock (eecue)It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.
Archeologists in Ventura, Calif., digging on the spot where a couple of outhouses were stationed some 130 years ago, are making some amazing discoveries…as long as they can tolerate the smell.
Here’s a quick rundown of what they’ve found: a pistol, bowie knife, whiskey flasks, a set of false teeth, two dog skulls and a blade for shearing sheep.
You might be able to label this case as CSI: Outhouse.
"It might be an early crime scene," project archaeologist John Foster is quoted in USA Today. "It looks like the two dogs were decapitated. Then whoever did it dumped the skulls and the blade, thinking the women probably wouldn't be looking too hard into the bottom of the privy."
Archeologists were called in to checkout the scene before the site was to be prepared for a condo development. The property has had a host of previous uses, including a school bus barn and Ventura County’s first courthouse/jail/hospital.
While the finds have been exciting, the project has had its drawbacks, archeologists report.
"The further you go down, the stronger the smell," archaeologist Marisa Solorzano says. "But it's not that bad. These privies are archaeological gold mines."
One person’s gold mine is another person’s pile of, oh well, you get what I mean.
Or to put it another way for you Trekkies: these archeaologists are boldly going where many have gone before!
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