Current Affairs Science Projects And Inventions

"The practical success of an idea ...is dependent on the attitude of its contemporaries." Nikola Tesla One of the most important inventors in history, Nikola Tesla, was born in 1856 in Smiljan, Croatia. His inventions would revolutionize our world. Among his almost 300 patents were wireless communication, the alternating current, and the induction motor. Tesla built the first working induction motor in 1883. Michael Faraday had demonstrated an electric motor in 1821 and Zenobe Gramme went on to invent the modern direct current motor in 1873, but it is Tesla's motor that most of our household appliances rely on. The induction motor works using alternating current rather than direct current. It has a simple design and is significantly less expensive to manufacture than the direct current motors. It also has fewer parts to wear out and is thus more reliable. The induction motor does more than run your vacuum cleaner. It is also used extensively in industrial settings to power machine tools, conveyer belts, and a variety of other applications. However, induction motors are not well suited to applications that require precise speed control or low-speed operations. For that reason, computer disk drives, laser printers, and photocopiers typically use direct current motors. Because of Tesla's inventions, we have electricity in our homes and the means to convert this electricity into useful work. 

Sulfur is an important precursor to many industrial processes. Much of it goes into making sulfuric acid, a common reactant and a component of fertilizer. In the nineteenth century, Sicily dominated the production of this element. Deposits were found in the United States, too—notably in Louisiana and Texas—but they were much deeper and more difficult to mine. It may not have been gold, but unlocking this yellow substance could be a deeply profitable business. One man had the answer, and from it derived the process that now bears his name. German-born Herman Frasch (1851-1914) settled in the United States and made a name for himself removing unwanted sulfur from petroleum. In the 1890s sulfur itself became the focus of his attention, and he sought a way to mine the deep-set mineral. His solution was to bore a drill hole down to the layer containing sulfur. An arrangement of three concentric pipes is fed into the hole. Superheated water at 338°F (170°C) is pumped through the central pipe, down to the rock layer. Sulfur melts at around 239T (115°C), so it becomes liquid when in contact with the superheated water. Forcing compressed air down another tube causes the molten sulfur to ascend as a slurry to the surface, where it solidifies into a highly pure form readily usable by industry. Although Frasch was unable to make a sustainable sulfur-mining business for himself, the process he developed eventually enabled the United States to become self-sufficient for sulfur production, fueling a boom in its chemical industry sector. The Frasch process remained the world's dominant form of sulfur production until the 1970s, when the element was more economically obtained as a by-product of natural-gas and oil refining. 

As a conduit for the output of all electronically created sound, the loudspeaker is one of the most significant inventions of the past 150 years. Indeed, in one form or another loudspeakers have been at the heart of much of the technology that has since emerged—from telephone, radio, and television to hi-fi music systems. It was Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) who patented the first electrical loudspeaker in 1876, as part of his telephone system. In conjunction with his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, Bell created a simple design. A drum was covered with a tightly stretched goldbeater's skin (diaphragm) and a magnetized free- floating armature was placed at its center. The armature was able to vibrate against the skin and responded to changes in a magnetic field. This device was connected to Bell's "liquid" transmitter into which he uttered words that were heard clearly by his assistant in the next room. It was an extremely rudimentary design, but in principle the device performed the same function as most contemporary audio systems: It turned electrical signals—those that had been derived and converted from an original source—into audible sound. Bell himself was not specifically interested in the loudspeaker function, and he left it to others to make improvements to the device. A year later, German inventor and industrialist, Werner von Siemens (1816- 1892), patented a greatly more sophisticated idea—a loudspeaker cone with a diaphragm controlled by an electromechanical transducer. This would eventually evolve into the moving coil principle on which most loudspeakers have since been designed. 

