Browsing: Science & Technology

A Brief History Earlier today, we showcased an article on the first Automatic Street Light, but did you know that this invention was just one of many invented by brilliant Ohioans?  So, let us list 10 famous inventions by Ohioans. Digging Deeper 10. Safety Hood type Gas Mask (1912) Garett Morgan was born in Kentucky of former slaves, but lived in Ohio after age 14.  His device saved many lives of firefighters and miners, and was the basis for the gas masks of World War I.  He also invented hair care products and a successful traffic control signal.  Because of…

A Brief History On February 15, 2013, Russians were stunned by a meteor exploding 76,000 feet above Chelyabinsk Oblast! Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find the largest object to enter Earth’s atmosphere since the 1908 Tunguska event, coincidentally also in Russia. The 2013 event literally came out of the blue and with no warning, streaming across south central Russia from the southeast at a speed of Mach 60 (that is over 40,000 miles per hour)! Giving off brilliant lights that were brighter the light from the sun, the fiery trajectory was captured on many personal recording devices, including dash cams mounted on private automobiles.…

A Brief History On February 13, 2004, astronomers discovered that a white dwarf star known as BPM37093 is actually the largest diamond yet discovered in the universe! Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find our great gem in the constellation Centaurus, about 50 light years away. White dwarf stars are now known to consist largely of crystallized carbon, which we know better as diamond!  With a mass of 11 x 10 to the 29th power in U.S. pounds, the pulsating orb has been described as being 10 billion trillion trillion carats by the television show Modern Marvels (in a program about carbon), making it a…

A Brief History On February 5, 1909, New Yorker Leo Baekeland presented his invention of Bakelite, the first synthetic plastic, to the American Chemical Society. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find the Belgian-born Baekeland trying to invent a replacement for shellac, a product made by processing lac insects. Shellac was used for many diverse purposes, such as dye for clothing, make-up and a variety of coatings such as varnish and lacquer paint.  Of the several different lac insect species, thousands and thousands were required to harvest enough of the lac resin to produce even a small amount of shellac, making…

A Brief History On February 1, 2003, the United States suffered the second loss of a space shuttle, this time the Columbia. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find Columbia at the completion of its 28th mission and ready to start reentry into Earth’s atmosphere at about 8:10 am for an estimated 9:16 am landing in Florida. Speeding around the Earth at over 20 times the speed of sound, Columbia was doomed, and the crew did not know it.  On take off, a piece of foam insulation had broken off of a large external fuel tank and had struck the left wing,…