My Science School

18 July, also known as Nelson Mandela Day, the U.N. and the Nelson Mandela Foundation encourage people around the world to devote 67 minutes of their time one minute for every year of Mandela's public service towards helping others; a small gesture of solidarity with humanity and a step towards a global movement for good. As the great man himself says, "We can change the world and make it a better place. It is in your hands to make a difference."

Nelson Mandela International Day shines a light every year on the legacy of a man whose monumental achievements changed the 20th century and shaped the 21st. His values and determination — a deep commitment to human rights, freedom, and justice — are reflected on, and are a source of inspiration for others. Mandela advocated for the rightful dignity and equality of every living person, and encouraged engagement and solidarity across all borders. His relentless pursuit for equality was paralleled with his status as the founding father of peace in South Africa. 

Nelson Mandela remains a symbol of power by resisting oppression. In times of turbulence, Mandela’s legacy teaches everyone to choose dignity over humiliation, speak up during injustice, and forgive rather than hate. He once said, “To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” In 2014, the Nelson Mandela Prize was established by the UN General Assembly — an award recognizing the achievements of those who went far and beyond to serve humanity. 

Credit : National Today

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On 27 July 1921, Canadian scientists Frederick Banting and Charles Best successfully isolated insulin for the first time at the University of Toronto. In 1923, 32-year-old Banting received the Nobel Prize for Medicine and remains the youngest Nobel laureate in Physiology/ Medicine.

A Canadian scientist, Banting's interest in diabetes stemmed from his school days when a classmate had died of the disorder. In 1989 a 'flame of hope' was lit at Sir Fredrick Banting Square in Ontario as a tribute to him and all those who have lost their lives to diabetes. The flame will remain lit until a cure for diabetes is found.

Plans were quickly underway for an insulin treatment for people. Next, they extracted insulin from the pancreases of cattle from slaughterhouses. On January 11, 1922, 14-year-old Leonard Thompson became the first person to receive an insulin injection as treatment for diabetes. The first caused an allergic reaction. A refined process was quickly developed to improve the cow pancreas from which the insulin was derived, and Thompson's second dosage was successfully delivered twelve days later on January 23. The teenager’s condition improved dramatically. Diabetes, which had been regarded as a fatal disease, could finally be managed! 

By 1923, insulin had become widely available in mass production, and Banting and Macleod were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine. Charles Best, being a graduate student, was not included.  Banting recognized Best's involvement by sharing the award money.

Credit : UMass Memorial Health

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Sir William James Herschel (9 January 1833-24 October 1917) is credited as the first person to use fingerprinting. In 1853 he was posted to Bengal by the East India Company. Following the 1857 Rebellion, he joined the Indian Civil Service and was posted to Jungipoor. In July 1858, to ensure that local businessman Rajyadhar Konai honoured a contract for the supply of road-making materials, Herschel made him put a hand-print on the document. In his experiments with hand-prints, he soon realised that only fingers needed to be used and that a person's fingerprints do not change over time.

In 1877, as Magistrate of Hooghly, he instituted the taking of pensioners' fingerprints J. K. Ro and the fingerprinting of criminals. In 1878, Herschel returned to England, and in 1880, he wrote a letter in ‘Nature’ explaining his fingerprinting experiences. In 1916, the year before he died, he published ‘The Origin of Fingerprinting,’ a description of his work.

Even though he invented fingerprinting, Herschel only ever utilized it for administrative purposes. He had no idea it could be used to arrest criminals; it was Francis Galton and Edward Henry, who built on Herschel’s foundations and converted fingerprinting into a tool for fighting crime.

One of the first Europeans to appreciate the significance of fingerprints for identification purposes was William James Herschel. In the 1850s and 1860s, he began using fingerprints and handprints instead of signatures in his work as a magistrate in colonial India. Later, he worked with scientist Francis Galton, whose research led to the creation of the first fingerprint classification system, which Scotland Yard deployed in 1901. Fingerprints had always attracted Herschel’s interest.

In 1916, he published an account of his work called The Origin of Fingerprinting. Although he developed the fingerprinting technique, he only used it as an administrative tool. It was Francis Galton and Edward Henry, building on his work, who turned fingerprinting into a crime-fighting tool.

Credit : Forensic’s Blog

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Anne Frank (12 June 1929 - early March 1945), a Jewish teenager who had to go into hiding to evade the Nazis during WW II. Subsequently arrested, she died in a concentration camp aged 15, one of more than 1 million Jewish children who died in the Holocaust. She is best known for her diary (published posthumously), which continues to touch people today.

Her goal was to become a writer when the war ended. But she didn’t wait to start developing her craft. She was given a diary on her thirteenth birthday and began to write in it. She credits the writing in her diary with helping retain her sanity while not able to go outside her confined quarters for two years. Anne saw firsthand what oppression and hatred could do to a person’s hopes and dreams. She also understood that one person could make a difference. So Anne did what she could. And though she didn’t live to see her eventual contribution, she really DID start to improve the world in her own quiet way. Her book has been read by countless millions. It’s been translated into 70 languages and published in more than 60 countries. Its impact is beyond measure.

