Folding At Home: Fact of the Day Log

[Googer]

Folding fact #83
1893 Researchers at the Lister Institute isolated the diphtheria antitoxin.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #84
1895 Winogradski demonstrated nitrogen fixation in the absence of oxygen by Clostridia bacteria.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #85
1896 Wilhelm Kolle, a German bacteriologist, developed cholera and typhoid vaccines. E.B. Wilson elaborated on August Weismann's chromosome theory of heredity.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #86
1897 Eduard Buchner demonstrated that fermentation can occur with an extract of yeast in the absence of intact yeast cells. This is a founding moment in biochemistry and enzymology. Friedrich Loeffler and P. Frosch reported that the pathogen of the foot-and-mouth disease of cattle is so small it passes through filters that trap the smallest bacteria; such pathogens came to be known as "filterable viruses." Ronald Ross discovered Plasmodium, the protozoan that causes malaria, in the Anopheles mosquito and showed the mosquito transmits the disease agent from one person to another.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #87
1899 Beijerinck's research on tobacco mosaic disease confirmed the work of Ivanovsky. Beijerinck proposed that the virus becomes incorporated into the protoplasm of the host plant.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #88
1900 Walter Reed established that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes, the first time a human disease was shown to be caused by a virus.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #89
1900 The science of genetics was finally born when Mendel's work was rediscovered by three scientists - Hugo DeVries, Erich Von Tschermak, and Carl Correns - each one independently researching scientific literature for precedents to their own "original" work.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #90
1900 William Sutton observed homologous pairs of chromosomes in grasshopper cells.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #91
Major outbreaks of disease in overcrowded industrial cities led to the introduction of large-scale sewage purification systems based on microbial activity. It was first shown that key industrial chemicals (glycerol, acetone, and butanol) could be generated using bacteria.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #92
1901 Beijerinck identified free-living aerobic nitrogen fixers.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #93
E. Wildiers discovered "a new substance indispensable for the development of yeast." Such growth factors eventually became known as vitamins.

 

[FlameDeer]

Thanks for all the facts update, Googer! :beer:

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #94
1902 Walter Stanborough Sutton stated that chromosomes are paired and may be the carriers of heredity. He suggested that Mendel's "factors" are located on chromosomes. After observing chromosomal movements during meiosis, Sutton developed the chromosomal theory of heredity. Sutton noticed that chromosomes occur as pairs, and that gametes (egg and sperm cells) receive only one chromosome from each pair when they form during meiosis. This corroborated Mendel's theory that the genetic "factors" were segregated. Sutton gave Mendel's "factors" the name we use today: "genes."

Archibald Garrod made the connection between Mendelian heredity and the biochemical pathways of reproduction in the individual organism. He went on to inspire a distinguished line of research physicians whose work in the ensuing ninety years became indispensable to the growth of human genetics.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #95
1903 Walter Sutton and Theodor Boveri, working independently, proposed that each egg or sperm cell contains only one of each chromosome pair. This connected two phemonema: the patterns by which pairs of Mendel's factors assort themselves and the precisely similar sorting and recombination of the chromosomes in the formation of the germ cells and the fertilization of the egg.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #96
1904 William Bateson demonstrated that some characteristics are not independently inherited. This introduced the concept now called 'gene linkage' and led to the need for 'genetic maps' that describe the order of the linked genes.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #97
1905 Edmund Wilson and Nellie Stevens proposed the idea that separate X and Y chromosomes determine sex. They showed that a single Y chromosome determines maleness, and two copies of the X chromosome determine femaleness.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #98
1905-1908 William Bateson and Reginald Crudell Punnett, along with others, demonstrated that some genes modify the action of other genes.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #99
1906 Paul Erlich investigated atoxyl compounds and discovered the beneficial properties of Salvarsan - the first chemotherapeutic agent.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #100
1907 Thomas Hunt Morgan began his work with fruit flies that will prove that chromosomes have a definite function in heredity, establish mutation theory, and lead to a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of heredity.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #101
1908 Calmette and Guerin developed a vaccine against TB. This vaccine, called BCG, was not used until 1921.

A.E. Garrod described "inborn errors of metabolism" based on his analysis of family medical histories. This was a first recognition of a role for genetics in biochemistry, but the idea remained unappreciated until the work of Beadle and Tatum in the 1940's.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #102
1909 Wilhelm Johannsen coined the terms 'gene' to describe the carrier of heredity; 'genotype' to describe the genetic constitution of an organism; and 'phenotype' to describe the actual organism, which results from a combination of the genotype and the various environmental factors.

Phoebus Levene discovered that the sugar ribose is found in some nucleic acids, those we now call RNA.

William Bateson first applied Mendel's laws to animals.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #103
1910 Thomas Hunt Morgan proved that genes are carried on chromosomes, establishing the basis of modern genetics. With his co-workers, he pinpointed the location of various fruit fly genes on chromosomes, establishing the use of Drosophila fruit flies to study heredity. Morgan's group also demonstrated the existence of sex-linked genes, and over the next ten years expanded the idea to other trait linkages, using "crossing-over" to help determine the location of genes.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #104
1911 Thomas Hunt Morgan explained the separation of certain inherited characteristics that are usually linked as caused by the breaking of chromosomes sometimes during the process of cell division. Morgan began to map the positions of genes on chromosomes of the fruit fly.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #105
1912 Lawrence Bragg discovered that X-rays can be used to study the molecular structure of simple crystalline substances. This discovery led to the development of X-ray crystallography, which made it possible to further explore the three-dimensional structures of nucleic acids and proteins.

 

[Googer]

Folding fact #106
1913 Alfred H. Sturtevant, a student of Morgan's, constructed the first gene map by analyzing mating results for fruit flies with six different mutant factors each known to be recessive and X-linked. He traced each mutation and its normal alternate in relation to each of the other mutants, and thus calculated the exact percentage of crossing-over between the genes.