My Science School

Where the Wild Things Are is a 1963 children's picture book by American writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak, originally published by Harper & Row. The book has been adapted into other media several times, including an animated short in 1975 (with an updated version in 1988); a 1980 opera; and a live-action 2009 feature-film adaptation. The book had sold over 19 million copies worldwide as of 2009, with 10 million of those being in the United States.

Sendak began his career as an illustrator, but by the mid-1950s he had decided to start both writing and illustrating his own books. In 1956, he published his first book for which he was the sole author, Kenny's Window (1956). Soon after, he began work on another solo effort. The story was supposed to be that of a child who, after a tantrum, is punished in his room and decides to escape to the place that gives the book its title, the "land of wild horses". Shortly before starting the illustrations, Sendak realized he did not know how to draw horses and, at the suggestion of his editor, changed the wild horses to the more ambiguous "Wild Things", a term inspired by the Yiddish expression "vilde chaya" ("wild animals"), used to indicate boisterous children.

He replaced the horses with caricatures of his aunts and uncles, caricatures that he had originally drawn in his youth as an escape from their chaotic weekly visits, on Sunday afternoons, to his family's Brooklyn home. Sendak, as a child, had observed his relatives as being "all crazy – crazy faces and wild eyes", with blood-stained eyes and "big and yellow" teeth, who pinched his cheeks until they were red. These relatives, like Sendak's parents, were poor Jewish immigrants from Poland, whose remaining family in Nazi-occupied Europe were killed during the Holocaust while Sendak was in his early teens. As a child, however, he saw them only as "grotesques".

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Rosalind Franklin is an English chemist, best known for her role in the discovery of the structure of DNA, a constituent of chromosomes that serves to encode genetic information. Her work on the X-ray diffraction images of DNA, particularly Photo 51, led to the discovery of the double helix shape of DNA. Since Nobel Committee does not recognise work posthumously, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 went to Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins, who based their work on her data.

Rosalind was a topper and an all-rounder in school. Her interests were in maths, sports and languages. Born to a prominent British Jewish family in 1920, Franklin studied the Natural Sciences Tripos at Newnham College, Cambridge, from which she graduated in 1941. She joined the University of Cambridge physical chemistry laboratory as a research fellow. Since this was during World War II, she worked on the porousity of coal for fuel purposes and other wartime devices

After finishing her work on DNA, Franklin led pioneering work at Birkbeck, University of London, on the molecular structures of the Tobacco Mosaic virus (TMV), an RNA virus that infects tobacco plants. Her work provided new insights into the structure of viruses.

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Pasteur’s experiments with germs and wine revealed a direct cause-and-effect relationship between bacteria and the souring of wine into vinegar. Subsequently, he invented a process by which bacteria could be killed by heating the wine between 60 and 100° C, then letting it cool. Pasteur completed the first successful test on April 20, 1862, eventually patenting the method we now know as pasteurization, which was soon applied to beer, juice, eggs, and (most famously) milk. This process also proved successful at destroying most yeasts and molds without causing a phase transition in the product.

The temperature and time of pasteurization treatments are determined by the food’s acidity. In acidic foods (pH < 4.6) such as fruit juice, in which pathogens are unable to grow, heat is applied to inactivate enzymes and destroy yeast and lactobacillus. In less acidic foods (pH > 4.6), such as milk, the heat treatments are designed to destroy pathogens, as well as yeast and molds. Both processes extend the product’s shelf life, especially in combination with refrigeration.

Food can be pasteurized in two basic ways: either before or after being packaged into containers. When food is packaged in glass, hot water is used to lower the risk of thermal shock. If packaged in plastic or metal, steam can be used, since the risk of thermal shock is low. In general, most foods requiring pasteurization are liquid (such as milk), and can therefore move through a continuous system comprised of a heating zone, hold tube, and cooling zone, from which the liquid is filled into packaging.

Credit : Smart Sense

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His research, which showed that microorganisms cause both fermentation and disease, supported the germ theory of disease at a time when its validity was still being questioned. In his ongoing quest for disease treatments he created the first vaccines for fowl cholera; anthrax, a major livestock disease that in recent times has been used against humans in germ warfare; and the dreaded rabies.

