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On this day in 1947, Carl and Gerty Cori, along with Bernardo Houssay of Argentina, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The Coris were the third married couple to be awarded a Nobel Prize.

Carl grew up in Trieste and Gerty grew up in Prague. Gerty was tutored at home before enrolling in a lyceum for girls, and at the age of 16, she decided she wanted to be a medical doctor. Pursuing the study of science, Gerty learned that she lacked the prerequisites in Latin, physics, chemistry, and mathematics. Over the course of a year, she managed to study the equivalent of eight years of Latin, five years of science, and five years of mathematics. She was admitted to the medical school of the Karl-Ferdinands-Universität in Prague in 1914 where she met Carl.

Carl was drafted into the Austrian army and served during World War I. Life was difficult after the war, and Gerty developed dry eye caused by severe malnutrition due to food shortages. These problems, in conjunction with the increasing anti-Semitism (Gerty was from a jewish family), contributed to the Coris’ decision to leave Europe. In 1922, the Coris both immigrated to the United States (Gerty six months after Carl because of difficulty in obtaining a position) to pursue medical research at what later became the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York. In 1928, they became naturalized citizens.

They continued their research, specializing in investigating carbohydrate metabolism. They were particularly interested in how glucose is metabolized in the human body and the hormones that regulate this process. They published fifty papers while at Roswell. The lead author of each paper was the one who had done the most research. Gerty Cori published eleven articles as the sole author. In 1929, they proposed the theoretical cycle that later won them the Nobel Prize, the Cori cycle. The cycle describes how the human body uses chemical reactions to break some carbohydrates such as glycogen in muscle tissue into lactic acid, while synthesizing others.

Gerty Cori with her husband and fellow-Nobelist, Carl Ferdinand Cori, in 1947.

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Here’s Tuba Skinny! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYJhgz4L3UU

This day in 1844 was the day of The Great Disappointment. The Great Disappointment in the Millerite movement was the reaction that followed Baptist preacher William Miller’s widely believed proclamation that Jesus Christ would return to the Earth by 1844, which he called the Second Advent. His study of the Daniel 8 prophecy during the Second Great Awakening led him to conclude that Daniel’s “cleansing of the sanctuary” was cleansing the world from sin when Christ would come, and he and many others prepared. When Jesus did not appear by October 22, 1844, Miller and his followers were disappointed.

These events paved the way for the Adventists who formed the Seventh-day Adventist Church. They contended that what had happened on October 22 was not Jesus’s return, as Miller had thought, but the start of Jesus’s final work of atonement, the cleansing in the heavenly sanctuary, leading up to the Second Coming.

William Miller

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On this day in 1966, The Supremes became the first female group to have a No.1 album on the US chart with ‘The Supremes a Go Go’, knocking The Beatles Revolver from the top of the charts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTBmgAOO0Nw

Today is the birthday, in 1833, of Alfred Nobel. Nobel’s father was an alumnus of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and was an engineer and inventor who built bridges and buildings and experimented with different ways of blasting rocks. He encouraged and taught Nobel from a young age.

As a young man, Nobel studied with chemist Nikolai Zinin; then, in 1850, he went to Paris to further the work. There he met Ascanio Sobrero, who had synthesized nitroglycerin three years before. Sobrero strongly opposed the use of nitroglycerin because it was unpredictable, exploding when subjected to variable heat or pressure. But Nobel became interested in finding a way to control and use nitroglycerin as a commercially usable explosive; it had much more power than gunpowder.

Nobel found that when nitroglycerin was incorporated in an absorbent inert substance like kieselguhr (diatomaceous earth) it became safer and more convenient to handle, and this mixture he patented in 1867 as “dynamite”. Nobel later combined nitroglycerin with various nitrocellulose compounds, similar to collodion, but settled on a more efficient recipe combining another nitrate explosive, and obtained a transparent, jelly-like substance, which was a more powerful explosive than dynamite. Gelignite, or blasting gelatin, as it was named, was patented in 1876.

On 27 November 1895, at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Nobel signed his last will and set aside the bulk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prizes, to be awarded annually without distinction of nationality. He also made several other important contributions to science, holding 355 patents during his life.

Portrait of Nobel by Gösta Florman

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Seventy Five!!!

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BADA BING BING BING…

Don’t worry, Donald. You’re still eligible for the No Ball Prize.

tRUMP, putting the NO in Nobel Peace Price.

Anti-vaxxers, how do you feel about your Dear Leader getting a flu vaccine and Covid booster? It’s almost as if he took you for complete suckers.

I don’t have a train of thought, I have a Roomba of thought. It can move straight ahead, but as soon as it bumps into something, it turns around and starts moving in a brand-new, random direction.

They held a contest to choose the best neckwear. It was a tie.

Daughter: Alexa play “Let it Go.” Me: When I was your age I had to call the radio station, wait on hold for 30 mins to request a song, then sit by my boom box for an hour with a blank cassette tape for my song to play so I could record it. Daughter: I don’t know what any of that means.

