Friday 18 July 2014

The forefather of modern oenology!!!

Émile Peynaud (June 29, 1912 – July 18, 2004) was a French oenologist and researcher who has been credited with revolutionizing wine making in the latter half of the 20th century, and has been called "the forefather of modern oenology". Peynaud entered the wine trade at the age of fifteen with the négociant Maison Calvet. At Calvet he worked under the chemical engineer Jean Ribéreau-Gayon, and they developed methods of analysing the wines that were to be purchased.


In 1946, Peynaud completed his Doctorate at the University of Bordeaux and joined its faculty as a lecturer. Ribéreau-Gayon at this time was also teaching at the University, and the two shifted their previous focus of problems faced by Calvet to the problems faced by the winemakers themselves. While at the University of Bordeaux, where he became a professor of oenology, Peynaud worked at providing scientific explanations for many problems encountered in the process of wine making. 


He convinced the wineries to begin picking of grapes at vineyards up to two weeks later than usual, and to complete the picking as quickly as possible. The practice of also picking underripe or rotten grapes was abandoned, so that the selected fruit arriving at the winery was of the best possible quality. Peynaud introduced crushing and fermenting fruit in separate batches based on vine age, vineyard location, or any other factor that resulted in fruit of differing qualities in order to control tannin extraction. 

He then applied the cool fermentations used in Champagne to still white Bordeaux in order to control fermentation temperatures.
Proposing methods that ran counter to many traditions, in the 1950s and 1960s skeptics would use the term "Peynaudization" of Bordeaux, but as his advice usually produced superior wines, criticism came to an end.


Peynaud considered the control of malolactic fermentation to be one of his most important contributions to winemaking. It was commonly believed that malolactic fermentation was a sickness. He helped the wineries realize that they needed to encourage and control malolactic fermentation. He also stated, "Using only the very best grapes is a new phenomenon," considering this "the crowning achievement of work." Peynaud was the Decanter Man of the Year in 1990. Michel Rolland is one of his pupils.



Oenology, or enology  is the science and study of all aspects of wine and wine making except vine-growing and grape-harvesting, which is a subfield called viticulture. “Viticulture and oenology” is a common designation for training programmes and research centres that include both the “outdoors” and “indoors” aspects of wine production. An expert in the field of oenology is known as an oenologist. The word oenology is derived from the Greek οἶνος - oinos, “wine”, and the suffix -λογία-logia, "study of".

Thursday 17 July 2014

The Subminiature camera Minox's creator!!!


Walter Zapp (4 September 1905 – 17 July 2003) was a Baltic German inventor. His greatest creation was the Minox subminiature camera. Zapp was born in RigaGovernorate of Livonia (now Latvia). In 1932, living in Estonia, he began developing the then subminiature camera by first creating wooden models, which led to the first prototype in 1936. It was introduced to the market in 1938. Minox cameras were made by VEF (Valsts Elektrotehniskā Fabrika) in Latvia. VEF made 17,000 Minox cameras.



During the Spring 1941 Resettlement of Baltic Germans, Walter Zapp moved to GermanyFrom 1941 to 1945, he worked on the development of electron microscopy at AEG in Berlin. After World War II, in 1945, he founded the Minox GmbH in WetzlarGermany. The company still exists. In 2001, when he went to Latvia for the last time, he said that he had gone to celebrate his 100th birthday in Latvia. He died at age of 98, in Binningen near BaselSwitzerland.



The innovative design and technical solutions of Zapp's camera were patented around the world. VEF received 66 patents in 18 countries for Zapp's inventionsLater in the 60's, Zapp was named as the inventor in several patents granted to Minox GmbH for improvements and modifications of a subminiature camera. On the beginning of 90's, Zapp patented his last invention, the Minox T8 pocket telescope.



Minox is a manufacturer of cameras, known especially for its subminiature camera. Walter Zapp originally envisioned the Minox to be a camera for everyone requiring only little photographic knowledge. Yet in part due to its high manufacturing costs the Minox became more well known as a must-have luxury item. 



