SCIENCE with Ms Lun
Today in Science
April
2nd: World Autism Awareness Day (UN)
Autism is a disorder that has differing ranges of disability, which is why autism is termed a spectral disorder. Autism affects the way a person interprets the world with wide ranging social, communicative and intellectual skills. Asperger's syndrome is considered part of this spectrum.
Some children will have mild symptoms and can appear relatively normal, whereas some children have severe social and communicative behaviours and/or severe learning disabilities. Some children can be highly intelligent but their social skills are affected.
There is no known cause of autism but certain genes are thought to influence the development of autism.
The theme of this year's awareness day is inclusion in the workplace.
7th: World Health Day (WHO)
The theme of this year's World Health Day is Building a fairer, healthier world. WHO is calling on leaders to ensure everyone has living and working conditions that are healthy.
Today also marks the anniversary of the founding of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1948.
8th: Melvin Ellis CALVIN born 1911. Died 8 Jan 1997.
Melvin Calvin was an American biochemist. In 1950, along with Andrew BENSON and James BASSHAM, they discovered the series of biochemical reactions that make up the light-independent reactions of photosynthesis. This cycle is known as the Calvin cycle. They were awarded the Nobel prize in 1961 for their discovery.
You may remember photosynthesis from school science as being a light-dependent process that occurs in the green leaves of plants, specifically in organelles (structures) called the chloroplasts. The reactions that Calvin discovered were the reactions that occur without the need for light.
9th: Frederick (Fred) Cossum HOLLOWS, born 1929. Died 10 Feb 1993, aged 63
Hollows was a NZ born ophthalmologist (eye doctor). He studied medicine at Otago University and studied ophthalmology in England in 1961. He moved to Australia in 1965 where he became associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of NSW in 1965.
Hollows worked with Aborigine communities where he encountered many preventable or easily cured eye disorders, such as trachoma and cataracts. This inspired his life's mission to improve eye health and living conditions for indigenous Australians. He also worked in Nepal, Burma, Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh, and Eritrea two years later on behalf of the WHO. Hollows also set up intraocular lens labs in Eritrea and Nepal to manufacture lenses and provide them to the people at cost. While dying of cancer, he travelled to Vietnam and trained local technicians to perform eye surgery.
In 1992, the Fred Hollows Foundation was set up by Fred and his second wife, Gabi, who still runs the foundation. Gabi herself was training as an orthoptist (who deal mainly with eye movement disorders and the way the eyes work together) when she met Fred. To date, the Fred Hollows Foundation works in over 25 countries and has restored sight to over 2 million people.
Fred succumbed to renal cancer in 1993 and was given a state funeral.
Fred Hollows with an intraocular lens. The patient's cloudy lens (cataract) is removed and replaced with an intraocular lens.
Gabi Hollows, Penny Luck and Fred Hollows during the National Trachoma and Eye Health Program at Christmas Creek in 1977. Photo credit: David Broadbent
12th: International Day of Human Space Flight (UN)
The UN established this day “to celebrate each year at the international level the beginning of the space era for mankind, reaffirming the important contribution of space science and technology in achieving sustainable development goals and increasing the well-being of States and peoples, as well as ensuring the realization of their aspiration to maintain outer space for peaceful purposes.”
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12 April 1961 was the date of the first human space flight, carried out by Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet citizen. This historic event opened the way for space exploration for the benefit of all humanity.
14th: Alan Graham MacDIARMID born 1927. Died 7 Feb 2007.
NZ-born American chemist who went on to win the 2000 Nobel Prize for Chemistry (with Hideki Shirakawa, Japan and Alan Heeger (USA). MacDiarmid is one of only 3 New Zealander's to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
Born in Masterton, MacDiarmid's family were forced to move to Lower Hutt due to unemployment during the Great Depression. His interest in chemistry stemmed from his engineer father and later when he left school at 16 to work as a lab boy at Victoria University. He went on to complete a BSc and MSc at Victoria University. Several scholarships followed that enabled MacDiarmid to study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to complete a PhD in 1953 and to study at Cambridge University, England to complete another PhD in 1955.
In 1964, he became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and remained there for 45 years.
MacDiarmid spent 20 years researching silicon chemistry. Along with Shirakawa and Heeger, they discovered and developed conductive polymers (plastic materials that are modified to conduct electricity) which won them the Nobel prize. It would be two decades before this technology would be used in flat screen video displays, solar cell and electronic circuitry (including wearable). Possible future application of this technology could be to dramatically increase the speed of computers while reducing their size.
During his academic career, he published over 600 articles and gained 25 patents.
In 2002, another leading NZ scientist, Sir Paul Callaghan, set up the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials & Nanotechnology at Victoria University. This is a "network of leading researchers united in a common goal: to create and explore innovative, sustainable materials that will improve the lives of people in Aotearoa and around the world. We work together and partner with industry and government to address global challenges such as clean water, renewable energy and climate change."
April 15th: Leonardo DA VINCI born 1452. Died 2 May 1519, aged 67.
Da Vinci was born in Italy and is regarded as one of the greatest, diversely talented individuals to ever have lived.
He was a polymath, skilled in art (painting, sculpting and drawing), science including anatomy, astronomy, botany and paleontology plus he was a skilled cartographer and prolific inventor.
22nd: International Girls in ICT day
The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) established this day to encourage more girls to become involved in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics).
22nd: International Mother Earth day
The focus for 2023 is saving our planet - climate change, sustainability, stopping deforestation and reducing plastics in our ocean.
Every year, 4.7 million hectares of forests (an area larger than Denmark) is lost each year.
Around one million species of plants and animals are now faced with extinction.
A healthy planet depends on biodiversity. We need to restore damaged ecosystems
24-30th: World Immunisation Week (WHO)
2023's theme is "The Big Catch-Up". Due to the Covid-a9 pandemic, global vaccinations rates have fallen. WHO is working to "support countries to get back on track to ensure more people are protected from preventable diseases".
Please click the buttons below to learn more about vaccinations.
25th: World Penguin Day
Let's celebrate penguins!
26th: International Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day (UN)
On 26th April, 1986 a nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded spreading a radioactive cloud over large parts of the Soviet Union (modern day Ukraine, Belarus and the Russian Federation). 8.4 million people were affected.