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[I]njurious to health?... Anybody who says saccharin is injurious to health is an idiot!" President Theodore Roosevelt On February 27, 1879, Ira Remsen (1846-1927) and Constantin Fahlberg (1850-1910), two chemists from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, were working on the oxidation of o-toluenesulfonamide, a coal tar derivative. Legend has it that both scientists went home for dinner and tasted a sweet residue on their foods, which originated from their unwashed hands. The next day they compared notes on this mysterious sweet chemical and checked their unwashed equipment. The result was a calorie-free, artificial sweetener that they later named saccharin. The scientists published their findings in 1880, though Fahlberg alone pursued a patent. Due to its lack of calories and glucose, saccharin proved very successful with consumers. However, its safety has always been controversial. In 1907, food safety officials tried to ban its use, only to be thwarted by President more...

"The Method of and Apparatus for Producing Animated Pictures of Natural Scenery and Life." Le Prince's 1888 patent French-born Louis Augustin Le Prince (1842-1890) is fittingly remembered as the star of a mystery akin to a tragic silent movie. A photographer trained by Daguerre himself, as well as a chemist and artist, he worked secretively on pioneering moving-image experiments before disappearing just before revealing his findings. Many feel that Edison and the Lumiere brothers wrongly displaced him as the inventors of motion pictures. Some even suggest that he was killed by rivals in this fiercely competitive race. In the 1880s, Le Prince was one of several people working on Kinematographs—early machines for capturing and showing moving images. In 1888, he patented a sixteen-lens Kinematograph that probably never worked properly. He also produced a single-lens device incorporating Eastman paper film and, in the fall of 1888, used it to film horses more...

"Raise your glasses, please, to the Crapper who installed the royal flush!” Adam Hart-Davis, English scientist and broadcaster With his name as manufacturer proudly cast in the iron of countless toilet cisterns the world over, Thomas Crapper (1836-1910) is unlikely ever to be dissociated with visits to the lavatory. But one of the most disappointing of facts relating to inventions is that he did not himself invent the flush toilet. He did, however, popularize and endorse the flush toilet, and he was indeed a plumber. As a young child in the mid-nineteenth century he was apprenticed to a master plumber, gaining the same title himself at the age of twenty. His plumbing was exceptional and he even did work for members of the Royal Family. Crapper's invention of the ballcock was one of nine patents he received, and one of three that were related to improving toilet design. The ballcock more...

"Man is a tool-using animal....Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all." Thomas Carlyle, historian Johann Fetter Johannson (1853-1943) was one of Sweden's most prolific inventors. He amassed an impressive 118 patents over his lifetime, including one for tongs to enable people to put sugar cleanly into their tea. However, undoubtedly Johannson's greatest contribution to manufacturing and engineering was his adjustable wrench. When Johannson opened his first workshop in Enkoping, Sweden, in 1886, there were no standard sizes or gauges for nuts, bolts, and screws, nor for the tools that manipulated them. Johannson became literally overloaded when he went about his business because his handcart had to accommodate ever- increasing numbers of wrenches to fit his various jobs. He practically had to make a new size of wrench for each task as machines and their components were built to their own bespoke specifications. Johannson decided to make a more...

"It may take years, but the battery-electric car will eventually be back_ stronger than ever..."         Chris Payne, dir. Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006)'' Although the earliest efforts to develop electric vehicles were made in France and Britain, the honor of the first truly successful electric car goes to Scottish- born William Morrison in the United States. Morrison's passion was in fact for storage batteries—he only built the car, a surrey-type high wheel carriage, to show off his latest battery. The battery holds the key to the success of any electric car, determining the speed and range of the vehicle. Morrison's car battery comprised twenty-four cells and contributed more than half of the total weight of the vehicle. It was claimed that the battery was capable of powering the vehicle for thirteen hours at speeds of up to 14miles (22.5 km) per hour on just one more...

A cardiac pacemaker is a surgically implanted electronic device that regulates a slow or erratic heartbeat. The first artificial pacemaker was invented by Dr. Mark Lidwell, an Australian anesthetist, who developed an external device running on an alternating current that required a needle to be inserted into the patient's upper heart chamber (ventricle). In 1928 Lidwell used the device to resuscitate a baby born in cardiac arrest at the Crown Street Women's Hospital in Sydney. Lidwell reported the case to the Third Congress of the Australian Medical Society in 1929, but kept a low profile due to controversy at the time surrounding research into artificially extending human life. In 1932 U.S. physiologist Albert Hyman (1893-1972) independently developed an electromechanical instrument, powered by a spring-wound, hand- cranked motor, that he referred to as an "artificial pacemaker."The first internal pacemaker was developed by Swede Rune Elmqvist and implanted into a patient in more...

Biodiesel, technically described as mono-alkyi esters of vegetable oil or animal fat, is to many a new concept in man's quest to rely less on petroleum-based products in daily life. The first biodiesel, however, was produced in the lab decades ago and is still cited as an important technological advance in the area of alternative fuel sources. The name biodiesel originates from the word diesel, a type of engine invented by Rudolph Diesel in 1892. Diesel first displayed his invention in 1900, at the Paris World's Fair. Rather unexpectedly, his diesel engine actually ran on peanut oil. However, it was in 1937 that a Belgian scientist at the University of Brussels, G. Chavanne, was granted a patent entitled "Procedure for the transformation of vegetable oils for their uses as fuels." In the patent, Chavanne describes the use of palm oil as diesel fuel. The reaction was called alcoholysis (also known more...