Oct. 30, 1958 - Medical Oops Leads to First Coronary Angiogram

In the basement laboratory of the Cleveland Clinic, US, a cardiologist accidentally injects a large amount of dye into the small vessels of a patient's heart during a routine imaging test. To the doctor's great surprise — and relief — the dye doesn't send the heart into a fatal spasm, and this happy accident marks the birth of modern cardiac imaging.

Before F. Mason Sones Jr. made his fateful mistake, conventional medical wisdom held that injecting contrast dye into the coronary arteries — the small vessels feeding the heart itself — would instantly cause a deadly arrhythmia called ventricular fibrillation. Although doctors in the 1950s regularly used dye to view the valves and chambers of a person's heart, fear of killing their patients kept them from even attempting to visualize the smaller vessels.

Without a clear view of the coronary arteries, cardiologists couldn't assess a person's heart attack risk or intervene if the vessels were partially or completely blocked. But as soon as Sones discovered that dye could be safely inserted into the coronary arteries, he began developing the technique of modern angiography, which lets cardiologists see and fix clogged arteries in the heart.

Sones' accident marked a huge step forward for cardiac imaging, but the event itself was far from serene. On the morning of Oct. 30 when the incident occurred, Sones was attempting to look at the heart valves of a 26-year-old man with rheumatoid arthritis. The procedure required injecting 40 to 50 milliliters of contrast dye into the patient's aorta, a giant vessel that sits right next to the opening of the right coronary artery.

To Sones' horror, right before an assistant injected the dye, the tip of the tube flipped into the right coronary artery, and more than half the dye went squirting into the tiny vessel. According to an account from cardiologist Julio Sosa, who was present at the time, Sones cried, "We've killed him!" and rushed to the patient's side to get ready to open his chest and massage the heart by hand if necessary.

But instead of going into ventricular fibrillation, the patient's heart simply skipped a few beats and then recovered. Sones realized almost immediately that he had made a very important discovery: Patients could easily survive even a large injection of dye into their heart vessels.

"During the ensuing days I began to think that this accident might point the way for the development of a technique which was exactly what we had been seeking," Sones wrote. "If a human could tolerate such a massive injection of contrast directly into a coronary artery, then it might be possible to accomplish this kind of opacification with smaller amounts of a more dilute contrast. With considerable fear and trepidation we embarked on a program to accomplish this objective."

Over the next few years, Sones and colleagues at the Cleveland Clinic developed the technique of cardiac catheterization, which involved inserting a flexible tube into the coronary arteries, injecting a small amount of dye and viewing the arteries with an X-ray camera. By 1967, Sones had performed this procedure on more than 8,200 patients, and today he is known as the father of modern cardiac imaging.

Dr. Mason Sones Jr.

"Without the work of Dr. Mason Sones, Jr. — the most important contributor to modern cardiology — all our efforts in myocardial revascularization would have been fruitless," said pioneering cardiac surgeon René Favaloro. Favaloro was the first doctor to perform coronary bypass surgery, a procedure that shunts blood around a clogged coronary artery.

Cardiac imaging is thought to have saved the lives of countless heart patients during the last 50 years. Perhaps most of those saved owe their lives to a serendipitous medical error in 1958.

Sources -

1. Wikipedia

2. Wired

3. Pacific Science Center

Short Story of the Long S

October 28 or 29, 1675 – Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (a German polymath who discovered the field of calculus independently) makes the first use of the long s (∫) as a symbol of the integral in calculus.

The long, medial, or descending s (ſ) is an archaic form of the lower case letter s. It replaced a single s, or the first in a double s, at the beginning or in the middle of a word (e.g. "ſucceſsſul" for "successful"), and in ligature form (e.g. "Tiſſick" for "Tissick"). The modern letter form is known as the short, terminal, or round s.

The medial 's' in Old Roman cursive

The long s was derived from the old Roman cursive medial s. When the distinction between majuscule (uppercase) and minuscule (lowercase) letter forms became established, toward the end of the eighth century, it developed a more vertical form. During this period, it was occasionally used at the end of a word, a practice that quickly died but that was occasionally revived in Italian printing between about 1465 and 1480. The double s in the middle of a word was also written with a long s and a short s, as in Miſsiſsippi.

Title page of John Milton's Paradise Lost, featuring an "ſt" ligature

The long s survives in elongated form, with an italic-styled curled descender, as the integral symbol ∫ used in calculus; Leibniz based the character on the Latin summa "sum", which he wrote ſumma. This use first appeared publicly in his paper De Geometria, published in Acta Eruditorum of June 1686, but he had been using it in private manuscripts at least since 28 October 1675.

Source - Wikipedia

Hubble telescope fixed by 'jiggling it around'

The Hubble space telescope is close to resuming full operations after Nasa “jiggled it around”.

The telescope was sidelined earlier this month after a gyroscope failed, leaving it unable to point in the right direction during observations. The device had been expected to fail at some point this year, but the surprise came when a backup did not kick in properly after the initial failure. As a result, Hubble has remained in so-called safe mode and all science observations are on hold.

