November 24, 2006
The KGB uses polonium to assassinate the former spy Litvinenko, even if at first it was thought of thallium, which instead was used, again by the KGB, to poison another Russian dissident, Nikolai Khokhlov, in 1957.
February 2006
Using data from the NASA Aqua satellite, Duane Walizer (JPL), Baijun Tian (CalTech) discover the Madden-Julian Oscillation, a perturbation that covers half the Earth’s equator mainly on the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific, with a period of 40-50 days
1983
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar completes a modern exposition of Newton’s Principia Mathematica, in his “Newton’s Principia for the common reader” (although what he means by common reader is certainly not what the common reader means …) . Euler had made a first complete work in 1735 in “Mechanics”.
1982
A sample of the wallpaper from Napoleon’s rooms in Sant’Elena, gold and green by Scheele, was found and analyzed, obtained at the time from copper arsenide or copper vinegar-arsenate. The article is published in Nature and confirms the presence of arsenic in the wallpaper, which would
1977
The Russian chemist Ilya Priggine takes the Nobel Prize for having shown that in non-isolated systems that operate far from thermodynamic equilibrium (such as living beings), irreversible processes can increase their organization moving further and further away from thermodynamic equilibrium. The properties of dissipative structures (ie
11 October 1969
An article by chemist FJ Donahoe on Polywater (poliwater, or water II, or anomalous water) appears in the journal Nature, considering it “the most dangerous polymer on Earth”. The story begins in the quiet Soviet town of Kostroma, where in 1962 Nikolai Fedyakin discovers, or thinks
1964
Chemical Abstract magazine publishes an article on the tobacco mosaic virus. It is probably the molecule with the longest name ever pronounced (and some even say it is the longest word): 1185 letters. It is C785H1220N212O248S2, better known as “glutaminylphenylalanylvalylphenylalanylleucylserylseryl valyltryptophylalanylaspartylprolylisoleucylglutamylleucylleucylasparaginylvalylcysteinylthreonylserylseryl leucylglycylasparaginylglutaminylphenylalanylglutaminylthreonylglutaminylglutaminylalanylarginylthreo nylthreonylglutaminylvalylglutaminylglutaminylphenylalanylserylglutaminylvalyltryptophyllysylprolylphenyla lanylprolylglutaminylserylthreonylvalylarginylphenylalanylprolylglycylaspartylvalyltyrosyllysylvalyltyrosylargin yltyrosylasparaginylalanylvalylleucylaspartylprolylleucylisoleucylthreonylalanylleucylleucylglycylthreonylphenyla lanylaspartylthreonylarginylasparaginylarginylisoleucylisoleucylglutamylvalylglutamylasparaginylglutaminylglu taminylserylprolylthreonylthreonylalanylglutamylthreonylleucylaspartylalanylthreonylarginylarginylvalylaspar
March 28, 1963
Norfolk in Suffolk, England. A military aircraft with 70Kg with a special pigment of cadmium sulphide and zinc, releases it at a height of 150m downwind of the city. On the ground, some chemical defense officers from Porton Down in Whiltshire, position themselves in 40 spots and
1961
Sweden. An analysis carried out by Sten Forshufvud on Napoleon’s hair samples reveals elevated levels of arsenic. This supports the hypothesis of a poisoning of the emperor. A sample of the wallpaper of Napoleon’s rooms, gold and green by Scheele, was then found and analyzed in 1982, obtained
1961
Japan. Doctor Noboru Hagino publishes his findings on the causes of the widespread disease among the families of the Kamioke mine miners. In 1972 the mining company will compensate the 178 survivors. Cadmium will remain in the collective imagination of the Japanese for generations, so much so that
November 29, 1954
Enrico Fermi’s death when he was only 54 years old, is caused by pneumonia (he spends the last days attached to a respirator), in turn probably caused by the Beryllium, ingested by the scientist several years earlier, during the experiments in via Panisperna, he must
1946
Japan. Doctor Noboru Hagino seriously studies the disease of the Kamioke Mine families, scientifically, and by superimposing the epidemiological and water map of the area he discovers the cause in the mine. It is the Cadmium, which flows downstream in the hydrogeological system, is absorbed by the
December 1945
Grand Rapids, Michigan, becomes the first city in the world to be supplied with fluoridated water in its aqueducts. Today more than half of Americans drink fluoridated water, making the United States one of the most fluoridated populations in the world. The initial test in Grand Rapids
June 7, 1944
Portugal. The country’s only exportable commodity is Tungsten. The reason is that this element is used by the Nazis for weapons steel (to replace the Molybdenum of the Great Bertha of the previous conflict, Molybdenum which is a monopoly of the United States). Repeated pressure on the dictator
early 1944
Auschwitz, present-day Poland. Primo Levi, a prisoner of the camp, manages to steal some bars of Cerium, which as a chemist he knows well, with which he makes lighters that he then sells, exploiting the well-known property of Cerium to produce sparks if rubbed. This will allow
January 1943
The one-day-old T2 SS Schenectady tanker, just returned to port after a sea trial, suddenly splits in two from top to bottom due to a crack in the steel not stopped by any “crack lock”
