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Eating and drinking

Meals in Japan traditionally begin with the phrase itadakimasu. The phrase is similar to "bon appétit", or
saying grace to give thanks before a meal. It is said to express gratitude for all who played a role in
preparing, the food.

Not finishing your meal is not considered impolite in Japan, but rather it is taken as a signal to the host that
you wish to be served another helping. Conversely, finishing your meal completely, especially the rice, is an
indication that you are satisfied with your meal and therefore do not wish to be served any more. Children
are especially encouraged to eat every last grain of. It is impolite to pick out certain ingredients and leave the
rest. One should chew with the mouth closed.

It is acceptable to lift soup and rice bowls to the mouth so that one does not spill food. Miso soup is drunk
directly from the (small) bowl, rather than with a spoon, though larger soups may come with a spoon. It is
also appropriate to slurp certain foods, especially noodles, though this is not practiced universally –
however, Western-style noodles (pasta) should not be slurped. Further, noodles from hot soup are often
blown on (once lifted from the soup) to cool them down before eating.

When using toothpicks, it is good etiquette to cover one's mouth with the other hand. Blowing one's nose in
public is considered rude, especially at a restaurant; cloth handkerchiefs should never be used for this
purpose. Conversely, sniffling is considered acceptable, as an alternative to nose-blowing. When sneezing, it
is polite to cover one's nose with a hand.
Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh, Scotland. His education was largely
received through numerous experiments in sound and the furthering of his father’s work on Visible Speech
for the deaf. Bell worked with Thomas Watson on the design and patent of the first practical telephone. In
all, Bell held 18 patents in his name alone and 12 that he shared with collaborators. He died on August 2,
1922, in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada.
By age 16, Alexander had joined his father in his work with the deaf and soon assumed full charge of his
father’s London operations.
On one of his trips to America, Alexander’s father discovered its healthier environment and decided to move
the family there. At first, Alexander resisted, for he was establishing himself in London, but eventually
relented after both his brothers had succumbed to tuberculosis. In July, 1870, the family settled in Brantford,
Ontario, Canada. There, Alexander set up a workshop to continue his study of the human voice.
In 1871, Alexander Graham Bell moved to Boston and began work on a device that would allow for the
telegraph transmission of several messages set to different frequencies. He found financial backing through
local investors Thomas Sanders and Gardiner Hubbard. Between 1873 and 1874, Bell spent long days and
nights trying to perfect the harmonic telegraph. During his experiments, he became interested in another
idea, transmitting the human voice over wires. The diversion frustrated Bell’s benefactors and Thomas
Watson, a skilled electrician, was hired to refocus Bell on the harmonic telegraph. But Watson soon became
enamored with Bell’s idea of voice transmission and the two created a great partnership with Bell being the
idea man and Watson having the expertise to bring Bell’s ideas to reality.
Through 1874 and 1875, Bell and Watson labored on both the harmonic telegraph and a voice transmitting
device. Though at first frustrated by the diversion, Bell’s investors soon saw the value of voice transmission
and filed a patent on the idea. For now the concept was protected, but the device still had to be developed.
On March 10, 1876, Bell and Watson were successful. Legend has it that Bell knocked over a container of
transmitting fluid and shouted, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you!” The more likely explanation was Bell
heard a noise over the wire and called to Watson. In any case, Watson heard Bell’s voice through the wire
and thus, he received the first telephone call.
With this success, Alexander Graham Bell began to promote the telephone in a series of public
demonstrations. At the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, in 1876, Bell demonstrated the telephone to
the Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro, who exclaimed, “My God, it talks!” Other demonstrations followed,