Gyroscopes are needed to keep Hubble pointing in the right direction as it operates 545km above Earth. Precise pointing is crucial: astronomers use the telescope to peer deep into the cosmos, revealing faraway galaxies, black holes and solar systems. Last week, astronomers said they may have discovered the first moon outside our solar system, with Hubble’s help.

The problem with the backup gyroscope was spotted when detectors in the gyroscope wrongly signalled that the wheel within the device was rotating at a much greater rate than that 19,200 revolutions per minute it should be spinning at.

Nasa expected Hubble to return to normal science operations soon after it performed a “running restart” of the gyroscope on 16 October, which turned the device off for a second. The intention was to clear any faults that may have occurred during a restart on 6 October. That did not seem to work so it was followed up on 18 October with a series of spacecraft manoeuvres – known as turns – in an attempt to clear any blockage around the sealed “float” which contains the spinning wheel in the gyroscope.

At the same time the system was switched between two modes to help with the procedure. Nasa believes that the dodgy rotation speeds could have arisen if the float was off centre in the device. Further jiggling of the telescope and twiddling of switches was performed: the issue now appears to be resolved.

The 28-year-old telescope has had trouble with its gyroscopes before. Shuttle astronauts replaced all six in 2009 during a spacewalk on the final servicing mission. Three of the devices are now considered unusable.

Source - The Guardian

Jonas Salk, Polio Vaccination and Elvis Presley - a strange connection!

He was more than just the King of Rock and Roll. Elvis Presley popularised polio vaccination in the United States during the 1950s and is credited with raising immunisation levels in the United States from 0.6% to over 80% in just six months.

The American Polio Epidemic and the Salk Polio Vaccine

Poliomyelitis or polio is an infectious disease caused by the polio virus. Regular instance of polio epidemic ravaged North American cities from 1930s to 1950s with thousands of cases and thousands of death.

Fear of polio became widespread in the US, and the local governments would shutdown public places and lock down their cities during instances of polio outbreaks. But none of those lock downs or disinfection worked. Polio continued to infect and affect Americans, especially the children.

The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, in 1948, asked medical researcher and virologist Jonas Salk to join their growing network of polio researchers. Salk announced his discovery of an effective polio vaccine in 1955.

Jonas Edward Salk

How Elvis Presley popularised Polio Vaccination

The discovery of the Salk polio vaccine was a major milestone in polio research. It provided a solution to eradicate the epidemic through immunisation. But the American public was not readily receptive of the concept of immunisation. Public health officials and the American government had a hard time convincing the people to receive the polio vaccine.

Several organisations had also opposed immunisation and other emerging healthcare initiatives. They also used the fact that Salk was a Jew and the use of his vaccine was an anti-Christian effort aimed at contaminating the bodies of children.

The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, in 1956, launched communication strategies that revolved around television, radio, and print publicity to promote polio vaccination. One of the strategies employed by the foundation together with the New York City Health Department was to use celebrities. In October 1956, the two institutions launched a publicity stunt with the help of the young Elvis Presley.

On 28 October 1956, Elvis Presley got a polio vaccination on national television. Other press people covered the event and newspapers across the U.S. published the resulting photographs. The stunt indicated that the vaccine was safe, thus helping promote public confidence. This single event is credited with raising immunisation levels in the United States from 0.6% to over 80% in just six months.

It is believed that Elvis Presley and the teenagers who rallied behind the Salk polio vaccine might be the first, largest, and most successful example of teen health activism.

Sources -

1. The Guardian

2. Wikipedia

3. Version Daily

Which Ocean Is the World’s Smallest?

We humans may spend most of our time on land, but we live in a saltwater-dominated world, with ocean covering 71 percent of Earth's surface. Geographers divide the globe's ocean into named regions, and the smallest of these is the Arctic Ocean.

Even the smallest of the world's oceans is impressively vast. Stretching for about 13.8 million square kilometres, the Arctic Ocean measures over 4 times larger than the size of India. It's located at the polar region of the Northern Hemisphere and is almost completely surrounded by the continents of Europe, Asia and North America. Frigid conditions keep the Arctic Ocean partly covered in ice throughout the year and entirely covered in winter, although rising global temperatures have led to increased melting of this Arctic sea ice.

The Arctic Ocean is not only ranked the smallest in size (it's 10 times smaller than the Pacific Ocean), it's also the shallowest. The average ocean depth is 3.7 kilometres. The Arctic Ocean's average depth, meanwhile, is much shallower — around 1.04 kilometres. That's like water sloshing in a kiddie pool when compared to the deepest regions of the Pacific Ocean, which have been measured to around 11 kilometres deep.

The relatively small size and depth of the Arctic Ocean have led some to resist classifying it as an ocean, instead referring to it as part of the Atlantic Ocean called the Arctic Mediterranean Sea or simply the Arctic Sea. Seas are considered smaller parts of oceans that are partially enclosed by land.

It may seem unusual that some scientists would challenge whether a body of water is an ocean, but debate around the world's oceans extends beyond the Arctic. Historically, the global community has recognised four oceans: the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic Oceans.

