1.
Fellow of the Royal Society
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As of 2016, there are around 1600 living Fellows, Foreign and Honorary Members. Fellowship of the Royal Society has been described by The Guardian newspaper as “the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar” with several institutions celebrating their announcement each year. Up to 60 new Fellows, honorary and foreign members are elected annually usually in May, each candidate is considered on their merits and can be proposed from any sector of the scientific community. Fellows are elected for life on the basis of excellence in science and are entitled to use the post-nominal letters FRS, see Category, Fellows of the Royal Society and Category, Female Fellows of the Royal Society. Every year, Fellows elect up to ten new Foreign Members, like Fellows, Foreign Members are elected for life through peer review on the basis of excellence in science. As of 2016 there are around 165 Foreign Members, who are entitled to use the post-nominal ForMemRS, see Category, Foreign Members of the Royal Society. Honorary Fellows include Bill Bryson, Melvyn Bragg, Robin Saxby, David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville, Honorary Fellows are entitled to use the post nominal letters HonFRS. Others including John Maddox, Patrick Moore and Lisa Jardine were elected as honorary fellows, statute 12 is a legacy mechanism for electing members before official honorary membership existed in 1997. Fellows elected under statute 12 include David Attenborough and John Palmer, prime Ministers of the United Kingdom such as Margaret Thatcher, Neville Chamberlain, H. H. Asquith were elected under statute 12, see Category, Fellows of the Royal Society. The Council of the Royal Society can recommend members of the British Royal Family for election as Royal Fellows of the Royal Society. As of 2016 there are five royal fellows, Charles, Prince of Wales, Anne, Princess Royal, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Prince Andrew, Duke of York. Her Majesty the Queen, Elizabeth II is not a Royal Fellow, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was elected under statute 12, not as a Royal Fellow. The election of new fellows is announced annually in May, after their nomination, each candidate for Fellowship or Foreign Membership is nominated by two Fellows of the Royal Society, who sign a certificate of proposal. Previously, nominations required at least five fellows to support each nomination by the proposer, the certificate of election includes a statement of the principal grounds on which the proposal is being made. There is no limit on the number of nominations each year. In 2015, there were 654 candidates for election as Fellows and 106 candidates for Foreign Membership. The final list of up to 52 Fellowship candidates and up to 10 Foreign Membership candidates is confirmed by the Council in April, a candidate is elected if he or she secures two-thirds of votes of those Fellows present and voting. A further maximum of six can be ‘Honorary’, ‘General’ or ‘Royal’ Fellows, nominations for Fellowship are peer reviewed by sectional committees, each with fifteen members and a chair
2.
Albany, New York
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Albany is the capital of the U. S. state of New York and the seat of Albany County. Roughly 150 miles north of New York City, Albany developed on the west bank of the Hudson River, the population of the City of Albany was 97,856 according to the 2010 census. With a Census-estimated population of 98,4242013, the Capital District is the third-most populous metropolitan region in the state and 38th in the United States. Fortune 500 companies that have offices in Albany include American Express, J. P. Morgan and Chase, Merrill Lynch, General Electric, Verizon, Goldman Sachs, International Paper, and Key Bank. In the 21st century, the Capital District has emerged as an anchor of Tech Valley. This was the first European settlement in the state, settled by Dutch colonists who built Fort Nassau for fur trading in 1614 and they formed successful relations with both the Mahican and the Mohawk peoples, two major Native American nations in the region. The fur trade attracted settlers who founded a village called Beverwijck near Fort Orange, in 1664 the English took over the Dutch settlements, renaming the city as Albany, in honor of the then Duke of Albany, the future James II of England and James VII of Scotland. The city was chartered in 1686 under English rule. It became the capital of New York State in 1797, following the United States gaining independence in the American Revolutionary War, Albany is one of the oldest surviving settlements of the original British thirteen colonies, and the longest continuously chartered city in the United States. Its charter is possibly the longest-running instrument of government in the Western Hemisphere. During the late 18th century and throughout most of the 19th, Albany was a center of trade, Albanys main exports at the time were beer, lumber, published works, and ironworks. Beginning in 1810, Albany was one of the ten most populous cities in the United States, in the 20th century, the city opened one of the first commercial airports in the world, the precursor of todays Albany International Airport. During the 1920s a powerful political machine controlled by the Democratic Party arose in the state capital and it marshalled the power of immigrants and their descendants in both cities. In the early 21st century, Albany has experienced growth in the high-technology industry, Albany has been a center of higher education for over a century, with much of the remainder of its economy dependent on state government and health care services. The city has rebounded from the decline of the 1970s and 1980s. Albany is known for its history, commerce, culture, architecture. Albany won the All-America City Award in both 1991 and 2009, Albany is one of the oldest surviving European settlements from the original thirteen colonies and the longest continuously chartered city in the United States. The Hudson River area was inhabited by Algonquian-speaking Mohican, who called it Pempotowwuthut-Muhhcanneuw
3.