Pasteur produced vaccines from weakened anthrax bacilli that could indeed protect sheep and other animals. In public demonstrations at Pouilly-le-Fort before crowds of observers, twenty-four sheep, one goat, and six cows were subjected to a two-part course of inoculations with the new vaccine, on May 5, 1881, and again on May 17. Meanwhile a control group of twenty-four sheep, one goat, and four cows remained unvaccinated. On May 31 all the animals were inoculated with virulent anthrax bacilli, and two days later, on June 2, the crowd reassembled. Pasteur and his collaborators arrived to great applause. The effects of the vaccine were undeniable: the vaccinated animals were all alive. Of the control animals all the sheep were dead except three wobbly individuals who died by the end of the day, and the four unprotected cows were swollen and feverish. The single goat had expired too.

As with other infectious diseases, rabies could be injected into other species and attenuated. Attenuation of rabies was first achieved in monkeys and later in rabbits. Meeting with success in protecting dogs, even those already bitten by a rabid animal, on July 6, 1885, Pasteur agreed with some reluctance to treat his first human patient, Joseph Meister, a nine-year-old who was otherwise doomed to a near-certain death. Success in this case and thousands of others convinced a grateful public throughout the world to make contributions to the Institut Pasteur. It was officially opened in 1888 and continues as one of the premier institutions of biomedical research in the world. Its tradition of discovering and producing vaccines is carried on today by the pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur.

Credit : Science History

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Linda B. Buck, American scientist and corecipient, with Richard Axel, of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2004 for discoveries concerning the olfactory system.

In 1991 Buck and Axel jointly published a landmark scientific paper, based on research they had conducted with laboratory rats, that detailed their discovery of the family of 1,000 genes that encode, or produce, an equivalent number of olfactory receptors. These receptors are proteins responsible for detecting the odorant molecules in the air and are located on olfactory receptor cells, which are clustered within a small area in the back of the nasal cavity. The two scientists then clarified how the olfactory system functions by showing that each receptor cell has only one type of odour receptor, which is specialized to recognize a few odours. After odorant molecules bind to receptors, the receptor cells send electrical signals to the olfactory bulb in the brain. The brain combines information from several types of receptors in specific patterns, which are experienced as distinct odours.

Axel and Buck later determined that most of the details they uncovered about the sense of smell are virtually identical in rats, humans, and other animals, although they discovered that humans have only about 350 types of working olfactory receptors, about one-third the number in rats.

Credit : Britannica

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Long Walk to Freedom is an autobiography written by South African President Nelson Mandela, and first published in 1994 by Little Brown & Co. The book profiles his early life, coming of age, education and 27 years in prison.

The book won the Alan Paton Award in 1995 and has been published in many languages, including an Afrikaans translation by Antjie Krog.

Long Walk to Freedom has been adapted into a film titled Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom directed by Justin Chadwick, written by William Nicholson, and produced by Anant Singh. Mandela personally awarded the film rights to the book to Singh's company some years before 2009. Singh believes that as the film is based on Mandela's writing, it will be the "definitive" biopic of him. English actor Idris Elba portrays Mandela in the film. The film was limited released on 29 November 2013 in the United States. The full release happened on Christmas Day 2013 in the United States. When the film was shown in London for Prince William and his wife, Nelson Mandela's death was announced.

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Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995) is a memoir by Barack Obama that explores the events of his early years in Honolulu and Chicago until his entry into Harvard Law School in 1988.

After Obama won the U.S. Senate Democratic primary victory in Illinois in 2004, the book was re-published that year. He gave the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention (DNC) and won the Illinois Senate seat in the fall. Obama launched his presidential campaign three years later. The 2004 edition includes a new preface by Obama and his DNC keynote address.