each at a greater distance than the last. The Bell Telephone Company was organized on July 9, 1877. With
each new success, Alexander Graham Bell was moving out of the shadow of his father.
On July 11, 1877, Alexander Graham Bell married Mable Hubbard, a former student and the daughter of
Gardiner Hubbard, his initial financial backer. Over the course of the next year, Alexander and Mable
traveled to Europe demonstrating the telephone. Upon their return to the United States, Bell was summoned
to Washington D.C. to defend his telephone patent from law suits by others claiming they had invented the
telephone or had conceived of the idea before Bell.
Over the next 18 years, the Bell Company faced over 550 court challenges, including several that went to the
Supreme Court, but none were successful. Even during the patent battles, the company grew. Between 1877,
and 1886, over 150,000 people in the U.S. owned telephones. Improvements were made on the device
including the addition of a microphone, invented by Thomas Edison, which eliminated the need to shout into
the telephone to be heard.
By all accounts, Alexander Graham Bell was not a businessman and by 1880 began to turn business matters
over to Hubbard and others so he could pursue a wide range of inventions and intellectual pursuits. In 1880,
he established the Volta Laboratory, an experimental facility devoted to scientific discovery. He also
continued his work with the deaf, establishing the American Association to Promote Teaching of Speech to
the Deaf in 1890.
In the remaining years of his life Bell worked on a number of projects. He devoted a lot of time to exploring
flight, starting with the tetrahedral kite in 1890s. In 1907, Bell formed the Aerial Experiment Association
with Glenn Curtiss and several other associates. The group developed several flying machines, including the
Silver Dart. The Silver Dart was the first powered machine flow in Canada. He later worked on hydrofoils
and set a world record for speed for this type of boat.
In January 1915, Bell was invited to make the first transcontinental phone call. From New York, he spoke
with his former associate Thomas Watson in San Francisco. Bell died peacefully with his wife by his side
in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, Canada, on August 2, 1922. The entire telephone system was shut down for one
minute in tribute to his life.
Alfred Bernhard Nobel, (born October 21, 1833, Stockholm, Sweden—died December 10, 1896, San
Remo, Italy), Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist, who invented dynamite and other, more powerful
explosives and who also founded the Nobel Prizes.
He was interested in explosives, and he learned the fundamentals of engineering from his father.
The Nobel family left Stockholm in 1842 to join the father in St. Petersburg.
Alfred Nobel left Russia in 1850 to spend a year in Paris studying chemistry
Alfred soon began experimenting with explosives in a small laboratory on his father’s estate. At the time,
the only dependable explosive for use in mines was black powder, a form of gunpowder. A recently
discovered liquid compound, nitroglycerin, was a much more powerful explosive, but it was so unstable that
it could not be handled with any degree of safety. Nevertheless, Nobel in 1862 built a small factory to
manufacture nitroglycerin, and at the same time he undertook research in the hope of finding a safe way to
control the explosive’s detonation. In 1863 he invented a practical detonator consisting of a wooden plug
inserted into a larger charge of nitroglycerin held in a metal container; the explosion of the plug’s small
charge of black powder serves to detonate the much more powerful charge of liquid nitroglycerin. This
detonator marked the beginning of Nobel’s reputation as an inventor as well as the fortune he was to acquire
as a maker of explosives. In 1865 Nobel invented an improved detonator called a blasting cap; it consisted
of a small metal cap containing a charge of mercury fulminate that can be exploded by either shock or
moderate heat. The invention of the blasting cap inaugurated the modern use of high explosives.
Nitroglycerin itself, however, remained difficult to transport and extremely dangerous to handle. So
dangerous, in fact, that Nobel’s nitroglycerin factory blew up in 1864, killing his younger brother Emil and
several other people.
Nobel’s second important invention was that of dynamite in 1867. By chance, he discovered that
nitroglycerin was absorbed to dryness by kieselguhr, a porous siliceous earth, and the resulting mixture was