Portola Valley, California
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Portola Valley is an incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, United States. It is one of the top 10 wealthiest ZIP codes in the United States, considered one of the most elite towns in America, Portola Valley has a population of just under 5,000 people. Portola Valley is one of the forty wealthiest towns in the United States, within the State of California, Portola Valley is ranked as the sixth wealthiest place. The zip code 94028, which encompasses the whole of Portola Valley, has the 9th most expensive housing prices within the country according to Forbes Magazine 2013, the population was 4,353 at the 2010 census. Portola Valley was named for Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portolá, who led the first party of Europeans to explore the San Francisco Peninsula in 1769, the town was officially incorporated in 1964. The towns long history back to 1834, when land was used for the Rancho Corte de Madera primarily for cattle grazing. Another place of interest within the town was the Searsville area, searsvilles redwood trees were logged and used for building housing. Evidence of logging can be seen by walking through the preserve, Portola Valley has also been included many times on lists of Americas wealthiest ZIP codes. Initially, Portola Valley was a vacation community for wealthy San Franciscans who would make trips down during the summer in horse. Below is a sample of the many spots on elite ZIP code lists Portola Valley has earned. Note that years when 94028 has cracked the top 10 most expensive ZIP codes on a level have been highlighted in bold. The Windy Hill Open Space Preserve is on the towns southwest side and it is off Interstate 280, near Woodside, just west of Palo Alto and Los Altos and south of Menlo Park, and is in a mostly wooded area, with some open plains. Portola Valley can generally be divided into 5 subdivisions, Central Portola Valley, The Ranch, Corte Madera, Los Trancos/Vista Verde, and Blue Oaks. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has an area of 9.1 square miles,99. 98% of it land and 0. 02% of it water. Villa Lauriston was initially commisioned by the founder of Fairmont Hotels, the 2010 United States Census reported that Portola Valley had a population of 4,353. The population density was 478.7 people per square mile, the racial makeup of Portola Valley was 3,960 White,12 African American,5 Native American,242 Asian,1 Pacific Islander,29 from other races, and 104 from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 175 persons, the Census reported that 4,309 people lived in households,9 lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 35 were institutionalized. There were 37 unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 21 same-sex married couples or partnerships,420 households were made up of individuals and 290 had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older
4.
University of Maine
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The University of Maine is a public research university in Orono, Maine, United States. The university was established in 1865 as a land grant college and is the university of the University of Maine System. The University of Maine is one of only nine land, sea, the University of Maines athletic teams, nicknamed the Black Bears, are Maines only Division I athletics program. The University of Maine was founded in 1862 as a function of the Morrill Act, established in 1865 as the Maine College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, the Maine College opened on September 21,1868 and changed its name to the University of Maine in 1897. By 1871, curricula had been organized in Agriculture, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station was founded as a division of the university in 1887. Gradually the university developed the Colleges of Life Sciences and Agriculture, Engineering and Science, in 1912 the Maine Cooperative Extension, which offers field educational programs for both adults and youths, was initiated. The School of Education was established in 1930 and received college status in 1958, the School of Business Administration was formed in 1958 and was granted college status in 1965. Women have been admitted into all curricula since 1872, the first masters degree was conferred in 1881, the first doctors degree in 1960. Since 1923 there has been a graduate school. Near the end of the 19th century, the university expanded its curriculum to place emphasis on liberal arts. As a result of this shift, faculty hired during the early 20th century included Caroline Colvin, chair of the history department and the nations first woman to head a major university department. On April 16,1925,80 women met in Balentine Hall — faculty, alumnae and this organization was called The All Maine Women because only those women closely connected with the University of Maine were elected as members. On April 22,1925, the new members were inducted into the honor society, when the University of Maine System was incorporated, the school was renamed by the legislature over the objections of the faculty to the University of Maine at Orono. This was changed back to the University of Maine in 1986, the University of Maine is the flagship of the University of Maine System. The president of the university is Susan J. Hunter, the senior administration governs cooperatively with the Chancellor of the University of Maine system, James H. Page and the sixteen members of the University of Maine Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees has full responsibility and authority for the university system. It appoints the Chancellor and each university President, approves the establishment and elimination of programs, confers tenure on faculty members. UMaine is also one of a handful of colleges in the United States whose Student Government is incorporated, Student Government was formed in 1978 and incorporated in 1987
5.
National Medal of Science
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The twelve member presidential Committee on the National Medal of Science is responsible for selecting award recipients and is administered by the National Science Foundation. The National Medal of Science was established on August 25,1959, the medal was originally to honor scientists in the fields of the physical, biological, mathematical, or engineering sciences. The Committee on the National Medal of Science was established on August 23,1961, on January 7,1979, the American Association for the Advancement of Science passed a resolution proposing that the medal be expanded to include the social and behavioral sciences. In response, Senator Ted Kennedy introduced the Science and Technology Equal Opportunities Act into the Senate on March 7,1979, President Jimmy Carters signature enacted this change as Public Law 96-516 on December 12,1980. The first National Medal of Science was awarded on February 18,1963, the first woman to receive a National Medal of Science was Barbara McClintock, who was awarded for her work on plant genetics in 1970. Although Public Law 86-209 provides for 20 recipients of the medal per year, it is typical for approximately 8–15 accomplished scientists, there have been a number of years where no National Medals of Science were awarded. Those years include,1985,1984,1980,1978,1977,1972 and 1971, the awards ceremony is organized by the Office of Science and Technology Policy. It takes place at the White House and is presided by the sitting United States president, each year the National Science Foundation sends out a call to the scientific community for the nomination of new candidates for the National Medal of Science. Individuals are nominated by their peers with each nomination requiring three letters of support from individuals in science and technology, the nomination of a candidate is effective for three years, at the end of three years, the candidates peers are allowed to renominate the candidate. The Committee makes their recommendations to the President for the final awarding decision, the National Medal of Science depicts Man, surrounded by earth, sea, and sky, contemplating and struggling to understand Nature. The crystal in his hand represents the order and also suggests the basic unit of living things. The formula being outlined in the sand symbolizes scientific abstraction
6.