"Speed has never killed anyone, suddenly becoming stationary... That's what gets you" Jeremy Clarkson, motoring broadcaster From time to time a talented inventor comes along who is so prolific that they almost redefine an industry single-handedly. German engineer Karl Benz (1844- 1929) was one such inventor. During the 1870s and 1880s he secured many patents—including the speed regulation system known as the accelerator or throttle in 1890—that represented  significant developments in the - technology of the automobile. Being one of the first to patent on many aspects of the design of the internal combustion engine eventually led Benz to become a leader in the field of automotive design. The throttle performs a simple function in the internal combustion engine. The fuel—usually gasoline—is mixed with air before being ignited in the cylinders to produce the small explosion that fires the piston, which in turn rotates the drive shaft turning the wheels. The accelerator controls the fuel, air ratio, thereby determining the power output of the engine and as a consequence the speed of the car. In the United Kingdom, automotive engineer Frederick Lanchester (1868-1946) introduced  the accelerator or gas pedal between 1900 and 1904. There have been some modifications to the basic design of the accelerator over the years, but the fundamental design has not changed and remains one of the pivotal elements of powered vehicles. 

“I got rabies shots for biting the head off a bat but that's okay— the bat had to get Ozzy shots.” Ozzy Osbourne, rock vocalist Since antiquity, rabies had been feared as a death sentence. In 1884 Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) injected material from rabid dogs into rabbits, removing their spinal cords after they had died of the disease. When the cords were suspended over a vapor of potassium hydroxide, Pasteur found the more the cords dried, the fewer infectious agents survived. He made a series of graduated vaccines, the strongest comprising spinal cord dried for just one day, and the weakest, cord dried for fourteen days. The vaccine was tested in forty-two dogs, twenty-three of whom received fourteen injections (starting with the weakest vaccine, and ending with the strongest), while nineteen received no treatment. At the end of the experiment, all the dogs were exposed to rabies; none of the immunized dogs got the disease, while thirteen of the control group did. Pasteur's vaccine was tested in 1885 when a woman from Alsace turned up at his laboratory with her nine-year-old son who had been bitten by a rabid dog two days earlier. Pasteur ordered a fourteen-day course of increasingly virulent injections, and the boy stayed well. In 1915 a ten-year study confirmed that, of 6,000 people bitten by a confirmed rabid animal, only 0.6 percent of those who had received the vaccine died, compared to 16 percent of those who had not. 

At the same time that the Linotype machine was being developed, Tolbert Lanston (1844-1914), a government clerk in the United States, was inventing another composition system that he called Monotype. Lanston's initial patent was awarded in 1885, but he was not successful until he founded the Lanston Monotype Machine Company in Washington in 1887. In Lanston's system, letters, spaces, and other characters were selected mechanically from instructions contained on a paper tape into which patterns of holes, each representing a different character or space, had been punched using a keyboard. Although typesetting using Monotype was not as quick as Linotype, where complete lines of text were cast, Monotype text could be corrected more easily, spacing could be more finely controlled, and its versatility made complex setting possible. Lanston used cold metal strips into which letters were punched to produce raised reverse type for printing, but realized that much finer definition could be achieved by casting the letters in hot metal. In 1896 he patented a hot-metal machine using copper molds for each character. Now it was possible to hand-cut the molds for the characters and typography began to become an art form. The first Monotype type face was Modern Condensed. In 1920, Frederic Goudy became Art Director at Monotype and he designed over a hundred typefaces. In Britain, Stanley Morison (1889-1967) also came up with outstanding new typefaces. Although hot-metal typesetting was superseded by phototypesetting in the 1960s, and rendered obsolete by digital typesetting, Monotype typography continues to influence the way we read. 

“... we [must] diversify our energy sources and reduce our dependency on foreign oil:" Mary Bono Mack, U.S. politician It is thanks to Russian Vladimir Shukhov (1853-1939) that we can meet the fuel demand for modern engines. In 1891 he designed a refinery to convert crude oil into more useful things like gasoline and kerosene. Crude oil is a naturally occurring fluid that consists of a mix of hydrocarbons of various molecular lengths. Crude oil straight from the ground does not burn well, although its smaller molecules, which burn more easily, can be extracted by using fractional distillation. However, a large portion always remains as larger molecules. To make these long-chain molecules burn more easily, they can be broken into shorter chains by a process called thermal cracking. Shukhov patented a method of heating and pressurizing the oil to the extent that it would start to breakup into smaller molecules. This thermal cracking was a precursor to the Burton Process, developed by William Merriam Burton in 1913, which doubled the production of gasoline. In 1937 both of these methods were superseded by catalytic cracking, which works in a similar way but with a catalyst to help the reaction. Catalytic cracking is more economical because it can take place at lower temperatures and pressures. The oil industry is looking for even more efficient ways to extract and process crude oil before economic. sources run out and oil refineries become obsolete. 

