Browsing: Lifestyle

A Brief History On April 15, 1923, the hormone insulin became widely available for the treatment of diabetes.  Prior to the discovery of insulin and its adaptation for medical use, diabetes was an often-fatal disease of the inability of the body to process glucose. Digging Deeper Even today, diabetes claims millions of lives per year, as well as causing a variety of related maladies such as kidney failure, blindness, and nerve damage.  Insulin is a hormone produced in the pancreas, and was discovered in 1921 by Frederick Banting of Canada, a Nobel Prize winning discovery. By 1923, insulin became available…

A Brief History On April 4, 1991, US Senator from Pennsylvania John Heinz along with six other people died when a helicopter suffered a mid-air collision with the small airplane carrying Heinz over Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania.  Sadly, two of the seven fatalities were children on the ground. Digging Deeper Heinz is only one of many politicians that met an early demise in aircraft crashes, such as the following examples. In 1928, Congressman Thaddeus Sweet of New York became the first US politician to die in an air wreck. In 1947 and again in 1962, State Governors died in air…

A Brief History On February 9, 1996, the synthetic element, Copernicium, was discovered by a research team at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Germany, named after the famous Polish astronomer and polymath, Nicolaus Copernicus (Mikołaj Kopernik in Polish), 10 days after the discovery, on the 537th anniversary of Copernicus’s birth. Digging Deeper Some of the other elements named after people include Curium, Fermium, Mendelevium, Nobelium, Einsteinium, Bohrium, Roentgenium, Lawrencium, and others.  Perhaps you recognize some or most of these names as major historical scientists. You might not appreciate a disease or disorder being named after you,…

A Brief History On February 8, 1983, a successful Irish racehorse, Shergar, was kidnapped for ransom, a crime that resulted in the killing of the swift steed that had been enjoying life as a stud. Digging Deeper Born, or foaled as they say in the horse world, in 1978, Shergar had a successful racing career that made him a prime candidate to become a stud horse, which he became in October of 1981, serving his time as a stud in Ireland rather than accepting a large contract to move to the US. Three armed gunmen invaded the home of Shergar’s…

A Brief History On February 3, 1972, Iran suffered what the Guinness Book of World Records called “the deadliest blizzard in history,” an event known as “The Iran blizzard of February 1972.”  Sadly, an estimated 4,000 or more people died in the extreme weather event. Digging Deeper We have almost all experienced the struggles of dealing with extreme snowfall, getting our cars stuck in the snow or sliding all over the road.  Trying to drive in a blinding snowstorm is terrifying and dangerous, and people have died just trying to shovel snow from their drives and walks. Some areas of…