Mr. Rogers did not adequately prepare me for the people in my neighborhood.

I was walking a pretty girl home from school one day when we ran upon one the school bullies. Good thing I was carrying her books or she wouldn’t have been able to beat him up.

Medical researchers have determined stress will kill you. Great … one more thing to worry about.

Apparently it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill, which can’t be true because I’ve been an adult a lot longer than 10,000 hours and I still have no idea what I’m doing.

You donate a kidney, you’re a hero. You donate three kidneys, and suddenly the police are involved.

Husband: The nerve of that doctor. Saying I’m so old that he referred me to an archaeologist. Wife: Audiologist, dear. You can’t hear.

I’m not sure I agree with the idea that “when you snooze you lose.” At my age, snoozing seems more like winning to me.

IF YOU ARE ARGUING LOUDLY ON YOUR PHONE IN PUBLIC, PLEASE PUT IT ON SPEAKER, I NEED TO HEAR BOTH SIDES OF THE STORY.

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Today is the birthday, in 1957, of American guitarist, singer, songwriter, arranger and record producer Steve Lukather, who with Toto had the 1983 US No.1 & UK No.3 single ‘Africa’. Lukather has recorded guitar tracks for more than 1,500 albums including the guitar solo for Olivia Newton-John’s 1981 No.1 single ‘Physical’, Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’, and was also heavily involved in the recording of virtually all of Jackson’s Thriller album. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTQbiNvZqaY

On this day in 1818, The United States and the United Kingdom signed the cleverly named Treaty of 1818. This treaty resolved standing boundary issues between the two nations. The treaty allowed for joint occupation and settlement of the Oregon Country, known to the British and in Canadian history as the Columbia District of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

The two nations agreed to a boundary line involving the 49th parallel north, in part because a straight-line boundary would be easier to survey than the pre-existing boundaries based on watersheds. The treaty marked both the United Kingdom’s last permanent major loss of territory in what is now the Continental United States and the United States’ first permanent significant cession of North American territory to a foreign power.

The Treaty of 1818, along with the Rush–Bagot Treaty of 1817, marked the beginning of improved relations between the British Empire and its former colonies, and paved the way for more positive relations between the US and Canada although repelling a US invasion was a defense priority in Canada until 1928.

Cutting on the 49th parallel, on the right bank of the Moyie River, looking west, 1860.

(courtesy North American Boundary Commission)

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Her Shoes…His Shoes…

Signs remind us that we have NO KINGS

…and thousands more

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Wow! What a coupon!

Today is the birthday, in 1950, of Tom Petty, American singer and songwriter. He was the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup the Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers had the 1977 single ‘American Girl’, the 1989 UK No.28 single ‘I Won’t Back Down’, and the 1991 UK No.3 album ‘Into The Great Wide Open’. With the Traveling Wilburys, the 1988 UK No. 21 single ‘Handle With Care’. Petty has also released a string of solo albums, and Throughout his career and has sold over 60 million albums. Petty died on 2 October 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvlTJrNJ5lA

On this day in 1787, fourteen blacks, describing themselves as taxpaying “freemen” of Boston (Massachusetts abolished slavery in 1783), submitted a petition to the legislature protesting that their children were excluded from the Boston public schools because of their race. Deliberately echoing the protests of the Sons of Liberty, they complained to the legislature of taxation without education.

But the Commonwealth’s lawmakers ignored their plea. Rebuffed by the legislature, Boston’s blacks established a school of their own. Prince Hall, one of the fourteen blacks who petitioned the legislature in 1787, was the school’s first teacher. Hall was one of the most influential black leaders of the late 1700s. Hall served in the Continental Army during the revolution.

Having served in the Revolutionary War, Hall and other blacks expected, but did not receive, racial equality when the war ended. Hall collaborated with others to propose legislation for equal rights. He also hosted community events, such as educational forums and theater events, to improve the lives of Black people.

Hall was interested in the Masonic fraternity because Freemasonry was founded on liberty, equality, and peaceful ideals. Having been rejected by colonial Freemasonry, Hall and 15 others sought and were initiated into Masonry by members of Lodge No. 441 of the Grand Lodge of Ireland on March 6, 1775. Hall and other freedmen founded African Lodge No. 1, and he was named Grand Master. Hall was considered the “father of African Freemasonry”.

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“My new work schedule is three days in the office and two days at home dreading going to the office.”

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Today is the birthday, in 1972, of Haitian rapper and musician Wyclef Jean, who with The Fugees had the 1996 UK No.1 single Killing Me Softly and the 1998 solo 1998 UK No.3 single ‘Gone Till November’. Their second album The Score (1996) became one of the best-selling albums of all time. Jean has won three Grammy Awards for his musical work. He co-wrote the 1999 singles ‘My Love Is Your Love’ for Whitney Houston and ‘Maria Maria’ for Santana. He guest performed on Shakira’s 2006 single, ‘Hips Don’t Lie’, reaching No.1 in 55 countries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUT5rEU6pqM