My Science School

When vaccination was born

On May 14, 1796, Englishman Edward Jenner tested vaccination on a human subject. Building on conventional wisdom, Jenner introduced vaccination against smallpox, a disease that has now been eradicated.

You probably already know this story. Yes, you read that right. When the world was gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic, the race to find a vaccine dominated news across the globe. And among the countless vaccination related stories, the story of Englishman Edward Jenner also found mention on occasions. But considering that we have collectively forgotten a lot of good that we learnt during the height of the pandemic, you wouldn't be judged if you have forgotten Jenner’s story too.

Born in Berkeley, Gloucestershire on May 17, 1749, Jenner was the eighth of nine children born to the vicar of Berkeley, the Reverend Stephen Jenner, and his wife Sarah. He was apprenticed to a local surgeon at the age of 14 and then trained in London. Returning to Berkeley in 1772, he spent much of his career as a doctor in his native town.

Cowpox doesn't kill

During his time as a medical student, Jenner observed that milkmaids who had contracted a disease called cowpox, which caused blistering on cow's udders, did not catch smallpox. While cowpox led to few ill symptoms among these women, smallpox caused severe skin eruptions and high fevers among humans. Believed to have existed for thousands of years, smallpox was one of the most devastating diseases known to humanity and killed millions through the centuries.

Jenner decided to put the conventional wisdom into practice and devised an experiment. On May 14, 1796, Jenner took fluid from a cowpox blister on milkmaid Sarah Nelmes. He inserted the pus taken into an incision on eight-year-old James Phipps' arm.

The eight-year-old experimental subject fell mildly ill with cowpox a few days later, but was well again a week later. While this helped Jenner learn that cowpox could pass from person to person as well as cow to person, his next step was to find out if the experiment would protect Phipps from smallpox.

Ethical debate

Starting on July 1, Jenner repeatedly inoculated Phipps with smallpox matter. While ethicists now debate if such an experiment would be possible today, it was possible in Jenner’s time. And to his relief, the boy, who had been inoculated with cowpox, was now immune to smallpox, just as he had anticipated.

Having succeeded at what he set out to do, Jenner submitted a paper describing his experiment to the Royal Society in 1797. His revolutionary ideas weren't immediately accepted and he was asked for further proof.

Not one to be daunted, Jenner experimented with several others and in every case he was unable to infect them with smallpox if he had vaccinated them, or if they had contracted cowpox earlier naturally. He published all his research in 1798 in a book entitled "An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae; a Disease Discovered in some of the Western Counties of England, Particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of The Cow Pox". It was Jenner who coined the word "vaccine" from the Latin vacca for cow.

Efficacy wins over people

Jenner was still ridiculed, especially by clergymen, who saw his method of inoculating someone with material from a diseased animal as ungodly and even repulsive. The advantages of vaccination and the protection it offered against smallpox eventually trumped the naysayers, and vaccination slowly caught on.

Having become famous, Jenner was able to spend more time researching and offering developments in his vaccine. He carried out research in certain other areas of medicine as well. He died on January 26, 1823.

Jenner's model was adopted by scientists in the centuries that followed, helping them develop vaccines to numerous deadly diseases. As for smallpox, it was declared eradicated in 1980 by the World Health Organisation following a global vaccination programme. The disease that led to the birth of vaccination is also the only infectious disease to achieve this distinction.

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TECHNOLOGY: Though the year 2022 saw the routine rounds of gadget launches-from upgraded cellphones to smart watches, the big surprise came in the form of some tech-related news that made it to the front pages. Remember Elon Musk turning chief twit, mass global lay-offs by companies, an Al tool that mimics the human brain, and the crypto collapse?

1. 5G, finally!

Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially announced the launch of the first phase of 5G services in 13 cities across the country, at the India Mobile Congress event in New Delhi, in October 2022. 5G is the fifth-generation technology standard for broadband cellular networks. "5G technology will provide seamless coverage, high data rate, low latency and highly reliable communications. It will increase energy efficiency, spectrum efficiency and network efficiency," he tweeted. The cumulative economic impact of 5G on the country is expected to touch $450 billion by 2035. The 5G coverage will progressively cover the entire country over the next couple of years.

2. Fried!

Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire collapsed in November 2022. The reason - a run-on deposit that left his crypto exchange FTX with a shortfall of $8 billion. This forced FTX to file for bankruptcy, and the company struggled to raise money to stall its collapse as traders rushed to withdraw $6 billion in less than 72 hours! Fried was arrested in the Bahamas after being criminally charged by the U.S. prosecutors. The shocking end to the successful FTX story had a rippling effect across the already shaken crypto industry, destabilising other companies and spreading distrust among the public about the technology.