The book "may be the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician," wrote Time columnist Joe Klein. In 2008, The Guardian's Rob Woodard wrote that Dreams from My Father "is easily the most honest, daring, and ambitious volume put out by a major US politician in the last 50 years." Michiko Kakutani, the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The New York Times, described it as "the most evocative, lyrical and candid autobiography written by a future president." Writing for the Guardian, literary critic Robert McCrum wrote that Obama had "executed an affecting personal memoir with grace and style, narrating an enthralling story with honesty, elegance and wit, as well as an instinctive gift for storytelling." McCrum had included the book in his list of the 100 best non-fiction books of all time.

The audiobook edition earned Obama the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2006. Five days before being sworn in as President in 2009, Obama secured a $500,000 advance for an abridged version of Dreams from My Father for middle-school-aged children.

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Playing It My Way is the autobiography of former Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar. It was launched on 5 November 2014 in Mumbai. The book summarises Tendulkar's early days, his 24 years of international career and aspects of his life that have not been shared publicly.

In the book, Sachin Tendulkar mentioned that just months before the 2007 Cricket World Cup, Greg Chappell, then the coach of the Indian cricket team, visited Tendulkar at his home and suggested that he should take over the captaincy from Rahul Dravid, then the team captain. Chappell however denied this, stating that he never contemplated Tendulkar replacing Dravid as captain. Tendulkar also mentioned in the book that John Wright "took over as coach of India in 2005", when Wright actually took over five years earlier, and got many scorecards wrong.

 He has been playing the game since he was eleven years old and debuted in a Test match against Pakistan at the age of 16. He has represented Mumbai domestically and India at an International level for close to 24 years. Among several other notable achievements, he is the only player to have scored one hundred international centuries, to have completed more than 30,000 runs in international cricket and the first batsman to score a double century in an One Day International.

Tendulkar has been awarded the Bharat Ratna for his contribution towards Indian sports and is the youngest recipient and the first sportsperson to receive the award so far.The book is in Sachin's own words as told to his co-writer Boria Majumdar, senior sports journalist and cricket historian who worked closely with Sachin.

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Mein Kampf is a 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germany.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler used the main thesis of "the Jewish peril", which posits a Jewish conspiracy to gain world leadership. The narrative describes the process by which he became increasingly antisemitic and militaristic, especially during his years in Vienna. He speaks of not having met a Jew until he arrived in Vienna, and that at first his attitude was liberal and tolerant. When he first encountered the antisemitic press, he says, he dismissed it as unworthy of serious consideration. Later he accepted the same antisemitic views, which became crucial to his program of national reconstruction of Germany.

Mein Kampf has also been studied as a work on political theory. For example, Hitler announces his hatred of what he believed to be the world's two evils: Communism and Judaism.

In the book Hitler blamed Germany's chief woes on the parliament of the Weimar Republic, the Jews, and Social Democrats, as well as Marxists, though he believed that Marxists, Social Democrats, and the parliament were all working for Jewish interests. He announced that he wanted to completely destroy the parliamentary system, believing it to be corrupt in principle, as those who reach power are inherent opportunists.

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Open: An Autobiography is a memoir written by former professional tennis player Andre Agassi with assistance from J. R. Moehringer published on November 9, 2009. Throughout the book, Agassi, an eight-time Grand Slam champion and former world No. 1, details his challenging childhood under the supervision of a demanding father and prolonged struggles with the physical and psychological tolls of professional tennis.

During the Open Era, Agassi was the first male player to win four Australian Open titles, a record that was later surpassed by Novak Djokovic when he won his fifth title in 2015, and then by Roger Federer in 2017. Agassi is the second of five male singles players to achieve the Career Grand Slam in the Open Era after Rod Laver and before Federer, Rafael Nadal and Djokovic; he is the fifth of eight in history to make the achievement. He is also the first of two men to achieve the Career Golden Slam (Career Grand Slam and Olympic gold medal, the other being Nadal), and the only man to win a Career Super Slam (Career Grand Slam, plus the Olympic gold medal, plus a title at the year-end championships).

