Today is Pluto Demoted Day. On August 24, 2006, at a meeting in Prague, Czech Republic, 424 members of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted to enact new rules governing the classification of planets.
The IAU narrowed the definition of a planet after the discovery of several worlds at the edge of our solar system. Pluto meets three of the requirements: It orbits the sun; has sufficient mass that its gravitational forces pull it into a round, or nearly round shape; and is not a satellite, or moon, of another object.
Pluto falls short due to its inability to “clear the neighborhood” by subsuming or slinging away debris in its path. After 76 years as a planet, Pluto was demoted to the newly-created status of dwarf planet. The IAU originally intended to include dwarf planets as a subcategory of planets but scrapped the plan because of the potential addition of dozens of planets to our solar system.
The move is still debated by scientists. Some say the definition is so vague that Earth could be called a dwarf planet, too. All we know for sure is that generations of kids lost their second favorite planet.*
Have a happy Pluto Demoted Day!
*#1: Uranus, of course!
https://www.worldwideweirdholidays.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/pluto-demoted-day-e1472058749933.jpg210220Kathleen Zeahttps://www.worldwideweirdholidays.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/WWWH-New-Header-2-e1501022841118.jpgKathleen Zea2017-08-24 11:55:502020-11-17 12:29:34August 24 is Pluto Demoted Day
Today is Curiosity Day. On August 5, 2012, NASA’s Mars Rover Curiosity landed on the red planet after a procedure so complicated its engineers dubbed it Seven Minutes of Terror.
On November 26, 2011, an unmanned spacecraft carrying the 1,982-pound SUV-sized rover launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. After traveling 354 million miles, it entered Mars’ thin atmosphere, its heat shield reaching 1,600 degrees as the craft slowed from 13,000 to 1,000 mph. A supersonic parachute deployed to decrease the speed further, to 200 mph.
The shield was jettisoned to allow the ship’s radar to “see” the surface. Rockets fired to slow the rate of descent to several feet per second. They couldn’t get too close to the surface because of the dust cloud they would create, potentially damaging Curiosity’s sensitive equipment.
To solve this problem, engineers designed a carrier they called a “sky crane,” which used the rockets to hover at a safe height while gently lowering the rover the rest of the way via cable. (Another nickname: “rover on a rope.”) Once it was deposited on the ground, the carrier severed the tether and veered away, crashing into the surface several hundred yards away.
The process from atmospheric entry to touchdown took seven minutes. There was a 13.8-minute delay receiving signals at Mission Control; there could be no intervention from Earth, so there was no margin for error. The outcome had already occurred. Everyone involved with the $2.5 billion project waited helplessly until the signal reached them: Curiosity had made it.
The rover is equipped with a small nuclear power plant designed to generate electricity for 14 years. Since landing, its instruments have discovered carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur in rock, methane in the atmosphere and the remains of an ancient streambed. All are indicators that life may have existed there in the past.
It has also sent back some great selfies like this one combining multiple images taken with the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at the end of its robotic arm. ( See how here.)
Another of the rover’s instruments is the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM), which utilizes vibrating plates to move soil samples through the chemistry module. On August 5, 2012, engineers directed them to produce musical notes and “sing” Happy Birthday to Curiosity.
We can’t help but be inspired by people with the vision, ingenuity and gumption to take on the challenge of the seemingly impossible and not give up until they achieve it. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory uses the phrase “Dare Mighty Things” at the end of its Seven Minutes video. It’s taken from a speech by President Theodore Roosevelt:
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
If we work together, is there anything humanity can’t do?
https://www.worldwideweirdholidays.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/curiosity-day-selfie-1-e1470872437437.jpg253252Kathleen Zeahttps://www.worldwideweirdholidays.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/WWWH-New-Header-2-e1501022841118.jpgKathleen Zea2017-08-05 11:01:402021-10-08 12:08:08August 5 is Curiosity Day
Today is Test Tube Baby Day. On July 25, 1978, in Oldham, England, Louise Joy Brown became the first person born after being conceived outside her mother’s body, in a revolutionary process now called in-vitro fertilization, or IVF.