3. Did it sink in?

Elon Musk dominated the headlines by first announcing his bid to buy Twitter and then backing out. Eventually, the Tesla and Spacex chief was forced to honour the agreement, and he took over the microblogging platform in October 2022 for $44 billion. Top executives left the company or were fired. Twitter also made mass global lay-offs. But confusion prevailed on the site. He courted controversy by reinstating Donald Trump's account, introducing paid blue ticks, and banning some journalists from the site. After conducting a poll on whether he must step down as Twitter CEO, in true Musk style, he said he'll do so when he finds "someone foolish enough to take the job".

4. ChatGPT

It answers the most complicated questions, writes sonnets, creates computer codes, and even comes up with interesting menus! Welcome to the world of Generative Pre-trained Transformer, ChatGPT for short. Launched by the American firm OpenAl in November 2022, the Al tool is today used by millions to generate a variety of content- all in a few seconds or minutes! ChatGPT isn't without flaws. Biases in certain communications have already been reported. It robs us of the creative process - particularly in communication. Can it replace human ingenuity? The verdict isn't out yet, but enthusiastic folks are already having a lot of fun with this chatbot that's said to mimic the human brain.

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On February 5, 1971, Apollo 14 made a successful landing on the lunar surface, thereby becoming the third human landing on the moon after Apollo 11 and Apollo 12.

When we talk about the Apollo programme, it is often hard to look beyond the Apollo 11 mission, which achieved the distinction of landing the first humans on the moon. Even though the Apollo programme is best remembered for this, it should also be noted that it provided for innumerable demonstrations of ingenuity and problem solving and increased NASA's expertise by leaps and bounds.

Following the success of Apollo 11 in July 1969, Apollo 12 landed humans on the moon in November 1969. Apollo 13, however, had to be aborted following an oxygen tank explosion in the service module.

This meant that the Fra Mauro Formation, originally planned to be the lunar landing site for Apollo 13, served as the landing site for Apollo 14, once NASA had completed an accident investigation and upgraded the spacecraft.

Shepard, Mitchell, and Roosa

Launched on January 31, 1971, Apollo 14 had a three-member crew that included commander Alan Shepard, lunar module pilot Edgar Mitchell, and command module pilot Stuart Rossa. Even though there was a potential short circuit in an abort switch on the lunar module and the landing radar came on very late during the landing sequence, Shepard and Mitchell successfully landed on the lunar surface on February 5. In fact, it was the most precise landing until then, as they landed less than 100 feet from the targeted point.

Shepard and Mitchell spent over 33 hours on the moon, including two extra vehicular activities (EVAS) that spanned nine hours and 23 minutes. Even though the first of the two EVAS began an hour later than scheduled due to communications systems problems, it turned out to be a success.

Modular Equipment Transporter

The first EVA was mainly to deploy a number of experiments and some of these sent back data to Earth until September 1977. While a seismometer detected thousands of moonquakes and helped find out the moon's internal structure, other instruments looked at the composition of solar wind and the moon's atmosphere.

Apart from the safety upgrades that were done for Apollo 14, there was also the addition of the Modular Equipment Transporter (MET). While Apollo 11 astronauts carried their tools by hand and Apollo 12 astronauts used a hand tool carrier, Shepard and Mitchell could employ the MET like a wheelbarrow, stowing away their scientific equipment, tools, camera, and sample collections.

During the duo's second EVA dedicated to explore the Cone Crater, the MET came in handy as they were able to pick up a football-sized rock, designated 14321, but better known by its nickname "Big Bertha". Using the MET, the astronauts were able to transport this sample back to the lunar module. As recently as 2019, studies suggested that a two-cm sliver of the Big Bertha might have originally come from the Earth's crust, and not the moon.

42 kg of samples

Even though the crew never saw the interior of the crater, post-mission comparisons showed that Shepard and Mitchell were within 50-75 m from the crater rim. The round trip lasted four hours and 35 minutes in which the duo traversed nearly 3 km, including samples from the first EVA, the duo had collected 42 kg of lunar samples.

While Shepard and Mitchell were busy on the lunar surface, Roosa, who was in the command module, clicked many pictures in high resolution. These photographs of the moon's Descartes region played a pivotal role in certifying the area's safety as a landing site and even helped plan rover traverses for the Apollo 16 mission.