much safer to use and easier to handle than nitroglycerin alone. Nobel named the new product dynamite
(from Greek dynamis, “power”) and was granted patents for it in Great Britain (1867) and the United States
(1868). Dynamite established Nobel’s fame worldwide and was soon put to use in blasting tunnels, cutting
canals, and building railways and roads.
Besides explosives, Nobel made many other inventions, such as artificial silk and leather, and altogether he
registered more than 350 patents in various countries.
By 1895 Nobel had developed angina pectoris, and he died of a cerebral hemorrhage at his villa in San
Remo, Italy, in 1896.
He had always been generous in humanitarian and scientific philanthropies, and he left the bulk of his
fortune in trust to establish what came to be the most highly regarded of international awards, the Nobel
Prizes.
Jan Józef Ignacy Łukasiewicz (Polish pronunciation: [wukaˈɕɛvʲitʂ]; 1822–82) was a Polish[1][2] pharmacist
and petroleum industry pioneer who in 1856 built the world's first oil refinery.[3] His achievements included
the discovery of how to distill kerosene from seep oil, the invention of the modern kerosene lamp (1853), the
introduction of the first modern street lamp in Europe (1853), and the construction of the world's first
modern oil well (1854).[4]
Łukasiewicz became a wealthy man and one of the most prominent philanthropists in Central Europe's
Galicia. Because of his support for the region's economic development, a popular saying attributed all paved
roads to his guldens.
Ignacy Łukasiewicz was born on 8 March 1822 in Zaduszniki, near Mielec, in the Austrian Empire (after the
partition of Poland). His parents were Apolonia, née Świetlik, and Józef Łukasiewicz, a member of the local
intelligentsia and a veteran of Kościuszko's Uprising.
His parents rented a small manor in Zaduszniki, but soon after Ignacy's birth had to move to Rzeszów due to
financial difficulties. There Ignacy entered the local secondary school (gymnasium), but he had to leave it in
1836. To help his parents, he moved to Łańcut, where he began work as a pharmacist's assistant.
He had long been interested in the potential of seep oil as a cheap alternative to whale oil. In 1853 Jan Zeh,[5]
together with his associate Łukasiewicz, was the first in the world to distill clear kerosene from seep oil,
Canada's Abraham Gesner having first refined kerosene from coal in 1846. On 31 July 1853 Łukasiewicz
made one of his kerosene lamps available to a local hospital to illuminate an emergency surgical operation. [6]
The date is considered the starting point of modern oil industry.
In early 1854 Łukasiewicz moved to Gorlice, where he continued his work. He set up many companies
together with entrepreneurs and landowners. That same year, he opened the world's first oil "mine" at
Bóbrka, near Krosno (still operational as of 2006). At the same time Łukasiewicz continued his work on
kerosene lamps. Later that year, he set up the first kerosene street lamp in Gorlice's Zawodzie district. In
subsequent years he opened several other oil wells, each as a joint venture with local merchants and
businessmen. In 1856 in Ulaszowice, near Jasło, he opened an "oil distillery" — the world's first industrial
oil refinery. As demand for kerosene was still low, the plant initially produced mostly artificial asphalt,
machine oil, and lubricants.
By 1863 Łukasiewicz, who had moved to Jasło in 1858, was a wealthy man. He openly supported the
January 1863 Uprising and financed help for refugees. In 1865 he bought a large manor and the village of
Chorkówka. There he established yet another oil refinery. Having gained one of the largest fortunes in
Galicia, Łukasiewicz promoted the development of the oil industry in the areas of Dukla and Gorlice.
As one of the best-known businessmen of his time, Łukasiewicz was elected to the Galician Sejm. In 1877
he also organized the first Oil Industry Congress and founded the National Oil Society.
Ignacy Łukasiewicz died in Chorkówka on 7 January 1882 of pneumonia. He was buried in the small
cemetery at Zręcin, next to the Gothic Revival church that he had financed.
Marie Curie is best known as the discoverer of the radioactive elements polonium and radium and as the first person
to win two Nobel prizes. For scientists and the public, her radium was a key to a basic change in our understanding of
matter and energy. Her work not only influenced the development of fundamental science but also ushered in a new
era in medical research and treatment.
Inventor: Marie Curie (aka Marie Sklodowska)