From the start the Minox also gained wide notoriety as a spy camera. Minox branched out into 35 mm film format and 110 film format cameras in 1974 and 1976, respectively. Minox continues to operate today, producing or branding optical and photographic equipment. Minox was acquired by Leica in 1996, but a management buyout in 25 August 2001 left Minox an independent company again.

Wednesday 16 July 2014

This science graduate, MBA with 10 honorary doctorates , teacher; synthesized 'seven habits of highly effective people'!!!

Stephen Richards Covey (October 24, 1932 – July 16, 2012) was an American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker. His most popular book was The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. His other books include First Things FirstPrinciple-Centered LeadershipThe Seven Habits of Highly Effective FamiliesThe 8th Habit, and The Leader In Me — How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time. He was a professor at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University at the time of his death.

(Habit constitution)(Habit constitution)
Covey was born to Stephen Glenn Covey and Irene Louise Richards Covey in Salt Lake City. Covey was athletic as a youth but contracted slipped capital femoral epiphysis in junior high school, requiring him to change his focus to academics. He was a member of the debate team and graduated from high school early. Covey earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from the University of Utah, an MBA from Harvard University, and a Doctor of Religious Education (DRE) from Brigham Young University. He was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha International Fraternity. He was awarded ten honorary doctorates.


(Covey's quadrant)(Covey's quadrant)
Covey lived with his wife Sandra and their family in Provo, Utah, home to Brigham Young University, where Covey taught prior to the publication of his best-selling book. A father of nine and a grandfather of fifty-two, he received the Fatherhood Award from the National Fatherhood Initiative in 2003.


(Seven Habits)(Seven Habits)
In April 2012, Covey, an avid cyclist, was riding a bike in Rock Canyon Park in Provo, Utah, when he lost control of his bike and fell. Covey also suffered cracked ribs and a partially collapsed lung. Covey died from complications resulting from the bike accident at the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls, Idaho, on July 16, 2012.

(Habits paradigm)(Habits paradigm)



Note: Please download & open the images for a clear view.

Tuesday 15 July 2014

This essayist is attributed for the discipline of nephrology, was the first one to perform renal transplant too!!!

Jean Hamburger (15 July 1909 – 1 February 1992) was a French physician, surgeon and essayist. He is particularly known for his contribution to nephrology, and for having performed the first renal transplantation in France in 1952. Hamburger was born to a Jewish family in Paris. Together with René Kuss, Hamburger defined the precise methods and rules for conducting renal transplantation surgery, and is attributed with founding the medical discipline of nephrology. 

In 1952, at Necker Hospital in Paris, he performed the first successful renal transplant surgery between living patients in France, on a 16-year-old carpenter, Marius Renard who damaged his only kidney when he fell off scaffolding, using a kidney donated by the subject's mother. The organ failed, but rejection was staved off for three weeks, a record at the time. 

In 1955, he created the very first articifial kidney. Hamburger is credited with major breakthroughs in renal transplants: first prolonged success in 1953, first unqualified success between twins in 1959 and non-twins in 1962. He also authored basic research on the immunological basis of kidney disease, graft immunology and auto-immune diseases.

Hamburger married concert pianist Annette Haas, and had 3 children, Michel, Bernard and Françoise. In the 1950s, Hamburger contracted a lung infection which weakened him severely. Hamburger was the father of the well-known French singer-songwriter, Michel Berger. Hamburger died on 1 February 1992 in Paris.


Kidney transplantation or renal transplantation is the organ transplant of a kidney into a patient with end-stage renal disease. Kidney transplantation is typically classified as deceased-donor (formerly known as cadaveric) or living-donor transplantation depending on the source of the donor organ. Living-donor renal transplants are further characterized as genetically related (living-related) or non-related (living-unrelated) transplants, depending on whether a biological relationship exists between the donor and recipient. Exchanges and chains are a novel approach to expand the living donor pool.

