1861 – The Pony Express officially ceases operations.
The Pony Express was a mail service delivering messages, newspapers, and mail.
Officially operating as the Leavenworth and Pike’s Peak Express Company of 1859, in 1860 it became the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company; this firm was founded by William H. Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell, all of whom were notable in the freighting business.[1]
During its 19 months of operation, it reduced the time for messages to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to about 10 days.[2] From April 3, 1860 to October 1861, it became the West’s most direct means of east–west communication before the telegraph was established and was vital for tying the new state of California with the rest of the United States.
1874 – Martin Lowry, English chemist and academic (d. 1936)
Thomas Martin Lowry CBE FRS[1] (/ˈlaʊri/; 26 October 1874 – 2 November 1936) was an English physical chemist who developed the Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory simultaneously with and independently of Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted and was a founder-member and president (1928–1930) of the Faraday Society.[2]
Biography
Lowry was born in Low Moor, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, in a Cornish family. He was the second son of the Reverend E. P. Lowry. He was educated at Kingswood School, Bath, Somerset, and then at the Central Technical College in South Kensington. During those years he realized that he wanted to be a chemist. He studied chemistry under Henry Edward Armstrong, an English chemist whose interests were primarily in organic chemistry but also included the nature of ions in aqueous solutions. From 1896 to 1913 Lowry was assistant to Armstrong, and between 1904 and 1913 worked as lecturer in Chemistry at the Westminster Training College. In 1913, he was appointed head of the chemical department in Guy’s Hospital Medical and became the first teacher of chemistry in a Medical School to be made a University Professor, at the University of London. From 1920 till his death, Lowry served as the Chair of Physical Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. He married a daughter of the Rev. C. Wood in 1904 and was survived by his widow, two sons and a daughter.[2]
Since the establishment of the Faraday Society in 1903, Lowry had been its active member and served as its President between 1928 and 1930. In 1914 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.[1] During and after the World War I, Lowry acted as Director of Shell-filling (1917–1919) and worked for the Trench Warfare Committee, Chemical Warfare Committee and Ordnance Committee. For this service, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire and the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus.[2]
Research
In 1898, Lowry noted the change in optical rotation on nitro-d-camphor with time and invented the term mutarotational to describe this phenomenon. He studied changes in optical rotation caused by acid- and base-catalyzed reactions of camphor derivatives. This led in 1923 to his formulation of the protonic definition of acids and bases, now known as Brønsted–Lowry acid-base theory, independently of the work by Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted.[3][4] Lowry published a few hundred papers and several books. His 1935 monograph on “Optical Rotatory Power” (1935) has long been regarded as a standard work on the subject.[2]
By Eric Grundhauser: Eugene Shoemaker Is Still the Only Man Buried on the Moon
Coffee Pot Art Studio Gallery Lexington, VA
Photo by nonstopaz
By nonstopaz: The Coffee Pot
By Anna Jasinki: Don’t Fall Into This Trap: The 7 Deadly Sins of Blog Writing
By Heather Chapman: Family that brought us OxyContin, and arguably the opioid epidemic, is profiled in 2 magazines
As President Trump prepared to declare a limited public-health emergency in response to the deadly opioid epidemic, Esquire magazine and The New Yorker published fascinating articles on the secretive family that made a fortune selling OxyContin and arguably spurred the epidemic: the Sacklers of New York.
By Heather Chapman: Trump OKs drone experimentation plan; could make use and deliveries easier in rural areas
“The pilot program aims to speed up the integration of unmanned aerial vehicles into the national airspace system and test drone detection and tracking while waiving some limits on their use.” That could benefit rural areas, and make use of them in agriculture more practical. Drones also could be used to deliver life-saving medications to remote areas, and retail giants like Amazon could deliver packages for less. UPS and FedEx charge extra fees to deliver packages to some rural areas.
By JR Raphael: 12 Incredibly Useful Things You Didn’t Know Google Maps Could Do
By Ruth Reader: A Year Ago This Guy Was A Janitor. Now He’s Coding For A Hot Startup
Tim Peake webchat: your questions answered on travel adaptors, running a marathon and hiccuping – in space
By Gary Price: California Digital Library Releases Major Redesign of eScholarship Publishing and Repository Platform
By Kristina Wright: 17 New Books to Read If You Love Debbie Macomber
Oxford Dictionary: 20 words from the 1920s
By VERONIQUE GREENWOOD: How Beets Became Beet-Red
What beets have in common with morphine
The amino acid tyrosine is used by plants for numerous purposes, whether in beets to make the pigments that create the distinctive red color or in opium poppies to make morphine. The level of tyrosine is unusually high in beets, which could help scientists in creating forms of morphine or with applications for other plants.
By Dan Colman: Albert Einstein’s Elegant Theory of Happiness: It Just Sold for $1.6 Million at Auction, But You Can Use It for FreeBy Ted Mills: Every Academy Award Winner for Best Cinematography in One Supercut: From 1927’s Sunrise to 2016’s Moonlight
By Swansong: 100+ Creepy-Clever Halloween Projects
By Tye Rannosaurus: Cider Spiced Poison Apple Cupcakes
By cdstudioNH: Solarium She Shed & Dancing Deck
By BillW96: Solar Hothouse
wikimedia
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for December 26 December 26, 2024Picture of the day Khone Phapheng Falls, Si Phan Don, Laos. Located on the Mekong River near the border with Cambodia, at 10.7 kilometres (6.6 mi) wide, it is the widest waterfall in the world.
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for December 25 December 25, 2024Picture of the day Nativity of Christ scene from the Kefermarkt Altarpiece. Today is Christmas.
Widget not in any sidebars
Widget not in any sidebars
Widget not in any sidebars
Widget not in any sidebars