Criteria; First to patent. First practical.

Birth: November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland

Death: July 4, 1934 in Haute Savoie

Nationality
Polish
:

Invention: Study of radioactivity, discoverer of polonium and radium

Function: noun / Symbol Po and Ra

A rare, brilliant white, luminescent, highly radioactive metallic element found in very small amounts in
Definition: uranium ores. It is used in cancer radiotherapy, as a neutron source for some research purposes, and as a
constituent of luminescent paints.

Polonium atomic number 84 and Radium atomic number 88

Madame Marie Curie was the world’s most famous woman scientist--and so she remains today. With her husband,
Pierre Curie, and the French physicist Henri Becquerel, and later on her own, Curie pioneered the study of
radioactivity (a word she coined).

Marie Sklodowska, as she was called before marriage, was born in Warsaw in 1867. Both her parents were teachers
who believed deeply in the importance of education. Marie had her first lessons in physics and chemistry from her
father. She had a brilliant aptitude for study and a great thirst for knowledge; however, advanced study was not
possible for women in Poland. Marie dreamed of being able to study at the Sorbonne in Paris, but this was beyond the
means of her family. To solve the problem, Marie and her elder sister, Bronya, came to an arrangement: Marie should
go to work as a governess and help her sister with the money she managed to save so that Bronya could study
medicine at the Sorbonne. When Bronya had taken her degree she, in her turn, would contribute to the cost of Marie's
studies.

So it was not until she was 24 that Marie came to Paris to study mathematics and physics. Bronya was now married to
a doctor of Polish origin, and it was at Bronya's urgent invitation to come and live with them that Marie took the step
of leaving for Paris. By then she had been away from her studies for six years, nor had she had any training in
understanding rapidly spoken French. But her keen interest in studying and her joy at being at the Sorbonne with all
its opportunities helped her surmount all difficulties. To save herself a two-hours' journey, she rented a little attic in
the Quartier Latin. There the cold was so intense that at night she had to pile on everything she had in the way of
clothing so as to be able to sleep.

But as compensation for all her privations she had total freedom to be able to devote herself wholly to her studies. "It
was like a new world opened to me, the world of science, which I was at last permitted to know in all liberty", she
writes. And it was France's leading mathematicians and physicists whom she was able to go to hear, people with
names we now encounter in the history of science: Marcel Brillouin, Paul Painlevé, Gabriel Lippmann, and Paul
Appell. After two years, when she took her degree in physics in 1893, she headed the list of candidates and, in the
following year, she came second in a degree in mathematics. After three years she had brilliantly passed examinations
in physics and mathematics. Her goal was to take a teacher's diploma and then to return to Poland.
She met Pierre Curie in 1894, and they married in 1895. Marie Curie was interested in the recent discoveries of
radiation. Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen had discovered X rays in 1895, and in 1896 Antoine Henri Becquerel had
discovered that the element uranium gives off similar invisible radiations. Curie thus began studying uranium
radiations, and, using piezoelectric techniques devised by her husband, carefully measured the radiations in
pitchblende, an ore containing uranium. When she found that the radiations from the ore were more intense than
those from uranium itself, she realized that unknown elements, even more radioactive than uranium, must be present.
Marie Curie was the first to use the term radioactive to describe elements that give off radiations as their nuclei break
down.Pierre Curie ended his own work on magnetism to join his wife's research, and in 1898 the Curies announced
their discovery of two new elements: radium and polonium (named by Marie in honor of Poland).

During the next four years the Curies, working in a leaky wooden shed, processed a ton of pitchblende, laboriously
isolating from it a fraction of a gram of radium. They shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics with Becquerel for the
discovery of radioactive elements. Marie Curie was the first female recipient of a Nobel Prize, it was the first time a
woman had ever won a Nobel. In 1911, Curie became the first and only woman to win a second Nobel Prize. She
earned, on her own, the award in chemistry for isolating pure radium.

Pierre's life ended on April 19, 1906, when he was run over by a horse-drawn cart. His wife took over his classes and
continued her own research. In 1911 she received an unprecedented second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry, for
her work on radium and radium compounds. She became head of the Paris Institute of Radium in 1914 and helped
found the Curie Institute. Marie Curie's final illness was diagnosed as pernicious anemia, caused by overexposure to
radiation. She died in Haute Savoie on July 4, 1934.

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