Science News - November 2012

30
Presence of Water - Ice on Mercury confirmed
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20553879

29
Rise in sea level due to global warming and melting of polar ice sheets
Melting of polar ice sheets has added 11 mm to global sea levels over the past two decades
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20543483

28
Compounds giving aroma of Durian fruit identified
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121128112206.htm

8
Insulin through the nose as nasal spray shown feasible in rats.
http://www.rsc.org/AboutUs/News/PressReleases/2012/Insulin-nasal-spray-biomaterials-science.asp
(Royal Society of Chemistry)

Science - Quotations

Science is imagination in the service of the verifiable truth - Gerald M. Edelman (Nobel Laureate)
Nobel Prize Banquet Speech
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1972/edelman-speech.html

Norbert Wiener - Cybernetics

Norbert Wiener invented the field of cybernetics and conceptualized the thinking that  computer technology  extends human capabilities.

Norbert Wiener was born on November 26, 1894, and received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Harvard University at the age of 18 for a thesis on mathematical logic.

During World War II, Wiener worked on guided missile technology, and observed  how the feedback principle was being used  when a missile changes its flight in response to its current position and direction. He also noticed that the feedback principle was also a key feature of life forms from the simplest plants to the most complex animals and they  change their actions in response to their environment. Wiener developed this concept into the field of cybernetics, concerning the combination of man and electronics. The book on Cybernetics was published in 1948. 

http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_wiener.htm

http://www.tufts.edu/as/math/wiener.html

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Wiener_Norbert.html

Waht is Mohr's pinchcock burette?

A buret or burette is glass tube that allows delivery of a measured quantity of liquid. It is used in laboratory equipments. It was developed by Karl Friedrich Mohr using a pin on a rubber tube. The pinching action of the pin on the tube allowed the experimenter to deliver liquids drop by drop by and see the scale on the glass tube to determine the quantity of the  liquid delivered.

In the present day burets, the pinching pin is replaced by glass valve that allows liquid to flow in one position and stops the flow in other positions.

Read for more detail on it.
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2008/March/MohrsBurette.asp