7 Scientists Who Helped Change The World

Charles Kuen Kao: Bringing Broadband to the Masses

Charles Kuen Kao, known as the father of fiber optic communications, revolutionized the way we communicate.

In the mid-1960s, Kao proposed a way to transmit information in the form of light over fiber optic cables. It consisted of long glass tubes along which rays of light were shot. To prevent light from seeping through the sides, Kao used purified glass, where the walls of the tube acted as mirrors for photons, or particles of light, forcing them to ricochet off. in the tube and continues down the tube, a phenomenon known as total internal reflection according to the Journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Thanks to this innovation, light information can be transmitted over long distances, which is perfect for telecommunications. In 2009 Kao received the Nobel Prize in Physics for this pioneering achievement.

Patricia Bath: Laser cataract zapping

As we age, our vision can be impaired. The later disease is the development of cataracts.At the front of each eye, a glass-like lens focuses images of the outside world onto light-sensitive cells on the back of the eye.

As we age, the proteins that make up this lens can slowly break down, causing what was once crystalline lens to become cloudy, according to the US National Eye Institute (NEI). reported more than 90% of Americans under the age of 65 have at least one cataract. According to the Kellogg Eye Center at the University of Michigan, the 75- and 85-year-olds lost some eyesight due to the condition.

Since the 5th century BC There are various cataract treatments available. B.C., according to a 2016 article in Missouri Medicine. One of these treatments, known as “lying down,” used a needle to remove the cataract from the visual axis of the eye so that the patient could regain vision, even if temporarily.

However, over the centuries, extraction, replacement, and obliquation methods have evolved, and a major medical breakthrough came in 1986 when Patricia Bath invented the laserphaco probe, according to MIT.

Before Bath’s groundbreaking technique was introduced, ophthalmologists inserted a needle into the eye to reach the lens and then used an ultrasound probe to break up the cloudy cataract. Bath’s method replaced ultrasound with lasers and enabled doctors to perform surgeries with greater precision.

Two years after inventing the Laserphaco probe, Bath received a patent for its development, making it the first African American doctor to receive a medical patent, according to The Washington Post.

Flossie WongStaal: Breaking the genetic code of HIV

Flossie WongStaal, a virologist WongStaal who left Hong Kong for the United States in 1964, played a key role in AIDS research. WongStaal was working at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda, Maryland when the AIDS epidemic broke out in the United States, which, according to an obituary in The Lancet, first identified human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as the cause of AIDS. In addition, WongStaal and colleague Robert Gallo cloned HIV and discovered how it hides from the immune system, according to The Lancet. While at NCI, WongStaal also designed a blood test to detect HIV.

Christine Darden: Unveiled the Secret of Sonic Booms

In 1955, at the start of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union, NASA used a team of “human computers” to calculate trajectories, propulsion and rocket dynamics. Computer was Christine Darden, who joined NASA in 1967. Eight years later, Darden was one of the few female engineers to join the Langley Research Center, according to NASA.

Dardens first assignment was to design programs for the effects of sonic booms, the incredibly loud noises that occur when planes fly faster than the speed of sound. This phenomenon occurs because a hypersonic aircraft compresses air molecules, creating a cone of compressed air that then radiates in waves backwards and to the ground, according to NASA.

While working full-time on the project, Darden received his PhD in 1983 from George Washington University in Washington, DC. For his doctoral thesis, he used his work at NASA to study the environmental impact of supersonic transportation. An object like an airplane moving faster than the speed of sound creates a pressure wave that can be heard as a sonic boom. The thunderous sound of a sonic boom is caused by the sudden change in air pressure around the aircraft, according to NASA.

Teams of NASA scientists replicated the booms using wind tunnels and model airplanes, while Darden used computer models to calculate the effects of the booms. The results of the Darden simulation were consistent with the results of the wind tunnel, although the Darden method was found to be less expensive and more efficient than building a full-scale model. according to “Distinguished African American Scientists of the 20th Century” (Oryx Press, 1996).

Charles Drew: Invention of the Blood Bank

Charles Drew is often referred to as the father of modern blood banks. Drew was born in 1904 and graduated from the University of Montreal’s McGill School of Medicine in 1933. In 1935 he became chief surgeon of surgery at Freedmen’s Hospital (now Howard University Hospital) in Washington, D.C, before studying at Columbia University, where he received a scholarship to study at the New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Drew was later hired to work with John Scudder, who had received funds to work in the first blood bank. Emission, fluid replacement, transfusion, and storage, Drew became a leading expert on blood.

As the number of victims increased in Europe during World War II, so did the need for blood transfusions.In 1940, the US founded the Blood for Britain project with the aim of shipping blood overseas, according to the U.S National Library of Medicine. If the plasma was taken from the blood and mixed in a saline solution, it could be sent to Allied troops abroad without refrigeration and still be usable.

Plasma could also be used regardless of the blood type of the patient who received it. By the time the project was completed in 1941, according to the US National Library of Medicine, 14,556 blood donations had been collected and more than 1,300 gallons (5,000 liters) of plasma had been shipped to the United States. Drew’s pioneering techniques were adopted elsewhere, such as by the American Red Cross, and helped shape modern blood bank impulses.

George Carruthers: The World’s First Lunar Telescope

In 1972, the scientist George Carruthers opened humanity’s eyes to the universe through the lens. his lunar surface ultraviolet camera (also called far ultraviolet camera / spectrograph), which the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum says was designed to observe the earth’s atmosphere from a position on the moon and detect radiation from stars and nebulae. The camera was shipped aboard Apollo 16 and placed on the lunar surface. There he took more than 550 ultraviolet images of stars, nebulae and galaxies throughout the cosmos. Carruthers’ creation also collected data on the Earth’s atmosphere, including the concentration of pollutants. to expand our knowledge of our planet.

Alice Ball: Treating Leprosy

Long before Alice Ball was born, leprosy caused nerve damage and skin lesions in millions of people around the world. In 1873 the Norwegian doctor Dr. Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen, according to the Journal of Skin and Sexually Transmitted Diseases, that the culprit was a bacterium called Mycobacterium leprae. applied topically, ingested or even injected. Although patients who underwent this treatment sometimes got better, they caused abscesses and nausea, according to the journal Pharmacy History.

In 1915, Ball developed a new method to extract the beneficial compounds from the chaulmoogra nut. Ball was working on a master’s degree in chemistry with an emphasis on the chemical makeup of herbal cavas (Piper methysticum), Live Science previously reported. Dr. Harry Hollmann, an assistant surgeon at Kalihi Hospital, pays attention. which at the time was a treatment center for leprosy patients. Together with Hollmann, Ball developed a new way of isolating the active ingredient t in Chaulmoogra nut oil. Ball next developed a water-soluble injection of this extract as an alternative treatment.

By 1918, according to New Scientist, 78 people who received Ball’s Method treatment were injury-free and discharged from hospital care. This injection became the standard treatment for leprosy for decades.

Ball died before her in 1916, at the age of only 24. The work could be published. The recognition of his revolutionary method went to his colleague and University President Arthur L. Dean, who forgot to mention Ball’s involvement in the “Dean Method”. Finally, Ball received posthumous recognition for his exemplary work in 1922, when Hollmann referred to scientific progress as the Ball Method, according to JSTOR Daily.