My Science School

A dentist invented cotton candy; we're not making that up! In 1897 in Nashville, Tennessee (USA), dentist William Morrison teamed up with candy maker John C. Wharton to invent the first electric cotton candy machine to melt and spin sugar through tiny holes using centrifugal force. At the time, the air-spun sugary treat was called Fairy Floss. It was a huge hit at the 1904 World's Fair in St Louis, where the duo sold 68,655 boxes of it for $0.25 a box.

The first cotton candy machines were unreliable. They rattled loudly and often broke down. In 1949, Gold Medal Products of Cincinnati, Ohio, introduced a spring base for the machines that helped. Today, Gold Medal Products manufactures almost all cotton candy machines. The next time you enjoy cotton candy at the state fair, take a look at the machine! You might have Gold Medal Products to thank for your snack.

So, what happens inside the cotton candy machine? First, sugar is melted until it becomes a liquid. Then, the machine spins liquid sugar by pushing it through tiny holes that shape and cool the liquid. After it cools, the sugar becomes a solid again. The operator then rotates a paper cone around inside the machine, collecting thousands of tiny crystallized sugar threads. Once the puff of cotton candy is just the right size, it’s time to eat!

Picture Credit : Google

Educated at a coeducational, state-funded secondary school in the small town of Beccles, Suffolk, Dorothy fought to be allowed to study science along with the boys. She succeeded and was accepted in 1928 to read for a degree in chemistry at Somerville College, University of Oxford. As an undergraduate, she was one of the first to study the structure of an organic compound by using X-ray crystallography.

Crowfoot moved to the University of Cambridge in 1932 to carry out doctoral research with British physicist John Desmond Bernal, who was to be a lifelong influence. In his laboratory, she extended work that he had begun on biological molecules, including sterols (the subject of her thesis), and helped him to make the first X-ray diffraction studies of pepsin, a crystalline protein. She was also highly receptive to his strongly pro-Soviet views and belief in the social function of science. 

In April 1953, together with Sydney Brenner, Jack Dunitz, Leslie Orgel, and Beryl M. Oughton, Hodgkin was one of the first people to travel from Oxford to Cambridge to see the model of the double helix structure of DNA, constructed by Francis Crick and James Watson, which was based on data and technique acquired by Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin. According to the late Dr Beryl Oughton (married name, Rimmer), they drove to Cambridge in two cars after Hodgkin announced that they were off to see the model of the structure of DNA.

Hodgkin became a Reader at Oxford in 1957 and she was given a fully modern laboratory the following year. In 1960, Hodgkin was appointed the Royal Society's Wolfson Research Professor, a position she held until 1970. This provided her salary, research expenses and research assistance to continue her work at the University of Oxford. She was a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford from 1977 to 1983.

Picture Credit : Google

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin's life as a researcher began when she received a chemistry book containing experiments with crystals as a child. After studying at Oxford University and despite graduating with good grades, as a woman, she had difficulty finding work. Finally, J.D. Bernal of Cambridge University, a pioneer of modern molecular biology, gave her a chance. After receiving her PhD from Cambridge University, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin returned to Oxford University in 1934 where she remained for the rest of her career, achieving a host of brilliant discoveries in the field of molecular biology.

When X-rays pass through a crystalline structure, the patterns formed can be captured as photographic images, which are then used to determine the crystal's structure. During the 1930s, this method was used to map increasingly large and complex molecules. A mass of X-ray diffraction images, extensive calculations, and astute analysis helped Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin to successfully determine the structure of penicillin in 1946 and, in 1956, also the structure of vitamin B12, which has the most complex structure of all vitamins.

Picture Credit : Google

Dorothy Hodgkin was an English chemist who determined the structure of penicillin and vitamin B12, for which she won the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. She also t elucidated the structure of insulin in 1969 after 35 years of work. Her work helped save millions of lives from infection, diabetes and anaemia.

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1910. to John and Molly Crowfoot who worked in North Africa and the Middle East in colonial administration and later as archaeologists. She studied chemistry at Somerville College. University of Oxford, She was among the first to study the structure of an organic compound by using X-ray crystallography. She went on to do her doctorate under British physicist John Desmond Bemal at the University of Cambridge. She discovered how x-ray crystallography can be used to determine the structure of vitamin D and stomach enzyme pepsin. Dorothy began teaching at Somerville, one of Oxford's few colleges for women. There she established an X-ray laboratory and began working on X-ray photographs of insulin. Working with Australian pathologist Howard Florey and his colleagues at Oxford, Dorothy determined the structure of penicillin, describing the arrangement of its atoms in three dimensions. In the mid1950s Hodgkin discovered the structure of vitamin B12. Her structural studies helped scientists understand how molecules carry out their tasks in living systems.

