Wise Up (11-02-09)

Scientists

"¢ Remember to vote.

"¢ When Jonas Salk, working with many other scientists, developed a vaccine for polio, they first tested it on animals. It then needed to be tested on human beings, including children, who were the most likely to contract the disease. Of course, children can be very afraid of getting a shot, and some of the children participating in the study started crying. William Kirkpatrick, who worked at the D.T. Watson Home near Pittsburgh, a home for children with disabilities, volunteered to get the first shot of vaccine so that he could show the children that getting the shot did not hurt. On July 2, 1952, he became the very first person to be inoculated with the polio vaccine developed by Dr. Salk and others.

By the way, Dr. Salk did not want the vaccine to be named after him. He thought that a better name would be the Pitt vaccine because he had started working on the vaccine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School. Of course, people were grateful that a vaccine to stop the deadly disease polio had been developed. A merchant in Hohokus, New Jersey, painted the words "œTHANK YOU, Dr. Salk" on his shop window. Teachers had their young students write thank-you letters to Dr. Salk. (Actually, the fame that came to Dr. Salk was a bit much. When he became engaged to Françoise Gilot, the media annoyed them. To protect their privacy, they announced that they would be married on a certain day, but they actually got married the day before the announced date.) Albert Sabin later developed another polio vaccine that supplanted the Salk vaccine. Humanity is deeply grateful to both men.

"¢ Anthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey raised children in Africa, where they hunted fossils "“ especially the fossils of early Humankind and Humankind's ancestors. Of course, raising kids in rural anthropological sites in Africa is not like raising kids in urban areas. When Jonathan was an infant, army ants attacked him. Fortunately, he screamed and Louis and Mary rescued him. Louis used to take a gun out to a lake and shoot it. The crocodiles would be frightened and leave, and Louis's children had five minutes to bathe in the lake "“ after five minutes, the crocodiles stopped being frightened and returned to the lake. The kids sometimes accompanied their parents to the site where they searched for bones. One day, young Richard complained that he was bored as Louis dug up a bone, so Louis told him, "Go find your own bone." Richard did just that. He found a bone and carefully started to dig it out, becoming so engrossed in the task that Louis came over to see what he was doing. When he saw the bone that Richard was digging out, he and Mary quickly took over the digging. Richard had discovered something that no one had ever found "“ a complete jawbone of a certain species of extinct pig.

"¢ In 1900, an eccentric teacher in Germany named Wilhelm von Osten bought a horse named Hans. Wilhelm believed that animals are very intelligent, and he gave the horse lessons. Lessons in what? In history, math, music, and spelling! Wilhelm invited people to ask the horse questions. Hans shook his head for no, and he nodded his head for yes. To answer a math question, he would tap his hoof: one tap meant one, two taps meant two, and so on. Amazingly, Hans always answered correctly. Of course, a scientist figured out that Hans was picking up cues from the people who asked him questions, even though they didn't know that they were giving Hans cues. They always knew the correct answer, and Hans was able to tell what to do from something in the way people acted. Therefore, the scientist arranged for people to ask Hans questions that they didn't know the answers to, with the result that Hans was no longer able to answer the questions correctly. Of course, Hans really was Clever Hans; it takes cleverness to pick up subtle cues from people. But Hans was not clever in the way that Wilhelm thought he was.

"¢ On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell set up his prototype of a telephone. One telephone was in his bedroom with him, while the other telephone was in the room next door with his research assistant, Thomas Watson. Unfortunately, Mr. Bell spilled acid on himself. He used the telephone to summon Mr. Watson, and so the first words spoken on a telephone were, "Mr. Watson, come here." In June of that year, Mr. Bell demonstrated his invention at the World's Fair in Philadelphia, Penn. Mr. Bell was on stage with the transmitter, while the emperor of Brazil was in an upper gallery with the receiver. Mr. Bell began to speak on the transmitter, and the emperor of Brazil listened on the receiver. Amazed, the emperor smiled and said, "This thing speaks!"

"¢ African-American scientist George Washington Carver (1864-1943) used this story to tell why he had decided to do research on the uses of the peanut: "When I was young, I said to God, 'God, tell me the mystery of the universe.' But God answered, 'That knowledge is reserved to me alone.' So I said, 'God, tell me the mystery of the peanut.' Then God said, 'Well, George, that's more nearly your size.'"

"¢ Scientists calculated carefully how fast the International Space Station needed to go in order to stay in orbit about 250 miles above the Earth. That speed turned out to be 17,500 miles per hour. In fact, the International Space Station displayed a couple of speed signs: one reading 17,500 miles per hour and the other reading 28,000 kilometers per hour. (It is the International Space Station after all.)

"¢ While searching for dinosaur fossils in the Gobi Desert, Roy Chapman Andrews had little success at first. However, one day he had trouble pitching his tent and thought he had hit a rock. The "rock" turned out to be a dinosaur fossil. He kept trying to pitch his tent, and he kept discovering dinosaur fossils. Eventually, he pitched his tent "“ after discovering over 50 dinosaur bones!

"¢ "Ever noticed that people who believe in Creationism look really unevolved?" - Bill Hicks