In IVF, egg and sperm are placed together in a liquid with some smooth jazz and Bacardi 151; after the egg has been fertilized, it is transplanted into a woman’s uterus. (We’re kidding about some of that.)
The media’s description of Louise as a “test tube baby,” evocative of heretical work performed by mad scientists, was widely adopted but technically inaccurate. Her conception took place in a petri dish.
At the time, her parents knew the procedure was experimental but were unaware that it had never resulted in a baby. This called into question their ability to give informed consent and the ethics and motives of the doctors involved. Disciplinary action might have been taken had Louise not been born.
IVF has become an accepted treatment for infertility. By 2006, the World Health Organization reported that more than 1.5 million children had been conceived via the process. In 2010, Robert Edwards, one of its developers, received the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Happy birthday, Louise!
https://www.worldwideweirdholidays.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/test-tube-baby-day.jpg275250Kathleen Zeahttps://www.worldwideweirdholidays.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/WWWH-New-Header-2-e1501022841118.jpgKathleen Zea2017-07-25 11:55:152017-07-03 17:08:28Test Tube Baby Day
Nettie Stevens Day celebrates the scientist who discovered that sex is determined by XX and XY chromosomes. On July 7, 2016, the 155th anniversary of her birth, the only reason many people learned her name was by clicking on that day’s Google doodle.
She studied mealworms and found that a male’s sperm carried both X and Y chromosomes, while a female’s eggs contained only X chromosomes. She concluded that sex determination must come from fertilization of the egg by the sperm. In 1905, she submitted for publication a paper reporting her results.
Meanwhile, Columbia University scientist Edmund Beecher Wilson had reached the same conclusion. He was asked to review Stevens’ paper prior to its publication; his own paper had reportedly already gone to press, negating any possibility of dishonesty.
Historian Stephen Brush disputes the timeline in The History of Science Society, “It is generally stated that E. B. Wilson obtained the same results as Stevens, at the same time,” he writes. But “Wilson probably did not arrive at his conclusion on sex determination until after he had seen Stevens’ results.”
In fact, Wilson wrongly asserted that environmental factors could influence sex. Stevens insisted it was all due to chromosomes. At the time, there was no way to prove either theory. But it’s been known for decades that Stevens got it right. It renders the question of who published first irrelevant.
In spite of that, Wilson and Stevens were credited with making the fully correct discovery independently. Wilson received the lion’s share of accolades while Stevens was often mistakenly referred to as a “lab technician.” Brush states, “Because of Wilson’s more substantial contributions in other areas, he tends to be given most of the credit for this discovery.”
The fact that Nettie Stevens had two X chromosomes certainly contributed to the lack of recognition. Her accomplishments put the lie to Brush’s assertion. She published 40 papers and was about to attain full research status at Bryn Mawr when she died of breast cancer on May 4, 1912, at the age of 50.
She—and Wilson, too—have been all but forgotten since then. In 1933, fellow scientist Thomas H. Morgan received the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in chromosomal research even though he didn’t espouse the theory until years after Stevens and Wilson published their papers.
Stevens once remarked to her students that their questions were always welcome “so long as I keep my enthusiasm for biology; and that, I hope, will be as long as I live.”
Let’s remember Nettie Stevens today. And tomorrow and the next day….
https://www.worldwideweirdholidays.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/nettie-stevens-day.jpg217200Kathleen Zeahttps://www.worldwideweirdholidays.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/WWWH-New-Header-2-e1501022841118.jpgKathleen Zea2017-07-07 11:55:362017-07-03 15:44:16July 7 is Nettie Stevens Day
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Today is Test Tube Baby Day. On July 25, 1978, in Oldham, England, Louise Joy Brown became the first person born after being conceived outside her mother’s body, in a revolutionary process now called in-vitro fertilization, or IVF.