Hodgkin devoted the latter part of her life to the cause of scientists in developing countries such as India and China. She strived for improved East-West relations and disarmament. She served as the president of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Aairs, an organisation that brings together scientists from around the world to discuss peaceful progress towards international security and development.

Picture Credit : Google

Enrico Fermi's early research was in general relativity and quantum mechanics, but he soon focused on the newer field of nuclear physics. He won the Nobel Prize in 1938 for his work in radioactivity, allowing him to escape fascist Italy and settle in the United States. He then built the first nuclear reactor (Chicago Pile-1) and worked on the Manhattan Project. Fermi died in Chicago in 1954. Element 100, fermium, is named in his honor.

Soon, Fermi's physics career and personal life flourished. In 1928, he married Laura Capon, the daughter of a respected Jewish family in Rome. They had one son, Giulio, and a daughter named Nella. Professionally, Fermi was elected professor of theoretical physics at the University of Rome.

In 1934, Fermi began his most important work with the atom, discovering that nuclear transformation could occur in nearly every element. One of the elements' atoms he split was uranium. This work led to the discovery of slowing down neutrons, which led to nuclear fission and the production of new elements beyond the traditional Periodic Table.

Picture Credit : Google

Situated safely in the United States, in 1939, Fermi was appointed professor of physics at New York's Columbia University. While there, Fermi discovered that if uranium neutrons were emitted into fissioning uranium, they could split other uranium atoms, setting off a chain reaction that would release enormous amounts of energy. His experiments led to the first controlled nuclear chain reaction in Chicago, on December 2, 1942, under Chicago's athletic stadium.

Subsequently, during World War II, Fermi became one of the principal leaders on the Manhattan Project, which focused on the development of the atomic bomb. To further his commitment to his new country, Fermi and his wife became American citizens in 1944.

After the war, Fermi was appointed to the General Advisory Committee for the Atomic Energy Commission. In October 1949, the commission met to discuss the development of the hydrogen bomb. Fermi was appalled at the prospect, however, and later co-authored an addendum to the committee's report condemning the H-bomb in the harshest language. When President Harry S. Truman ordered the development of the bomb—ignoring Fermi's and others' warnings—Fermi returned to Los Alamos, New Mexico, to help with the calculations, hoping to prove that making a superbomb wasn't possible.

Picture Credit : Google

Enrico Fermi was an Italian physicist, a pioneer of the nuclear age and one of the developers of the atomic bomb. He also created the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938 for "his discovery of new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation, and for the discovery of nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons."

Enrico Fermi was born in Rome, Italy in 1901. He was scientifically inclined from a very young age. His father's friend encouraged his interest in science by giving him books on physics and mathematics to read. He also motivated Enrico Fermi to apply to the Scuola Normale Superiore, a top university in Pisa.

In 1918, Fermi made it to the Scuola Normale Superiore and became one of the brightest students. Even professors benefitted from his lectures on general relativity, quantum mechanics, and atomic physics. He gained a Ph.D. in physics in 1922.

From 1927 to 1938, Fermi served as the professor of theoretical physics at the University of Rome, where he carried out experiments on elements. He bombarded a variety of elements with neutrons and in 1934, discovered that slow moving neutrons were particularly effective in producing radioactive atoms. His experiments led to the discovery of nuclear fission and the creation of elements beyond uranium. These contributions won him a Nobel in 1938. In 1935, Fermi discovered the quantum mechanics statistical laws, better known as the Fermi statistics, giving a statistical model of the atom and nucleus.

Fermi became an American citizen in 1944 and accepted a professorship at the Institute for Nuclear Studies at the University of Chicago in 1946. He held this position till his death in 1954. Fermi continued to conduct nuclear fission experiments at Columbia University.

In 1942, Fermi's team proved that a nuclear reaction could be initiated, controlled, and stopped. He developed the Chicago Pile-1, the first prototype of nuclear reactor at Hanford, Washington, where plutonium, a man-made element heavier than uranium, was produced. Plutonium also could fission and thus was another route to the atomic bomb. During the Second World War, Fermi was a key member of the Manhattan Project, working at the Los Alamos project in New Mexico on developing an atomic bomb. In his later years, Fermi investigated subatomic particles - pi mesons and muons.

