Science Projects And Inventions

In 1784 Scottish millwright and inventor Andrew Meikle invented the threshing machine, probably drawing inspiration from a design Michael Menzies had patented fifty years earlier. Once grain plants are harvested it is necessary to separate the grain from the plant. After a failed first attempt in 1778 Meikle built a machine that could complete this process in a fraction of the time that had previously been required. As the machines slowly spread across Britain, they were greeted with a wave of hostility from discontented villagers. Threshing had previously offered an opportunity for laborers to supplement their income during the winter period, and their livelihood was now under threat. Understandably, they revolted. Threshing machines are not particularly safe to operate; they beat and thrash at whatever is fed to them, be that sheaves of grain plants or arms and legs. Meikle's final design used a strong drum with fixed beaters. Thus, more...

The invention of the sandwich is popularly credited to John Montague, Fourth Earl of Sandwich. Its origins. Go much further back than this, however. Another common belief comes from the Jewish tradition— that the sandwich was invented by Hillel the Elder in the first century B.C.E. During Passover, Hillel the Elder's invention is commemorated in the text: "This is what Hillel did when the Temple existed: he used to enwrap the Paschal lamb, the matzo, and the bitter herbs and eat them as one." At this point of the remembrance service, the participants do likewise. Evidence suggests that the sandwich may go back even further than this, to the days of the Hittite Empire, hundreds of years before. There are records of soldiers of the empire being issued with meat between slices of bread as their rations.              Today's sandwich comes in a multitude of more...

"[I'm looking for] improvements in the taste and science of architecture." Ithiel Town A Clun Castle steam engine crossing the Royal Albert Bridge, built by 1. K. Brunei in the 1850s in England. The viaduct above the Upper Genesee Falls at Portageville, New York, exemplifies the truss bridge. The concept of a bridge built from trusses— frameworks of straight parts connected to form a pattern of triangles—was first described by the Italian father of Western architecture, Andrew Palladio, in 1570. However, trussed frames had already been in use by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, and simple timber trusses are believed to have been used in bridge construction in Europe by the time Palladio was writing. However, the heyday of the truss bridge came in the early nineteenth century in the United States. The impetus came from the development of rail transport and the need to convey heavy rail vehicles safely more...

The year 1982 marked a huge step in diabetes care and ushered in a new era of drug production, thanks to the development of Humulin", the first fully human insulin product. Until then, diabetes patients were given insulin derived from animal sources, mostly cattle and pigs. At around the same time, advancements in gene technology finally allowed for the manufacturing of fully human insulin. The molecule insulin was discovered in the early 1920s, and the first injections of insulin from cattle into humans quickly followed. Although this early insulin was extremely impure and had numerous side effects, it certainly saved the lives of many diabetics.  In the following decades there were further advancements in the development of insulin, including improvements in purity and the chemical synthesis of human insulin. In 1978 researchers at Genentech, Inc., in San Francisco, California began working on producing fully human insulin from recombinant DNA in more...

Synthetic blood is a product that acts as a substitute for red blood cells, designed with the purpose of transporting oxygen and carbon dioxide around the body. The development of artificial blood is desirable because of the problems associated with blood transfusions, particularly the risk of transmitting viral diseases such as HIV and hepatitis. There are also difficulties with transporting and storing blood (synthetic blood is kept in powder form), as well as a perpetual shortage of blood donors. In 1956 Thomas Chan (b. 1933), working on an undergraduate research project at McGill University, Montreal, created the first artificial blood cells. Turning his dormitory room into a makeshift laboratory, Chan used improvised materials (including perfume atomizers) and cellulose nitrate solution (a material used to coat wounds) to create a permeable sack that could transport hemoglobin. Hemoglobin can be extracted from old donor blood, cow's blood, plants, and fungi. It is more...

In the middle of the second millennium C.E. the battlefield was dominated by armored cavalry and the romantic concept of the chivalrous knight in armor. However, a technological innovation was about to take place that would completely change warfare. The invention in question was called the "hackenbushce," or arquebus, probably a derivative of the Dutch word haakbus, meaning "hook-gun." The arquebus was one of the first effective examples of a handheld firearm. By this time, using gunpowder to fire projectiles was not a new idea. Cannons had existed since the early 1300s, and smaller "hand-cannons" had developed to complement these. These early firearms were basically small cannons mounted on poles or on crossbow stocks, and were fired by touching the vent- hole with a match, which would ignite the powder and fire the projectile. The particular innovation of the arquebus, which cannot be attributed to one person but is probably more...

"In 1918, 1 think it was that I made my first invention. I built a machine to throw rocks." Jacob Rabinow Jacob Rabinow (1910-1999) left Russia with his family during the Russian Revolution, arriving eventually in New York. After studying electrical engineering, he worked for the American National Bureau of Standards, where he began churning out inventions, which led to a staggering 230 U.S. patents. His first inventions were military and involved missile guidance systems, but he is probably best known for his "Reading Machine." Optical character recognition (OCR) had been around for some time. A commercial system was installed at the offices of Reader's Digest in 1955, but the results were often unpredictable. In 1960 Rabinow incorporated a new principle into the idea that would greatly reduce the errors made- by other reading systems. His machine was the first to include a "Best Match Principle," which compared the information more...

The first radio broadcasts made at the beginning of the twentieth century were based on the principles of amplitude modulation, or AM. Radio waves were broadcast at a specific frequency, and the receiver would detect amplitude variations before decoding the signal. Although poor in sound quality—primarily a deliberate technical limitation to deal with the sheer volume of AM radio stations—and prone to interference, it remained the dominant commercial mode for broadcast until the 1970s. In 1933, Edwin H. Armstrong (1890-1954) patented an alternative method for making radio broadcasts using frequency modulation—FM. The basic principle has the carrier wave modulated so that its frequency varies with the audio signal being transmitted. The main benefit of FM over AM is that it enables broadcasts to be received with a minimum of interference: assorted atmospheric conditions, such as thunderstorms, or surrounding electrical activity, such as car ignitions, can themselves create AM signals thus more...

"To really enjoy fake meat, you might have to forget ...the true origins of the stuff you're [eating]." Farhad Manjoo, Wired Magazine (2002) Meat substitutes are in increasing demand as more people reduce their meat intake or switch to vegetarianism. Edible mycoprotein, popularly known by the brand name Quorn™, offers a high-protein alternative to those consuming little or no meat. But vegetarianism was not on the minds of the U.K. pioneers of this food, who were seeking a ready source of protein against an anticipated global shortage. The solution came from the least exotic of locations—a, field near the small English town of Marlow where the mold species Fusarium venenatum was discovered in 1967; it was soon identified as a potential source of mycoprotein. Fungal extracts were assessed for human consumption by Rank Hovis McDougall (RHM) throughout the 1970s, and by 1980 large-scale production  technigues  had  been  mastered. Mycoprotein received more...

"Magnus magnes ipse est globus terrestris. [The whole Earth is a magnet]" William Gilbert, physician and natural philosopher The Chinese discovered the orientating effect of magnetite, a magnetic ore known as lodestone (or leading stone), as early as the fourth century B.C.E. and the earliest compasses were used for quasi-magical purposes. They consisted of a piece of lodestone floating on a stick in a bowl of water, which swung around so that it. always pointed in a consistent direction. It was another thousand years before they were used for navigation. Previously navigators in the northern hemisphere had used the North Star to indicate direction, and followed earlier maps, but the compass, which aligned with the North Star, was more useful because it could be used in all conditions.     Magnetic compasses work in this way because molten iron in the center of the Earth acts as a magnetic core, more...