Today in History – May 23, 1930 – U.S. Plant Patent Act of the Hawley-Smot Trariff allows plants to be patented. This new U.S. Plant Patent Act provided, for the first time, patent protection for new and distinct varieties of asexually reproduced plants. Plant breeders now had a financial incentive to perform plant breeding experiments [...]

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Today in History -  May 20, 1899 – the American Physical Society (APS) is founded for the advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of physics. It was originally formed at Columbia University by 36 scientists from 17 institutions who elected Henry Rowland as their first president and A.A. Michelson as the first vice-president. It has [...]

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Today in History – May 17, 1954 – Official groundbreaking of the CERN laboratory occurred in Geneva. A small number of scientists first envisioned CERN vision as an opportunity to bring nations together through science and build a world-class laboratory for nuclear and particle physics in Europe. CERN’s founding convention emphasized that that it should [...]

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Today in History – May 13, 1958 – Velcro® trademark is registered for a fabric hook and loop fastener. The way George de Mestral, a Swiss mountaineer, tells the story, he was hiking with his dog in 1948 and was frustrated to see all of these burrs covering them both when he returned home. He says [...]

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Today in History – May 11, 1997 – Garry Kasparov, reigning World Chess Champion, loses tournament to IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer. The event was the twentieth century version of John Henry’s “man against machine”. The triumph of human intelligence was not to happen, however, as in the shocking finale on May 11th World Champion Garry [...]

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