Monday 14 July 2014

This shoemaker's son, whose intention was to be a priest, became physiologist & discoverer due to his love in Natural Science!!!

Johannes Peter Müller (14 July 1801 – 28 April 1858), was a German physiologistcomparative anatomistichthyologist, and herpetologist, known not only for his discoveries but also for his ability to synthesize knowledge. Müller was born in Koblenz. He was the son of a poor shoemaker, and was about to be apprenticed to a saddler when his talents attracted the attention of his teacher. During his college course at Koblenz, he devoted himself to the classics and made his own translations of AristotleAt first, his intention was to become a priest.

When he was 18 though, his love for natural science became dominant, and he turned to medicine, entering the University of Bonnin 1819. There he received his M.D.. He then studied at Berlin. There, under the influence of Hegel and Rudolphi, he was induced to reject all systems of physiology which were not founded upon a strict observation of nature.

Müller made contributions in numerous domains of physiology, in particular increasing understanding of the voicespeech and hearing, as well as the chemical and physical properties of lymphchyle and blood. His first important works, Zur vergleichenden Physiologie des Gesichtsinns (“On the comparative physiology of sight,” Leipzig, 1826) andÜber die phantastischen Gesichtserscheinungen (“On visual hallucination,” Coblenz, 1826), are of a subjective philosophical tendency. 

The first work concerns the most important facts as to human and animal sight, the second sounds depths of difficult psychological problems. He soon became the leader in the science of the morphological treatment of zoology as well as of experimental physiology. To his research (1830) is due the settlement of the theory of reflex action.

In the century preceding Müller's work, many contributions to physiological science had been made. Müller gave order to these facts, developed general principles and showed physiologists how recent discoveries in physics and chemistry could be applied to their work. The appearance of his magnum opusHandbuch der Physiologie des Menschen, between 1833 and 1840 (translated into English as “Elements of Physiology” by William Baly, and published in London 1837–1843) marked the beginning of a new period in the study of physiology. 

In it, for the first time, the results of human and comparative anatomy, as well as of chemistry and other departments of physical science, and tools like the microscope, were brought to bear on the investigation of physiological problems. The most important portion of the work was that dealing with nervous action and the mechanism of the senses. Here he stated the principle, not before recognized, that the kind of sensation following stimulation of a sensory nerve does not depend on the mode of stimulation but upon the nature of the sense organ. 

Thus light, pressure, or mechanical stimulation acting on the retina and optic nerve invariably produces luminous impressions. This he termed the law of specific energies of the sense. It manifests Müller’s interests in vitalism, philosophy and scientific rigor. He discusses the difference between inorganic and organic matter. He considers in detail various physiological systems of a wide variety of animals, but attributes the indivisible whole of an organism to the presence of a soul. He also proposes that living organisms possess a life-energy for which physical laws can never fully account.

In the later part of his life he chiefly devoted himself to comparative anatomy. Fishes and marine invertebrata were his favorite subjects. He took 19 trips to the Baltic and North Sea, the Adriatic and the Mediterranean to investigate salt-water life. He authored a comprehensive work on the anatomy of amphibians, which in his era including reptiles. Also, he described several new species of snakes.

Müller mentored such distinguished scientists and physiologists as Hermann von HelmholtzEmil du Bois-ReymondTheodor SchwannFriedrich Gustav Jakob HenleCarl Ludwigand Ernst Haeckel. In 1834, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of SciencesMüller died in Berlin in 1858. In 1899, a bronze statue by Joseph Uphues was erected in his memory at Koblenz.

Sunday 13 July 2014

In quest of finding good task for his students, this architect professor made world's best-selling toy and a fortune too!!!

