I haven’t been here for a while after becoming frustrated with myself for ferreting out little ditties from random sources only to miss posting them at the right time. Today just had too many significant events happen to let it go past. I have to start with something near and dear to my heart.

In 1998, the Mars Climate Orbiter was successfully launched on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Station in Florida. However, the probe disappeared on 23 Sep 1999, apparently destroyed because scientists had failed to convert English measures to metric values. The orbiter's instruments would have monitored the Martian atmosphere and image the planet's surface on a daily basis for one Martian year (1.8 Earth years) with observations of the appearance and movement of atmospheric dust and water vapor, as well as characterizing seasonal changes on the surface.

The deeds of a lady of note has to be mentioned today also. In 1911, at Stockholm, Sweden, Marie Curie became the first person to be awarded a second Nobel prize. She had isolated radium by electrolyzing molten radium chloride. This second prize was for her individual achievements in Chemistry, whereas her first prize (1903) was a collaborative effort with her husband, Pierre, and Henri Becquerel in Physics for her contributions in the discovery of radium and polonium.

An old chat buddy of Al’s was born 11 Dec 1882, and his insights has effected mankind’s concepts forever. Max Born, was a German physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1954, with Walther Bothe of Germany, for his statistical formulation of the behavior of subatomic particles. His studies of the wave function led to the replacement of the original quantum theory, which regarded electrons as particles, with a mathematical description.

The anniversary of the last thing that HAS to be noted is in 1998, scientists announced in the Dec 11 issue of the journal Science that they have deciphered the entire genetic blueprint of an animal - the tiny nematode worm, Caenorhabditis elegans. This is the first time genetic instructions have been spelt out for an animal that, like humans, has a nervous system, digests food, and has sex. The worm's genetic code is spelt out by 97 million genetic letters corresponding to 20,000 genes. This work is a milestone in global efforts to unravel the entire human genetic code - or genome - which was completed earlier this year and is the tool for medical wonders undreamt of. The research grew into a collaboration between 1,500 scientists in 250 laboratories worldwide. The efforts were led by John Sulston, in England and Dr Bob Waterston in the U.S.

Somebody was busy today.

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