Tag Archives: scientist

Bacteriologist ALEXANDER FLEMING

The improbable chain of events that led Alexander Fleming to discover penicillin in 1928 is the stuff of which scientific myths are made. Fleming, a young Scottish research scientist with a profitable side practice treating the syphilis infections of prominent London artists, was pursuing his pet theory–that his own nasal mucus had antibacterial effects–when he left a culture plate smeared with Staphylococcus bacteria on his lab bench while he went on a two-week holiday.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Legacy as Governor of California

Appropriately, the race to become the next governor of the richest state in the Union could well be a treatment for a Hollywood script: a multimillionaire taking on the wily scion of a political dynasty to succeed one of the biggest box-office stars of all time as governor of California. On Tuesday, Californians will decide if Democrat Jerry Brown, the current attorney general, a former governor himself and three-time presidential candidate, or Meg Whitman, the eBay billionaire who has spent a record $140+ million on her campaign, will succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger

International day of demonstrations on climate change

From seabeds to mountaintops, people around the world were staging a day of demonstrations Saturday to call for urgent action on climate change. The number of 350 ppm originally came from a NASA research team headed by American climate scientist James Hansen, which surveyed both real-time climate observations and emerging paleo-climatic data in January 2008, according to 350.org