While the need to wipe your nose is as old as the need to sneeze, it took a surprisingly long time to come up with a solution that disposed of nasal mucus politely and hygienically. Although a seemingly simple solution, the key features of facial paper tissues are that they are cheap, soft, disposable, and absorbent, especially in comparison to other similar types of paper products. Even toilet paper is not as effective, being designed to break down in water. In fact when the Kimberly-Clark Corporation first developed the material that would later make them household names, it was to use as bandages in World War I. Cellucotton, as it was called, was made from processed wood pulp and was five times as absorbent and half as expensive as cotton. As a result of army nurses using cellucotton as disposable sanitary pads, Kimberly-Clark introduced the first disposable feminine hygiene product in 1920. But it was not until 1924 that they developed the first facial tissues, under the brand name Kleenex. Even then they designed Kleenex as a means of removing face cream and other make-up. It was only in the late 1920s that they realized that the tissues were being used as disposable handkerchiefs, and quickly changed their marketing strategy. The name Kleenex soon became synonymous with disposable facial tissues. In 1928, the characteristic carton box with a perforated opening was introduced, soon followed by colored and printed pattern tissues. Pocket packs were introduced in 1932. While the paper tissue has largely replaced the traditional cotton handkerchief in most industrialized countries, concerns have been expressed about their environmental impact, resulting in the more recent development of recycled and chlorine-free tissues. 

We often think of thoughts as instantaneous, but in truth it stands to reason that they are limited by the speed of certain chemical reactions and electrical impulses in our brain. Given that these physical activities accompany thinking, it also stands to reason that if one looks hard enough, one should be able to measure the electrical activity, despite the seemingly fleeting nature of brain activity The recording of these impulses—or electroencephalography—matured at something of a snail's pace until the work of Hans Berger (1873-1941). In 1875, English physician Richard Caton figured out that he could measure brain activity in animals with a galvanometer. A Polish physician, Adolph Beck, also working with animals, advanced the topic further in the 1890s, going so far as to discover the location of some sensory impulses and noting a change in activity that took place with loud noises or bright light. The link between animal and human models was not well understood in this era, however, and it took a few more decades before anyone made this leap. Hans Berger began experimenting with recording the electrical activity of the brain in the 1920s. Experimenting in secret, and oddly using lectures on telepathy as a cover, he refined his technique. Using his own son Klaus as a research subject, Berger recorded the first human electroencephalograph, or EEG, in 1924 and carried on his experiments for the next few years. Berger published his work in 1929 and revolutionized the world of neurology. EEG is used today to evaluate epilepsy, sleep disorders, and a host of other neurologic problems. 

"Ransom Olds used [the assembly line] to jump his production from 425 cars in 1901 to 2,500 In 1902." Curtis Redgap, automobile enthusiast Just as motor cars were appearing on the market, Ransom Eli Olds (1864-1950) had an idea that was to revolutionize industry—the assembly line. After building his first gasoline-powered car in 1896, Olds set out to mass-produce successors to his beloved "Oldsmobile." Spreading himself thinly. Olds tried to produce a large range of models. Then, in March 1901, his company burned to the ground. The fire destroyed all but one of his models, the "Curved Dash" Oldsmobile. Olds focused on producing this model exclusively and made a phoenixlike comeback. He soon had more orders than he could actually meet. Recalling how he had watched workers at a musket rifle factory assemble guns in assigned stations, Olds came up with an ingenious scheme for a car assembly line. He spent the rest of 1901 working to implement the idea. The new technique proved to be an effective one, increasing his car output dramatically. Several years later, car manufacturer Henry Ford adopted and reworked the concept for even more efficiency. Machines have now largely replaced human laborers, but virtually all mass-produced products rely on some form of assembly line.