January 7, 1943
Alone and poor, Nikola Tesla (in Cyrillic Никола Тесла) dies in New York (Smiljan, 10 July 1856 – New York, 7 January 1943). Serbian physicist, inventor and naturalized American engineer in 1891. Tesla is best known for his groundbreaking work and his numerous contributions in the
August 1942
Glenn Seaborg isolates Plutonium for the first time. It is also the first time how any artificial element, that is not existing in nature, in its pure form is synthesized. The first time that the human eye can observe an artificial element. Following the name of the previous
April, 1940
The German army invades Denmark where Niel Bohr is located. He has already donated his gold medal for the Nobel to charity, but he holds the two Nobel medals of his German Jewish colleagues Max von Laue (X-ray diffraction) and James Franck (energy quantization). Any gold item
1936
Fischer and Tropsch of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut for Chemistry market synthetic gasoline produced from carbon monoxide and hydrogen on behalf of the German Brabag. During the Nazi war effort, 9% of military gasoline and 25% of German cars will give this type. Fischer and Tropsch have previously filed
January 1935
Charles Richter (of the Californian Institute of Technology – CalTech), publishes in the Bullettin of the Sesmological Society of America, the famous article “An instrumental Earthquake Magnitude Scale” in which he establishes the Richter Scale for measuring the energy of an earthquake.
1918
Fritz Haber takes the Nobel Prize. During the First World War, Germany was subject to an embargo and was unable to obtain saltpetre, which is essential for making gunpowder. Saltpetre can be replaced by ammonia, which Haber, with his invention, is able to extract from the air. Haber
late 1915
Germany. A 150mm bullet filled with Xille Bromide, a very caustic tear gas, is ready. Weisskreuz (white cross) is baptized. Also in this test (as for the first on the British) the French are spared: 18,000 Weisskeruze are thrown on the Russians, but the temperatures are so low
1915
Colorado, United States. Molybdenum is highly sought after by the war industry, especially in Germany, as cannons like the Big Bertha suffer from deformation due to high temperatures, a defect that disappears if the steel is made of Molybdenum (which melts at 2600C compared to 1500C
2 May 1915
Russo-German Eastern Front. Fritz Haber, the German chemist who synthesized and used chlorine in Ypres in Belgium, leaves for the eastern front to prepare the same deadly weapon of mass destruction. Chlorine guts the blood vessels in the lungs and the victim drowns in the fluid produced
1915 – 1918
Chlorine, in addition to being used as a chemical weapon (initially only by the Germans), is also used as an addition to drinking water to make it safe for the troops. Some say he saved more lives this way than lives taken as a chemical weapon. Our
April 22, 1915
Ypres, Belgium. The chlorine synthesized at military level by the German chemist Fritz Haber is used against allied troops, especially French and Algerians. It is about 5000 cylinders placed on a 7km stretch in front and opened as soon as the wind is favorable from the north-east. The
early 1915
With a perverse choice, the first test of German chemical weapons is carried out on British troops, which have never used gas before. The wind, however, does not cooperate (or collaborates with the British), and disperses the gas in the wrong direction, and the British soldiers,
1912
Joachimsthal (now Jachymov in the Czech Republic). The Radium Palace Hotel opens its doors, which, exploiting the beneficial effect of radium in the treatment of certain tumors in controlled doses and the wave of popular enthusiasm, offers visitors radioactive spa treatments. The waters contain radium, the radioactive
September 5, 1906
Trieste. Ludwig Boltzmann hangs himself, while his wife and daughter swim in the Adriatic during a vacation. Boltzmann is the first to understand that the arrow of time appears only when there is heat. And therefore the concept of time is linked to entropy (which counts how many
13 July 1898
Pierre Curie writes in the laboratory register the letters Po of Polonio, a name given in honor of Marie’s beloved homeland, Poland. However the element is still linked to bismuth and barium, in plechbenda, a uranium mineral, in which they will eventually find radium in 1902,
late nineteenth century.
Aluminum is worth about one cent of silver. In 1855, an industrial process was developed for the first time to extract it from bauxite, it cost 12 times the price of silver. The use and diffusion of aluminum, from specific has become common and finally banal, a
May 1898
William Ramsay Professor of Chemistry at University College London discovers Xenon, or the foreigner. Among the doubters about this plethora of new elements that create a whole new column in the table of Elements, there is Mendeleev himself. They will be convinced only in 1900.
May 29, 1896
Australia. In 1893 the Irishman Patrick Hannan and two other traveling companions camped in a makeshift place because one of the horses lost the iron. They discover such a rich gold deposit that they collect nuggets from the ground. They ask for an official concession, and in this