| Date | Text | |
|---|---|---|
28 Feb 2013
Donald A. Glaser |
death Donald A. Glaser Died 28 Feb 2013 at age 86 (born 21 Sep 1926). Donald Arthur Glaser was an American physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1960 for his invention of the bubble chamber in which the behaviour of subatomic particles can be observed by the tracks they leave. A flash photograph records the particle's path. Glaser's chamber contains a superheated liquid maintained in a superheated, unstable state without boiling. A piston causing a rapid decrease in pressure creates a tendency to boil at the slightest disturbance in the liquid. Then any atomic particle passing through the chamber leaves a track of small gas bubbles caused by an instantaneous boiling along its path where the ions it creates act as bubble-development centers. |
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20 Sep 2013
Deep Impact mission end |
Deep Impact mission end In 2013, the Deep Impact spacecraft was declared dead by NASA after nine productive years making fly-bys of comets. Radio contact was suddenly and permanently lost on 8 Aug 2013, perhaps caused by a failure causing the solar panels and antenna to point in the wrong direction. Without power, it likely froze up. It had been launched on 12 Jan 2005 to release a special impactor spacecraft to crash (3 Jul 2005) into comet Tempel 1, so after the impact (4 Jul 2005), the ejecta plume could be studied spectroscopically to reveal its composition. Deep Impact continued as the EPOXI mission and took images during fly-bys of comet Hartley 2 (4 Nov 2010) and comet Garradd (Jan 2012). Towards its end of life, it was studying comet Ison. |
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29 Oct 2013
Marmaray tunnel ceremonial test train |
Marmaray tunnel ceremonial test train In 2013, the Marmaray rail tunnel under the Bosphorus Strait was opened for public travel and over 300,000 people travelled through it, on the 90th anniversary of the Turkish Republic. It is the world's first sea tunnel connecting two continents and the deepest submerged tunnel. A 1.4-km stretch of the tunnel lies 50-m below the seabed. The 13-km project linking Kazliçesme, Turkey in Europe and Ayrılıkçesme in Asia is part of what will be a total 77-km cross-city surburban service above and below ground when construction is finished (set for Jun 2015). A sultan conceived the tunnel idea in 1860, but it was not until 2004 that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan initiated the ambitious project to relieve traffic congestion on the two existing road bridges. He rode a ceremonial test run on 4 Aug 2013. |
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19 Nov 2013
Frederick Sanger |
death Frederick Sanger Died 19 Nov 2013 at age 95 (born 13 Aug 1918). English biochemist who was twice the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. He was awarded the prize in 1958 for his work on the structure of proteins, especially the determination of the structure of the insulin molecule. He shared the prize (with Paul Berg and Walter Gilbert of the United States) in 1980 for his contribution concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids. |
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