Ernő Rubik (born 13 July 1944) is a Hungarian inventor, architect and professor of architecture. He is best known for the invention of mechanical puzzles including Rubik's Cube (1974), Rubik's MagicRubik's Magic: Master EditionRubik's Snake. While Rubik grew to fame based on the Rubik's Cube and his other puzzles, much of his recent work involves the promotion of science in education. Rubik is involved with several organizations such as Beyond Rubik's Cube, the Rubik Learning Initiative and the Judit Polgar Foundation all of whose aim is to engage students in science, mathematics, and problem solving at a young age.

Ernő Rubik was born in BudapestHungary during World War II, and has lived all his life in Hungary. His father, Ernő Rubik, was a flight engineer at the Esztergom aircraft factory, and his mother, Magdolna Szántó, was a poet. From 1958 to 1962, Rubik specialised in sculpture at the Secondary School of Fine and Applied Arts. From 1962 to 1967, Rubik attended the University of Technology, Budapest where he became a member of the Architecture Faculty. 

From 1967 to 1971, Rubik attended the Hungarian Academy of Applied Arts and was on the Faculty of Interior Architecture and Design. Rubik considers university and the education it afforded him as the decisive event which shaped his life. Rubik has stated that, "Schools offered me the opportunity to acquire knowledge of subjects or rather crafts that need a lot of practice, persistence and diligence with the direction of a mentor."

From 1971 to 1979, Rubik was a professor of architecture at the Budapest College of Applied ArtsIt was during his time there that he built designs for a three-dimensional puzzle and completed the first prototype of the Rubik's Cube in 1974, applying for a patent on the puzzle in 1975. In an interview with CNN, Rubik stated that he was "searching to find a good task for my students."

“Space always intrigued me, with its incredibly rich possibilities, space alteration by (architectural) objects, objects' transformation in space (sculpture, design), movement in space and in time, their correlation, their repercussion on mankind, the relation between man and space, the object and time. I think the CUBE arose from this interest, from this search for expression and for this always more increased acuteness of these thoughts..."

Starting with blocks of wood and rubber bands, Rubik set out to create a structure which would allow the individual pieces to move without the whole structure falling apart. Rubik originally used wood for the block because of the convenience of a workshop at the university and because he viewed wood as a simple material to work with that did not require sophisticated machinery. Rubik made the original prototypes of his cube by hand, cutting the wood, boring the holes and using elastic bands to hold the contraption together.


Rubik showed his prototype to his class and his students liked it very much. Rubik realized that, because of the cube's simple structure, it could be manufactured relatively easily and might have appeal to a larger audience. The cube was originally known in Hungary as the Magic Cube.

Rubik licensed the Magic Cube to Ideal Toys, a New York based company, in 1979 who rebranded The Magic Cube to the Rubik's Cube before its introduction to an international audience in 1980. The process from early prototype to significant mass production of the Cube had taken over six years. The Rubik's Cube would go on to become an instant success worldwide, winning several Toy of the Year awards, and becoming a staple of 1980's popular culture. To date, the Rubik's Cube has sold over 350 million units, making it the best selling toy of all time.

In addition to the Rubik's Cube, Rubik is also the inventor of the Rubik's MagicRubik's Magic: Master Edition, and Rubik's Snake. Rubik has recently spent much of his time working on Beyond Rubik's Cube, a Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM fields) based exhibition, which will travel the globe over the next six years. The grand opening of the exhibit was held on 26 April 2014 at the Liberty Science Center outside New York City. At the exhibition, Rubik gave several lectures, tours, and engaged with the public and several members of the speedcubing crowd in attendance, including Anthony Michael Brooks, a world-class speedcuber.

Rubik's Cube is a 3-D combination puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube, the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980 via businessman Tibor Laczi and Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer, and won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that year. As of January 2009, 350 million cubes had been sold worldwide making it the world's top-selling puzzle game. It is widely considered to be the world's best-selling toy.