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As former national security adviser JN Dixit wrote, Shastri unexpectedly authorised the Indian armed forces to expand the scope of the war beyond Jammu and Kashmir across the international border with Pakistan and the army was ready to aim at Lahore and Sialkot. This surprised Pakistan and forced them to withdraw their forces from the Chhamb-Akhnoor sector and resist Lahore and Sialkot. This move effectively put Pakistan, which aimed Kashmir, to go on the defensive. Wolpert was also referring to this strategic upper hand India had in the war.

The United Nations suggested a ceasefire and both countries agreed to it. The formalities were later completed with the signing of the Tashkent Declaration. In hindsight, it was just one of the several agreements the two countries had signed. But as Wolpert wrote, Shastri never awoke to help implement that hopeful accord. He was found dead. No post-mortem. No official inquiry. Crisis man Gulzarilal Nanda was readied a second time to swear in as prime minister. End of story.

Current defence minister Manohar Parrikar has been critical of the Indian media that they did not give necessary coverage to the celebrations of the war victory anniversary. But what respect has the nation returned to Shastri? Even after 49 years of his death, Shastri's family has been asking for nothing more than justice to his memory. His family says his body sported blue patches by the time it reached India and that it also had several injury marks on it. As you would expect, our government still keeps classified files about Shastri's death, much like in the case of Subhas Chandra Bose.

Lal Bahadur Shastri, who became the second Prime Minister of India on 9 June 1964, was hailed as a national hero following victory in the Indo-Pak War of 1965. His slogan "Jai Jawan Jai Kisan" became very popular during the war and is remembered even today. The war formally ended in the Tashkent Agreement of 10 January 1966; he died the following day, still in Tashkent, of a heart attack.

Credit : DailyO

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Can a geeky, sixth grade high school English teacher conjure up a world much beyond the four walls of his classroom? A world filled with hyperactive demigods and quests? Well, the answer lies within the 39 books penned by young adults’ writer, Rick Riordan.

If you are anywhere between 11 and 14, chances are you have already devoured the Percy Jackson series. You may have already imagined being the son or a daughter of a Greek god and what super powers you would like to possess.

If all this is true, then of course you know all about Rick Riordan. Even the story of how his son's attention deficit disorder (ADHD and dyslexia) inspired the stories in which all the demigods have ADHD. But did you know that Riordan has mild dyslexia? Or that he loves villains and fast cars, but hated to read till he was 13?

A nerd in school

Like his protagonist. Percy Jackson, Riordan is an unlikely superhero. He never scored straight A's in his school life, neither did he embark on any daredevil adventures to save the earth. In fact, he was a pretty average kid maybe even a bit nerdy. For the longest time he was a lead singer in a folk rock band-not the most hippest of music genres, and later turned to teaching

From Clark Kent to Superman

But it was while telling bedtime stories to his son Haley that Riordon donned his cape. His super power? Ability to breathe life into mythology.

Aged nine, his son refused to read, but loved Greek myths so Riordan used to tell him about the Greek gods and heroes. One night he ran out of myths, and a disappointed Haley insisted that he make something up with his own characters. Thus, Percy Jackson was born.

A reluctant reader

But his own love of mythology came late in life. He didn't like books and avoided reading until he got into junior high school and discovered the Lord of the Rings. That's also when he decided to become a writer. He sent in his first story at age 13. It was promptly rejected, but he kept trying."I have a great deal of sympathy for reluctant readers because I was one," he reportedly said.

His struggle with ADHD

In an interview with a British media, he said, "I'm afraid I'm very ADHD, much like Percy. There are days when I'll write for 15 minutes and have to give up and move around, and I'll write another paragraph and give up again. On other days I get intensely focused on the process, sit down at 8 a.m. and won't get up until 8 p.m.”

Riordan said that writing his own novels was an achievement for him, one that he rates as an "in yer face moment" for all those teachers who ignored him. "Basically, I misspell stuff but that's about as far as the dyslexia hinders me."

A Potterhead

Just like millions all over the world, the bespectacled wizard, Harry Potter, captured Riordan's imagination too. Even today, after writing best selling series equal in fame to the Potter novels, Riordan remains a Potterhead. "As a teacher, I've never seen anything like Harry Potter. That's why I smart when people talk about the next Harry Potter. There is no 'next Harry Potter. There never was a Harry Potter before Harry Potter. It's completely unprecedented in children's literature. I had students who read these books 13, 14 times and I would say, 'Great book, but don't you want to try something else?' And they would say. There's nothing else this good."" he said in one of his interviews.

Loves villains

But unlike everyone else, you might not catch Riordan rooting for Harry. In fact, he is more likely to be on the Dark Side. Surprised? The Percy Jackson writer loves villains! And guess who his favourite is? The mischievous Loki! No wonder he has been able to create pure evil-doers in the form of Lord Kronos or Luke Castellan.