Picture Credit : Google

The Cori cycle (also known as the Lactic acid cycle), named after its discoverers, Carl Ferdinand Cori and Gerty Cori, refers to the metabolic pathway in which lactate produced by anaerobic glycolysis in the muscles moves to the liver and is converted to glucose, which then returns to the muscles and is metabolized back to lactate.

The cycle's importance is based on preventing lactic acidosis during anaerobic conditions in the muscle. However, normally, before this happens, the lactic acid is moved out of the muscles and into the liver.

Additionally, this cycle is important in ATP production, an energy source, during muscle exertion. The end of muscle exertion allows the Cori cycle to function more effectively. This repays the oxygen debt so both the electron transport chain and citric acid cycle can produce energy at optimum effectiveness. This acid attributes to the sore feeling in muscles after extensive exercising.

The Cori cycle is a much more important source of substrate for gluconeogenesis than food. The contribution of Cori cycle lactate to overall glucose production increases with fasting duration before plateauing. Specifically, after 12, 20, and 40 hours of fasting by human volunteers, gluconeogenesis accounts for 41%, 71%, and 92% of glucose production, but the contribution of Cori cycle lactate to gluconeogenesis is 18%, 35%, and 36%, respectively. The remaining glucose production comes from protein breakdown, muscle glycogen, and glycerol from lipolysis.

The drug metformin can cause lactic acidosis in patients with kidney failure because metformin inhibits the hepatic gluconeogenesis of the Cori cycle, particularly the mitochondrial respiratory chain complex 1. The buildup of lactate and its substrates for lactate production, pyruvate and alanine, lead to excess lactate. Normally, the excess lactate would be cleared by the kidneys, but in patients with kidney failure, the kidneys cannot handle the excess lactic acid.

Picture Credit : Google

The Coris path-breaking research into the enzyme-catalyzed chemical reactions of carbohydrate metabolism resulted in their sharing the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1947 with Bernardo Houssay of Argentina. The Nobel committee cited the Coris "for their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen" and Houssay "for the discovery of the importance of the anterior pituitary hormone for the metabolism of sugar." Their son Tom, who was then eleven, remembers his parents "were in high spirits" when they received news of the Nobel award, but they also told a newspaper reporter that they were "pleased, overwhelmed, and too busy to celebrate."

Houssay's worked in many fields of physiology, such as the nervous, digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems, but his main contribution, which was recognized by the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine of 1947, was on the experimental investigation of the role of the anterior hypophysis gland in the metabolism of carbohydrates, particularly in diabetes mellitus. Houssay demonstrated in the 1930s the diabetogenic effect anterior hypophysis extracts and the decrease in diabetes severity with anterior hypophysectomy. These discoveries stimulated the study of hormonal feedback control mechanisms which are central to all aspects of modern endocrinology.

Houssay's many disciples along his years of activity became also influential by themselves as they spread around the world; such as Eduardo Braun-Menéndez, and Miguel Rolando Covian (who went to become the "father" of Brazilian neurophysiology, as chairman of the Department of Physiology of the Medical Faculty of Ribeirão Preto of the University of São Paulo). Houssay wrote with them the most influential textbook of Human Physiology in Latin America, in Spanish and Portuguese (the latter was translated by Covian and collaborators), which, since 1950 has been published in successive editions and used in almost all medical schools of the continent. Houssay published more than 600 scientific papers and several specialized books. Besides the Nobel, Houssay won many distinctions and awards from the Universities of Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford and Paris and 15 other universities, as well as the Dale Medal of the Society for Endocrinology in 1960.

Picture Credit : Google

Here is a man who helped cities grow!

Urban development means two crucial things for a city: the city should grow and spread into a wider area; it should also make businesses grow in commercial centres. Frank Julian Sprague was a great inventor who helped to make both these possible. He had contributed greatly to the development of the electric motor and electric railways which improved transportation within cities and helped them to spread. Another device Sprague helped to develop was the electric elevator, which promoted the use of high-rise buildings leading to greater concentration of business in commercial sections.

An American naval officer turned inventor, Frank Sprague came to be known as the ‘Father of Electric Traction.’ His life took an important turn when he met Edward H. Johnson, who was a business associate of Edison. Johnson persuaded Sprague to leave the navy and work for Edison. Edison had employed a number of brilliant engineers to help with his experiments on electricity. At the request of Johnson, Edison hired Sprague. However, they worked together only for a year, after which Sprague formed a company of his own, named the Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company.

