On his Apollo mission in 1968, astronaut Bill Anders shot one of the most well-known photographs of the Earth—“Earthrise.” It became a symbol for the fragility of the Earth and an icon for the environmental movement that soon followed.
In October 1861 Philipp Reis presented his “telephone” to the members of the physics association in Frankfurt.
Nanotechnology can revolutionize the production of materials and offer ecological solutions but it may have unexpected consequences or lead to mismanagement.
In 1884 Ottmar Mergenthaler patented the Linotype machine in the United States. With it characters are cast in type metal as a complete line rather than as individual characters.
In the eighteenth century, cheap raw materials from the Americas and other emerging markets drove European world trade. The transatlantic triangular trade between Europe, Africa and America was established.
The advent of improved drilling technology made the extraction of geological resources easier. However, today we have almost stretched the limits of the earth’s system to its breaking point.
The discovery of the x-ray in 1895 marks the start of medical imagery for diagnostic purposes. The ability to look inside a living body revolutionized the way we look at medicine and human anatomy.
The discovery of the nuclear chain reaction enabled the construction of atomic bombs and nuclear power plants—something never intended by the scientists.
The atmosphere can hold up to 1,500 billion tons of carbon dioxide and still keep global warming under 2°C; the consequences become uncontrollable once this limit is breached.
In the year 2000, Bill Clinton introduced a preview of the Human Genome Project and promised rapid progress for the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease.