Agassi was the first male player to win all four Grand Slam tournaments on three different surfaces (hard, clay and grass), and the last American male to win both the French Open (in 1999) and the Australian Open (in 2003). He also won 17 ATP Masters Series titles and was part of the winning Davis Cup teams in 1990, 1992 and 1995. Agassi reached the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in 1995 but was troubled by personal issues during the mid-to-late 1990s and sank to No. 141 in 1997, prompting many to believe that his career was over. Agassi returned to No. 1 in 1999 and enjoyed the most successful run of his career over the next four years. During his 20-plus year tour career, Agassi was known by the nickname "The Punisher".

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The 'Wings of Fire' is one such autobiography by visionary scientist Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, who from very humble beginnings rose to be the President of India. The book is full of insights, personal moments and life experiences of Dr. Kalam. It gives us an understanding on his journey of success. Dr. Kalam by narrating his life journey evokes the reader to identify with one’s inner fire and potential, for he was of the firm belief that each one of us was born with the strength and potential to make a tangible change in the world. How he inspired himself to achieve dreams and how he went about accomplishing so much is what the book captures nicely. The book recollects many anecdotes and stories from childhood, his time at school and college. The time spent at the Langley Research Center, NASA and Wallops Flight Facility gets a lot of attention. Personal tragedies have not been left out. The time when he lost his father and how he felt when conferred with many awards like the Padma Bhushan have been written in much detail. The second half of the book deals with Dr Kalam, the scientist who made a significant contribution in developing the countries guided missile program, a pioneering effort for the security of the nation. It's not with reason that he was nicknamed as the 'Missile Man of India'.

Kalam served as the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister and Secretary of the Defence Research and Development Organisation from July 1992 to December 1999. The Pokhran-II nuclear tests were conducted during this period in which he played an intensive political and technological role. Kalam served as the Chief Project Coordinator, along with Rajagopala Chidambaram, during the testing phase. Media coverage of Kalam during this period made him the country's best known nuclear scientist. However, the director of the site test, K Santhanam, said that the thermonuclear bomb had been a "fizzle" and criticised Kalam for issuing an incorrect report. Both Kalam and Chidambaram dismissed the claims.

In 1998, along with cardiologist Soma Raju, Kalam developed a low cost coronary stent, named the "Kalam-Raju Stent". In 2012, the duo designed a rugged tablet computer for health care in rural areas, which was named the "Kalam-Raju Tablet".

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Malavath Purna is an Indian mountaineer. On 25 May 2014, Purna scaled the highest peak of Mount Everest and, aged 13 years and 11 months, became the youngest Indian and the youngest female in the world to have reached the summit.

Purna was born on 10 June 2000 to Lakshmi and Devidas in Pakala village, Telangana. For her education, she joined Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society. When she was 10-years-old, her father, Devidas Malavath encouraged her to join TSWREIS, Tadwai. Like any other father, he too wanted his daughter to get a better education and experience a life beyond her village.

Poorna also became the first tribal woman in the world to set foot on the six tallest mountain peaks across six continents.

So far, Poorna has scaled Mt Everest in 2014 (Asia), Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2016 (Africa), Mt. Elbrus in 2017 (Europe), Mt. Aconcagua in 2019 (South America), Mt. Cartsnez in 2019 (Oceania), and Mt. Vinson Massif again in 2019 (Antarctica).

When she reached Mt. Elbrus in Europe, she unfurled a 50ft long Indian flag while singing the Indian National Anthem.

A film was produced by Rahul Bose depicting the life struggle and success story of Malavath Purn. The name of the film is ‘Poorna’.

Credit : Tentaran

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The Story of My Experiments with Truth autobiography covers all aspects of Mahatma Gandhi’s life, right from childhood to the year 1921. It gives a peek into how Gandhi’s ideals and principles developed through his many experiences and life events. 

In the introduction, M K Gandhi talks of his apprehensions about writing his autobiography, as it was a practice peculiar to the West. There was also the possibility of a shift in the mindset, of the change in the set of principles he adhered to, a revision of his future plans, which could influence those who based their conduct on his words. So, he decided to tell the story of his numerous experiments with Absolute Truth. The unusual autobiography covers his life from early childhood through to 1921. It is a window to the workings of Mahatma Gandhi’s mind, to the emotions of his heart, to understanding what drove this seemingly ordinary man to the heights of being the father of a nation – India. In 1999, the book was designated as one of the ‘100 Best Spiritual Books of the 20th Century’.