In a classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces is covered by nine stickers, each of one of six solid colours: white, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow. In currently sold models, white is opposite yellow, blue is opposite green, and orange is opposite red, and the red, white and blue are arranged in that order in a clockwise arrangement. 

On early cubes, the position of the colours varied from cube to cube. An internal pivot mechanism enables each face to turn independently, thus mixing up the colours. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be returned to consisting of one colour. Similar puzzles have now been produced with various numbers of sides, dimensions, and stickers, not all of them by Rubik. Although the Rubik's Cube reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1980s, it is still widely known and used. 

Saturday 12 July 2014

This firefighter, who started as broker, banker; practically structured and is believed as FATHER OF BASEBALL!!!

Alexander Joy Cartwright, Jr. (April 17, 1820 – July 12, 1892) is one of several people sometimes referred to as a "father of baseball". Cartwright is thought to be the first person to draw a diagram of a diamond shaped baseball field, and the rules of the modern game are based on the Knickerbocker Rules developed by Cartwright and a committee from his club, the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club. With the myth of Abner Doubleday inventing baseball debunked, Cartwright was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame as an executive 46 years after his death. Cartwright was officially declared the inventor of the modern game of baseball by the 83rd United States Congress on June 3, 1953.

Cartwright was born in 1820 to Alexander Carwright, Sr., a merchant sea captain, and Esther Burlock Cartwright. He first worked at the age of 16 in 1836 as a clerk for a Wall Street broker, later clerking at Union Bank of New York. After hours, he played bat-and-ball games in the streets of Manhattan with volunteer firefighters. Cartwright himself was a volunteer, first with Oceana Hose Company No. 36, and then Knickerbocker Engine Company No. 12. Cartwright married Eliza Van Wie, from Albany, on June 2, 1842. A fire destroyed Union Bank in 1845, forcing Cartwright to find other work. He became a bookseller with his brother, Alfred.

Cartwright led the establishment of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club (after the Knickerbocker Fire Engine Company) in 1842. The Knickerbockers played a brand of bat-and-ball game called town ball on a field at 4th Avenue and 27th Streets. In 1845 Cartwright and a committee from his club drew up rules converting this playground game into a more elaborate and interesting sport to be played by adults. 


The original 14 rules were somewhat similar to but not identical to the English sport of rounders. Three exceptions devised by Cartwright included the stipulations that the playing field had to be laid out in a diamond-shape rather than a square used in rounders, foul territories were to be introduced for the first time, and the practice of retiring a runner by hitting him with a thrown ball was forbidden. Cartwright is also credited for introducing flat bases at uniform distances, three strikes per batter, and nine players in the outfield.

The first clearly documented match between two baseball clubs under these rules took place on June 19, 1846, at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey. In this match, the Knickerbockers lost to the "New York Nine" by a score of 23 to 1. Some authors have also questioned the supposed "first game" under the new rules. The Knickerbockers' score-book shows games during 1845 also. Those who have studied the score-book have concluded that the differences in the games of 1845 and 1846, compared with the specifications of the Knickerbocker rules, are minimal, such as fielding teams of seven players instead of nine.


In 1849, Cartwright headed to California for the gold rush, but ended up in the Hawaiian Islands instead. His family came to join him in 1851: wife Eliza Van Wie, son DeWitt (1843–1870), daughter Mary (1845–1869), and daughter Catherine (Kate) Lee (1849–1851). In Hawaii sons Bruce Cartwright (1853–1919) and Alexander Joy Cartwright III (1855–1921) were born. He set up a baseball field on the island of Oahu at Makiki Field.

Cartwright served as fire chief of Honolulu from 1850 through June 30, 1863. As advisor to King David Kalākaua and Queen Emma he encouraged the growth of baseball on the islands until his death on July 12, 1892, a year before the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893. One of the leaders of the overthrow movement was Lorrin A. Thurston who played baseball with classmate Alexander Cartwright III at Punahou School. He was buried in Oahu Cemetery.