Picture Credit : Google

Jocelyn Bell Burnell is a British astrophysicist, who discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967, when she was a research assistant.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell was born in 1943, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She earned a bachelor's degree in physics in 1965 from the University of Glasgow. Burnell went on to study radio astronomy at Cambridge University where she worked as a research assistant to astronomers Antony Hewish and Martin Ryle.

The team was involved in the construction of a massive radio telescope to monitor quasars. By 1967, it was operational and Bell Burnell was tasked with analysing the data it produced.

Alien communication

It is from this data that she discovered a series of regular radio pulses and brought them to Hewish's attention. The team then spent the next few months trying to decode what it was. They jokingly dubbed the pulses - Little Green Men -recognising the possibility that they could be communication attempts by extraterrestrial intelligence. After monitoring the pulses using more sensitive equipment, the team discovered the pulsars. She and Hewish published the paper in 1968. In 1974, the discovery was chosen for the Nobel Prize for Physics, but it was awarded only to Hewish and Ryle. Many in the scientific community raised their objections, believing that Bell Burnell's contribution had been unfairly neglected. However, Bell Burnell humbly rejected the notion, feeling that the prize had been properly awarded given her status as a graduate student. She received her doctorate in 1969.

Other works

She taught and studied gamma ray astronomy, x-ray astronomy and infrared astronomy. She then became a visiting professor at the University of Oxford, where she continued her studies in neutron stars.

Awards and honours

Though she did not receive the Nobel, Bell Burnell's contributions to science were recognised. She received many awards and honours later in her life. As recent as 2018, she was awarded a $3-million Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. Bell Burnell has spent her career working for the upliftment of women and minorities in science. Bell Burnell also has honorary degrees from an array of universities.

Picture Credit : Google

As we have already seen, Edison did not stop with making the electric bulb; he also came up with a whole system to reach electric power to homes. That is how the Edison Illuminating Company of New York came to be, in 1880. The company constructed generating stations in New York City, and its first central station started to function in Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan on September 4, 1882. The other local illuminating companies that came up in the United States at that time were modelled after it. In 1901, the Edison Illuminating Company joined with the New York Gas & Electric Light, Heat & Power Company, forming the New York Edison Company. It was later renamed as Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc.

The Edison General Electric Company was founded in 1889. It was formed by merging three companies of Edison that made electric light, with the Edison Electric Light Company. Later, it acquired the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company, and then merged with the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, and ultimately became the General Electric Company – one of the most famous names in the electrical industry.

Edison started work on a new laboratory, in 1886, to replace the one at Menlo Park. His earlier idea of an ‘invention factory’ had been a huge success, and the Menlo Park complex was the largest private laboratory in the U.S., in the 1870s. Now he wanted to create a much bigger facility to do large-scale industrial research and develop new inventions. That is how the West Orange Laboratory came to be.

When the West Orange Laboratory was opened, it was the world’s best-equipped private industrial research facility. It had all the resources needed by the world’s greatest inventor — highly skilled experimenters, the best equipment and the latest scientific knowledge.

Edison worked there from 1887 to his death in 1931.

Picture Credit : Google

Edison tried his hand with mining technology too. He wanted to develop a method to separate magnetic particles like iron, from non-magnetic rock. Edison developed a whole system at a mine in New Jersey that covered mining, crushing, separating and concentrating. Sand or crushed rock from the mine would be poured through a hopper so that it would fall like a broad stream, in front of an electromagnet; the magnet would attract magnetic particles like iron into a separate container.

Edison had sold all his stock in the General Electric Company to finance this work. But ultimately, his venture was not a success and he had to abandon it. Edison lost all the money he had invested in it. However, he later transferred his rock-crushing technology to the production of Portland cement, and recouped part of his investment.

Picture Credit : Google

The man who made the world’s first talking machine also wanted to make it fun for kids. That is how Edison came up with the world’s first talking dolls, in 1877. His idea was to make those dolls available for the Christmas sales in the same year, but their release happened only in 1890 due to some production problems.

The talking dolls were sold under the label of the Edison Toy Phonograph Company. The dolls had tiny cylinder phonographs inside them, worked by a spring motor. Voices of the dolls were recorded by girls reciting nursery rhymes. The talking dolls were fun, but they did not have a happy ending. The inside mechanism often came loose during shipping and the ring-shaped wax records wore out fast, causing crackles in the sound. Also, some children were frightened of their dolls talking!

Ultimately, Edison’s talking dolls were a failure in the market. All of the unsold phonographs made for those dolls were destroyed by 1896.

Picture Credit : Google