Gandhi's autobiography is very different from other autobiographies. The autobiographies normally contain self-praise by the authors. They want to criticize their opponents and boost their own image in the people's eyes. Gandhi's autobiography is completely free from all this. It is marked with humility and truthfulness. He had not hidden anything. In fact, he is rather too harsh on himself. He did not want to show to the world how good he was. He only wanted to tell the people the story of his experiments with Truth, for Gandhi, was the supreme principle, which includes many other principles. Realization of the Truth is the purpose of human life. Gandhi always strove to realize the Truth. He continuously tried to remove impurities in himself. He always tried to stick to the Truth as he knew and to apply the knowledge of the Truth to everyday life. He tried to apply the spiritual principles to the practical situations. He did it in the scientific spirit. Sticking to the truth means Satyagraha. Gandhi therefore called his experiments as 'Experiments with Truth' or 'Experiments in the science of Satyagraha.' Gandhi also requested the readers to treat those experiments as illustrative and to carry out their own experiments in that light.

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I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban is an autobiographical book by Malala Yousafzai, co-written with Christina Lamb. It was published on 8 October 2013, by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the UK and Little, Brown and Company in the US. The book details the early life of Yousafzai, her father's ownership of schools and activism, the rise and fall of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan in Swat Valley and the assassination attempt made against Yousafzai, when she was aged 15, following her activism for female education. It received a positive critical reception and won awards, though it has been banned in many schools in Pakistan.

Sayeeda Warsi, writing for The Daily Telegraph, giving the book four stars out of five, wrote "Malala has turned a tragedy into something positive". Entertainment Weekly gave the book a "B+", writing "Malala's bravely eager voice can seem a little thin here, in I Am Malala, likely thanks to her co-writer, but her powerful message remains undiluted." Metro list the book as one of the "20 best non-fiction books of 2013", praising that Yousafzai's story is "one of idealism and stubborn courage"

Following the book's release, the Pakistani Taliban released a statement threatening to kill Yousafzai, and target bookshops which sell the book.

The book, however, continues to be available in leading bookstores. It remains a popular reading among educated people especially young girls. Some schools, in fact, encourage students to read this book by keeping it in their libraries. Pakistan does not have high literacy rate, and therefore, the popularity or otherwise of any literature is always subject to how the educated people have received it.

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Alexander Fleming was a Scottish doctor and microbiologist, who discovered the first effective antibiotic penicillin, for which he, along with Howard Florey and Ernst Chain, won the Nobel Prize in 1945.

Fleming was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, in 1881. In 1895, he moved to London to complete his basic education. Fleming pursued medicine at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School and took up a temporary position in the Inoculation Department, where he worked under bacteriologist and immunologist Sir Almroth Edward Wright and became interested in the new field of bacteriology.

During World War I, Fleming served in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He conducted research on wound infections and antiseptic treatment of soldiers in a makeshift lab set up in Boulogne, France. In 1921, Fleming discovered lysozyme, an enzyme present in body fluids such as saliva and tears that has a mild antiseptic effect. This was a significant contribution to the understanding of how the body fights infection.

Fleming's discovery of penicillin came about in 1928, when he was investigating staphylococcus, a common type of bacteria that causes infections in people. Fleming left behind a petri dish containing a staphylococcus culture before going on a two-week vacation.

When he returned, he found that a green mould called Penicillium notatum had contaminated petri dishes in his lab and had prevented the growth of staphylococci. Though Fleming was not able to produce the antibiotic in large quantity, he published his research.

In 1938, Oxford Pathologist Howard Florey discovered Fleming's research and expanded on it, working with a biochemist named Ernst Boris Chain. Later, British biochemist Norman Heatley developed the work, vigorously growing and purifying penicillin.

Fleming was knighted for his scientific achievements in 1944.

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