October 2 Science History

1987 - Peter Medawar died.

Medawar was a British zoologist who was awarded half the 1960 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his research on the immune system and rejection of tissue transplants. He developed the theory of acquired immunological tolerance through his work on skin grafts. He recognized tissue rejection as an immunological response and paved the way for more successful tissue and organ transplants.

1927 - Svante Arrhenius died.

Svante August Arrhenius was a famous Swedish physicist and chemist. He is considered to be one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry. Arrhenius is known for the Arrhenius equation and for winning the 1903 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the theory of electrolytic dissociation.

1917 - Christian René de Duve was born.

Duve is a Belgian biochemist and cytologist who shares the 1974 Nobel Prize in Medicine with George E. Palade and Albert Claude for their discoveries concerning the structure and function of the parts of the cell. Duve discovered lysosomes and peroxisomes. Lysosomes are organelles that contain digestive enzymes that break down old organelles, food, engulfed viruses or bacteria within the cell. Peroxisomes are organelles that aid in the metabolism of fatty acids and are found in almost all eukaryotic cells.

1907 - Alexander Robertus Todd was born.

Todd was a Scottish biochemist who was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work with nucleotides, nucleosides and their co-enzymes. He studied the structure and synthesis of many of these compounds that are the building blocks of DNA and RNA. He also synthesized two important biochemical compounds: adenosine triphosphate or ATP and flavin adenine dinucleotide or FAD.

1883 - Karl von Terzaghi was born.

Wikimedia Commons

Terzaghi was an Austrian civil engineer and geologist who was the father of soil mechanics. Soil mechanics deals with the behavior and physics of soil under stresses such as earthquakes, explosions, wind, waves or even heavy foot traffic. This is a vitally important concept to engineering and construction.

1852 - William Ramsay was born.

Nobel Prize Foundation

Ramsay was a British chemist who discovered the four gases neon,argon, krypton and xenon. He also determined they belonged with helium and radon to form a family of gases called the noble gases. This discovery would earn him the 1904 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.