In 2000, the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), added a fifth: The Southern Ocean. This ocean, also called The Antarctic Ocean, encircles Antarctica and makes up the southernmost waters on Earth, below the 60-degree south latitude. The addition of the Southern Ocean, while generally accepted, has not yet been ratified because not all members of the IHO have officially accepted the parameters defining the Southern Ocean as a fifth ocean.

So how many oceans are there — four or five? For now, the surest answer may be one since, technically, all the world's oceans are in fact connected as a single, vast body of salt water.

Source - HowStuffWorks.com

William Lassell - brewer turned astronomer and his discoveries

Oct. 24, 1851 - William Lassell discovered two moons of Uranus, Umbriel and Ariel.

William Lassell was an English merchant and made his fortune as a beer brewer, which enabled him to indulge his interest in astronomy.

He built an observatory at his house "Starfield" in West Derby, a suburb of Liverpool. There he had a 24-inch (610 mm) reflector telescope, for which he pioneered the use of an equatorial mount for easy tracking of objects as the Earth rotates. He ground and polished the mirror himself, using equipment he constructed.

In 1846 Lassell discovered Triton, the largest moon of Neptune, just 17 days after the discovery of Neptune itself by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle. In 1848 he independently co-discovered Hyperion, a moon of Saturn. In 1851 he discovered Ariel and Umbriel, two moons of Uranus.

In 1850, Lassell made his first sighting of the dark inner ring of Saturn (called the crepe ring); he spent the entire night verifying the discovery only to find in his morning newspaper an article announcing William Bond’s discovery of the same phenomenon.

Umbriel is a moon of Uranus and consists mainly of ice with a substantial fraction of rock, and may be differentiated into a rocky core and an icy mantle

Ariel is the fourth-largest of the 27 known moons of Uranus

The crater Lassell on the Moon, a crater on Mars, the asteroid 2636 Lassell and a ring of Neptune are named in his honour. At the University of Liverpool the William Lassell prize is awarded to the student with the highest grades graduating the B.Sc. program in Physics with Astronomy each year.

Sources -

1. Encyclopædia Britannica
2. Journal for the History of Astronomy
3. Wikipedia
4. Pacific Science Center

Chinese city 'plans to launch artificial moon to replace streetlights'

In Chengdu, there is reportedly an ambitious plan afoot for replacing the city’s streetlights: boosting the glow of the real moon with that of a more powerful fake one.

Jiutian Tower illuminated at night with full moon in the background, Chengdu, China

The south-western Chinese city plans to launch an illumination satellite in 2020. According to an account in the People’s Daily, the artificial moon is “designed to complement the moon at night”, though it would be eight times as bright. The “dusk-like glow” of the satellite would be able to light an area with a diameter of 10-80km, while the precise illumination range could be controlled within tens of metres – enabling it to replace streetlights.

The vision was shared by Wu Chunfeng, the chairman of the private space contractor Chengdu Aerospace Science and Technology Microelectronics System Research Institute Co (Casc). Wu reportedly said testing had begun on the satellite years ago and the technology had now evolved enough to allow for launch in 2020.

The People’s Daily report credited the idea to “a French artist, who imagined hanging a necklace made of mirrors above the Earth which could reflect sunshine through the streets of Paris all year round”.

The likelihood of Chengdu’s fake moon rising remains to be seen. But there are precedents for this moonage daydream rooted in science, though the technology and ambitions differ.

In 2013 three large computer-controlled mirrors were installed above the Norwegian town of Rjukan to track the movement of the sun and reflect its rays down on the town square. (Read more at Rjukan sun: the Norwegian town that does it with mirrors)

Longer ago, in the 1990s, a team of Russian astronomers and engineers succeeded in launching a satellite into space to deflect sunlight back to Earth, briefly illuminating the night-time hemisphere. The Znamya experiment was to “test the feasibility of illuminating points on Earth with light equivalent to that of several full moons”, the New York Times said. “Several” proved an overstatement, but the design was shown to be sound. (Read more at Russians to Test Space Mirror as Giant Night Light for Earth)

A more ambitious attempt, Znamya 2.5, was made in 1999, prompting preemptive concerns about light pollution disrupting nocturnal animals and astronomical observation. But Znamya 2.5 misfired on launch and its creators failed to raise funding for another attempt.

The People’s Daily was quick to reassure those concerned about the fake moon’s impact on night-time wildlife. Kang Weimin, director of the Institute of Optics, School of Aerospace, Harbin Institute of Technology, explains that, "the light of the satellite is similar to a dusk-like glow, so it should not affect animals’ routines”.

Let's wait and see..

Source - The Guardian

Teachers who inspired great scientists

A great teacher can change the world.

All of us can recall a special teacher who inspired us, challenged us, opened our eyes to new possibilities.

“You remember them because they lit a flame within you,” says astrophysicist and science popularizer Neil deGrasse Tyson. “They got you excited about a subject you previously didn’t care about, because they were excited about it themselves. Put that in every classroom, and it will change the world.”

In celebration of UNESCO World Teachers Day (5th October), we present reflections from some of the world’s greatest physicists, past and present, on the teachers who inspired them.

Article published by Perimeter Institute

Write about your favourite teacher in the comments below!