Today in Science (1019)

Events

1943 - Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.

1688 - William Cheselden, English surgeon and anatomist

1858 - George Albert Boulenger, Belgian naturalist

1897 - Salimuzzaman Siddiqui, Pakistani scientist and scholar

1909 - Marguerite Perey, French physicist

1910 - Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Indian-born physicist and Nobel Prize laureate

1916 - Jean Dausset, French immunologist and Nobel Prize laureate

1951 - Demetrios Christodoulou, Greek mathematical physicist

Deaths

1937 - Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, New Zealand physicist and Nobel Prize laureate

More like this

Richard Reeves is probably best known for writing biographies of American Presidents (Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan), so it's a little strange to see him turn his hand to scientific biography.
"You wanted to see me, Herr Professor?" "Hans! Yes, come in, come in. Just going over the account books. Frightful amount of money going out of this place." "Well, radium is expensive..."
The eighth of the Top Eleven is an experiment by the man who set the gold standard for arrogance in physics.

John, there's a great backstory on the discovery of streptomycin. While Rutgers' Selman Waksman was awarded the Nobel solely, his graduate student Albert Schatz did most of the work and was later recognized as co-discoverer. There are some great newspaper articles on Schatz transcribed at www.albertschatzphd.com.