Scientist of the Day

Harry Govier Seeley, an English paleontologist, died Jan. 8, 1909, at the age of 69. He was born in 1839, 15 years after William Buckland announced...

Thomas Coltrin Keefer, a Canadian civil engineer, died Jan. 7, 1915, at the age of 93. He was raised in northern Ontario, what they called back...

Giacomo Costantino Beltrami, an Italian adventurer, died Jan. 6, 1855, at age 75. Born in Bergamo, Italy, he prospered as a magistrate during the...

Umberto Eco, an Italian historian, semiotician, and novelist, was born Jan. 5, 1932.  Eco was a professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna...

Robert Boyle, an Irish/English experimental natural philosopher and chemist, died in London on Dec. 30, 1691, at the age of 64. Boyle is well known...

Charles Goodyear, an American self-taught chemist and inventor, was born Dec. 29, 1800, in New Haven, Conn.

John Westwyk, an English monk and astronomical instrument maker, died sometime before 1400, probably in the infirmary at the Benedictine abbey...

On Dec. 22, 1666, the French Académie des Sciences met for the first time in King Louis XIV's library at Versailles.

Ptolemy of Alexandria, sometimes referred to as Claudius Ptolemy, was the most accomplished and most influential astronomer of the ancient world...

On Dec. 18, 1958, the United States successfully launched and put into orbit the world's first communications satellite, called SCORE.

Jan Evangelista Purkynĕ, a Bohemian (now Czech) anatomist and physiologist, was born on Dec. 17, 1787, in what was then part of the Austrian kingdom.

Thomas Pennant, a Welsh naturalist and traveler, died at his home, Downing Hall, in Flintshire, on Dec. 16, 1798, at age 72. Pennant began his...