Liftoff from the lunar surface took place exactly on schedule, while rendezvous and docking with the command module was just two minutes off schedule. After spending 2.8 days in lunar orbit, during which time the command module had circled the moon 34 times, the Apollo 14 crew members headed back to Earth. They splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean on February 9, exactly nine days and two minutes after launch.

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On May 21, 1853, the first public aquarium was opened as part of the London Zoo. First called the "Fish House" in Regent's Park Zoological Gardens, it was made possible by English naturalist Philip Henry Gosse.

On any occasion when you’ve seen an aquarium, have you ever thought about how it came to be? No, not that particular aquarium that you visited or saw at someone's house. We are talking about the entire concept of aquariums as a vivarium of any size to house aquatic plants and animals.

The idea, in fact, is less than 200 years old. While a number of people were involved in the invention of the marine aquarium, English naturalist Philip Henry Gosse is credited with promoting the glass tank as a novel way of housing marine creatures. What's more, he was also responsible for using "aquarium" for this glass vessel, a term that still remains in use. 

Love for natural history

 Born in Worcester, England in 1810, Gosse was the son of Thomas and Hannah Gosse. Even as a boy, Gosse explored the sea life around Poole, a coastal town in southern England. His love for natural history awakened very early, he was encouraged by his aunt Susan Bell to observe and draw wildlife.

It was from his aunt Bell that Gosse learned about the metamorphosis of insects and the name of the common red sea anemone. Bell even suggested to Gosse that he should try to keep sea anemones alive in vessels of fresh seawater- an inception of sorts for an idea that he later championed. Gosse also took scientific inspiration from Bell's son Thomas, a naturalist who went on to become professor of zoology at King's College, London.

Finding his way across the Atlantic to Newfoundland, Canada, Gosse became a clerk in a seal-fishery at Carbonear harbour in 1827. In his early twenties, Gosse began to collect and document insects wholeheartedly in his spare time. When a couple of ventures he tried in Canada failed, he Books give him voice

Having received an invitation from a society to write An Introduction to Zoology, his research led him to write another, The Ocean. The unexpected success of his books earned him a fully-financed collecting expedition to Jamaica and his time there led to several more books. By this time, Gosse had not only developed the nuances of being a naturalist, but had also established himself as an important voice in the field.

By the 1840s, Gosse was collecting marine specimens in earnest, going about his business in two main fashions. As the eroding tides had created habitats for diverse lifeforms in the geologically varied shores of Dorset and Devon, Gosse explored these areas on foot. Additionally, he also collected marine species by coastal dredging from a boat.

By combining his love of observing with collecting, studying, drawing, and writing, Gosse became a Goliath in the field. He knew that in order to create reliable records that captured public imagination and led to scientific progress, he needed to keep his collection in good health and have a clear view of them. And so it was that Gosse became an authority in setting up a home-based aquarium, making artificial seawater, and even maintaining the set-up.

World's first public aquarium

It therefore comes as no surprise that Gosse was one of the most important people in setting up the first public aquarium in the world. Called the "Fish House", it was set up in Regent's Park Zoological Gardens as part of the London Zoo and thrown open to the public on May 21, 1853.

In his 1853 book A Naturalist's Rambles on the Devonshire Coast, the word "vivarium" was used interchangeably with "marine aquarium". A year later, however, Gosse firmly believed that "aquarium" best described it. He mentioned that the word should be "neat, easily pronounced and easily remembered" in his 1854 book The Aquarium: An Unveiling of the Wonders of the Deep Sea, thereby setting it stone.

Additionally, he also stated the following: "Let the word AQUARIUM then be the one selected to indicate these interesting collections of aquatic animals and plants, distinguishing it as Freshwater Aquarium, if the contents be fluviatile, or a Marine Aquarium, if [the contents are salt water-based]."

Against evolutionary concepts Gosse was a contemporary of celebrated English naturalist Charles Darwin and the latter even turned to Gosse when setting up an aquarium of his own. Even though a lot of their work actually overlapped, Gosse firmly rejected the evolutionary concepts proposed by Darwin owing to his own religious beliefs.

Even though his creationist theories marginalised him, Gosse spent his entire lifetime observing the world around him, until his death in 1888. His work and practical contributions to marine zoology were important to the scientific establishment of his times. And the aquariums that he envisioned still enable us to bring a tiny slice of ocean life home.

Picture Credit : Google