Married his high school sweetheart

Percy Jackson may find it hard to please his father Poseidon, but Riordan's own family life is remarkably stable: the only child of two teachers, he grew up in San Antonio and met his future wife, at the age of 15. "We were high-school sweethearts. We’ve grown up together and it's hard to get away with anything because she knows everything about me," he said in one of his interviews.

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Franklin P. Mall, M.D., was the first professor of anatomy at Johns Hopkins. Sabin attributed much of her early success in medicine to the mentorship provided by Mall, who became Sabin's mentor, advocate, and intellectual role model while she was his student. He encouraged her pursuit of “pure” (rather than applied) science, and suggested projects that would help establish her research reputation.

Much of The Florence R. Sabin Collection consists of correspondence from 1903 to 1941 between Sabin and Mabel (Glover) Mall, Franklin’s wife. The correspondence “reveals the close friendship Sabin enjoyed with the Mall family and provides a glimpse of the early years at Johns Hopkins Hospital and the work of the Anatomical Laboratory.”

While at Johns Hopkins, Sabin did important work on the origins of the lymphatic system, demonstrating that its structures were formed from the embryo’s veins rather than from other tissues (as other researchers believed at the time). She also perfected the technique of supravital staining, allowing her to investigate the origins of blood cells, blood vessels, and connective tissue.

While at the Rockefeller Institute, Sabin established the Department of Cellular Studies. She led research on the pathology of tuberculosis as part of a consortium of researchers working with the Medical Research Committee of the National Tuberculosis Association. During her thirteen years at Rockefeller, Sabin made major contributions to the understanding of tuberculosis, most notably for her discovery of the origin and processes of immune system responses to various chemical fractions isolated from the tuberculosis bacteria. Sabin remained at the Rockefeller Institute until her retirement in 1938.

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Florence Rena Sabin, American anatomist and investigator of the lymphatic system who was considered to be one of the leading women scientists of the United States.

Sabin was educated in Denver, Colorado, and in Vermont and graduated from Smith College in Massachusetts, in 1893. After teaching in Denver and at Smith to earn tuition money, she entered the Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1896. While a student she demonstrated a particular gift for laboratory work; her model of the brain stem of a newborn infant was widely reproduced for use as a teaching model in medical schools. After graduation in 1900 she interned at Johns Hopkins Hospital for a year and then returned to the medical school to conduct research under a fellowship awarded by the Baltimore Association for the Advancement of University Education of Women. In 1901 she published An Atlas of the Medulla and Midbrain, which became a popular medical text. In 1902, when Johns Hopkins finally abandoned its policy of not appointing women to its medical faculty, Sabin was named an assistant in anatomy, and she became in 1917 the school’s first female full professor.

For a number of years Sabin’s research centred on the lymphatic system, and her demonstration that lymphatic vessels develop from a special layer of cells in certain fetal veins, rather than, as prevailing theory held, from intercellular spaces, established her as a researcher of the first rank. She then turned to the study of blood, blood vessels, and blood cells and made numerous discoveries regarding their origin and development. In 1924 she was elected president of the American Association of Anatomists, and in 1925 she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences; in both cases she was the first woman to be so honoured.

Credit :  Britannica 

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Florence Rena Sabin was an American anatomist who contributed to research in the lymphatic system, blood vessels and cells, and tuberculosis. She was the first woman to be elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences; to become a full professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the president of the American Association of Anatomists. She was considered to be one of the leading women scientists of her time. Florence Rena Sabin was born in 1871 in Colorado. Florence's mother died from puerperal fever (sepsis), when she was just seven. She was brought up by her grandparents and uncle, who instilled a love for Nature in Florence.

Throughout her childhood, Florence wanted to become a pianist but her experience at Vermont Academy made her shift her focus to science. She began her career as a teacher in Denver and at Smith College, in Massachusetts. This helped her save for the tuition money to enter the Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore.

In 1896, she became one of 14 women in a class of 45 students at Johns Hopkins Medical School. At Hopkins, Sabin studied anatomy under mentor Franklin Paine Mall.

On brain structure

Following graduation, Sabin obtained an internship at Hopkins. Sabin worked on mapping the anatomical presentation of neonatal brain structure. In 1901, she published An Atlas of the Medulla and Midbrain, which became a popular medical text. In 1917, she became the school's first female full professor, teaching embryology and histology in the Department of Anatomy.

For many years, Sabin's research focussed on the lymphatic system. She disproved a prevailing theory by demonstrating that lymphatic vessels develop from a special layer of cells in certain fetal veins, rather than from intercellular spaces. She then turned to the study of blood, blood vessels, and blood cells and made numerous discoveries regarding their origin and development.

In 1925, she joined the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and conducted research on the pathology and immunology of tuberculosis. She played a key role in legislating Colorado's public health program after the end of World War II and also fought for the rights of women scientists and doctors.

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