Terminal digit preference
Marshall A. Lichtman Rochester, New York, United States Figure 1. There are three types of sphygmomanometer; mercury, aneroid, and digital. This figure is of a manual aneroid sphygmomanometer. The rubber pump is used to raise the cuff pressure above the patient’s systolic pressure and then the pressure is released by unscrewing slowly the small […]
The Doctors Cori, carbohydrate metabolism, and the Nobel prize
Beta-d-glucose. Image by Rob Hooft, via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 Energy in animals and humans is stored in the body in the form of glycogen. Starch, a similar molecule but less branched, serves the same function in plants. Glycogen, discovered by Claude Bernard in 1856, is stored primarily in the liver (about 120 grams) and […]
Thomas Henry Huxley
JMS Pearce East Yorks, England Fig 1. TH Huxley. print by Lock & Whitfield. 1880 or earlier. Via Wikimedia. “In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration . . . In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are […]
The first description of DNA: a six million dollar letter from Francis to Michael Crick
Marshall A. Lichtman Rochester, New York, United States Figure 1. The boyish appearing James Watson (left) and the Francis Crick with their three-dimensional model of DNA in their Cavendish Laboratory office at Cambridge University, United Kingdom. Circa 1953. Photo credit: A. Barrington Brown/Science Photo Library. Via the Rockefeller University Digital Commons. In the April […]
Ernest Henry Starling and the birth of English Physiology
JMS Pearce Hull, England Fig 1. Ernest Starling. Univ. College. Graduate Guy Hospital. 1890. London. (From Images from the History of Medicine (NLM) ). Accessed via Wikimedia Science has only one language, quantity, and only one argument, the experiment -EH Starling Ernest Henry Starling (1866-1927) (Fig 1) was an outstanding figure in the […]
Tu Youyou, discoverer of artemisinin for resistant malaria
Tu Youyou, Nobel Laureate in medicine in Stockholm December 2015. Photo by Bengt Nyman. December 6, 2015. The Chinese scientist Tu Youyou received the 2011 Lasker–DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award and the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for isolating a chemical agent to be used in the treatment of resistant malaria. Born in […]
The wife of Antoine Lavoisier
Born in 1758 and described as beautiful and intellectually curious, Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze became the wife of the famous chemist and scientist Antoine Lavoisier, acting as his laboratory assistant and contributing to his work. After her husband’s execution during the French Revolution, she assembled and published his papers and remarried in 1804. She lived until […]
Loathsome Beasts: Images of reptiles and amphibians in art and science
The history of how reptiles and amphibians have been represented throughout history has been well covered by Professor Kay Etheridge of Gettysburg College in a learned article in 2007. She starts off by reminding her readers that “loathsome beasts” have received less attention than higher vertebrates, largely as they are not useful for food, sport, […]
Albert Einstein headed off at the “Nobel pass” by Alvar Gullstrand
Jayant Radhakrishnan Darien, IL USA Photograph of Albert Einstein in his office at the University of Berlin. c1920. Accessed via Wikimedia. Allvar Gullstrand. Unknown artist. The National Library of Medicine. Allvar Gullstrand was a brilliant ophthalmologist and the second of eleven surgeons who have received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. He was awarded […]
William Beaumont and Alexis St. Martin
The picturesque island of Mackinac lies three miles off the coast of Michigan, at the junction of Lakes Huron and Michigan. It is a favorite resort where tourists can admire old French-style buildings with tall slated roofs, ride in open carriages pulled by horses that know when to turn or stop, and stay at the […]