Microbiology
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Microbiology is the study of microscopic organisms, those being unicellular, multicellular, or acellular. Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, mycology, parasitology, microbiologists traditionally relied on culture, staining, and microscopy. However, less than 1% of the present in common environments can be cultured in isolation using current means. Microbiologists often rely on extraction or detection of nucleic acid, either DNA or RNA sequences, viruses have been variably classified as organisms, as they have been considered either as very simple microorganisms or very complex molecules. As an application of microbiology, medical microbiology is often introduced with medical principles of immunology as microbiology and immunology, otherwise, microbiology, virology, and immunology as basic sciences have greatly exceeded the medical variants, applied sciences. The existence of microorganisms was hypothesized for many centuries before their actual discovery, the existence of unseen microbiological life was postulated by Jainism which is based on Mahavira’s teachings as early as 6th century BCE. Paul Dundas notes that Mahavira asserted existence of unseen microbiological creatures living in earth, water, air, in 1546, Girolamo Fracastoro proposed that epidemic diseases were caused by transferable seedlike entities that could transmit infection by direct or indirect contact, or vehicle transmission. However, early claims about the existence of microorganisms were speculative, actual observation and discovery of microbes had to await the invention of the microscope in the 17th century. In 1676, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, who lived most of his life in Delft, Holland, observed bacteria and other microorganisms using a single-lens microscope of his own design. While Van Leeuwenhoek is often cited as the first to observe microbes, Robert Hooke made the first recorded microscopic observation, of the bodies of moulds. It has, however, been suggested that a Jesuit priest called Athanasius Kircher was the first to observe micro-organisms and he was among the first to design magic lanterns for projection purposes, so he must have been well acquainted with the properties of lenses. One of his books contains a chapter in Latin, which reads in translation – Concerning the wonderful structure of things in nature, here, he wrote who would believe that vinegar and milk abound with an innumerable multitude of worms. He also noted that material is full of innumerable creeping animalcule. These observations antedate Robert Hookes Micrographia by nearly 20 years and were published some 29 years before van Leeuwenhoek saw protozoa and 37 years before he described having seen bacteria. Joseph Lister was the first person who said infectious diseases are caused by micro-organism and was first person who used phenol as disinfectant on the wounds of patients. Cohn was also the first to formulate a scheme for the classification of bacteria. Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch were contemporaries of Cohn’s and are considered to be the father of microbiology and medical microbiology. Pasteur is most famous for his series of experiments designed to disprove the widely held theory of spontaneous generation
7.
Immunology
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Immunology is a branch of biology that covers the study of immune systems in all organisms. It was the Russian biologist Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov who boosted studies on immunology and he jabbed the thorn of a rose on a starfish and noted that,24 hours later, cells were surrounding the tip. It was a response of the body, trying to maintain its integrity. It was Mechnikov who first observed the phenomenon of phagocytosis, in which the body defends itself against a foreign body, Immunology has applications in numerous disciplines of medicine, particularly in the fields of organ transplantation, oncology, virology, bacteriology, parasitology, psychiatry, and dermatology. The important lymphoid organs of the system are the thymus and bone marrow, and chief lymphatic tissues such as spleen, tonsils, lymph vessels, lymph nodes, adenoids. Classical immunology ties in with the fields of epidemiology and medicine and it studies the relationship between the body systems, pathogens, and immunity. The earliest written mention of immunity can be traced back to the plague of Athens in 430 BCE, thucydides noted that people who had recovered from a previous bout of the disease could nurse the sick without contracting the illness a second time. Many other ancient societies have references to this phenomenon, but it was not until the 19th and 20th centuries before the concept developed into scientific theory. The study of the molecular and cellular components that comprise the immune system, the immune system has been divided into a more primitive innate immune system and, in vertebrates, an acquired or adaptive immune system. The latter is divided into humoral and cell-mediated components. The humoral response is defined as the interaction between antibodies and antigens, antibodies are specific proteins released from a certain class of immune cells known as B lymphocytes, while antigens are defined as anything that elicits the generation of antibodies. Immunology rests on an understanding of the properties of two biological entities and the cellular response to both. Immunological research continues to more specialized, pursuing non-classical models of immunity and functions of cells, organs. Clinical immunology is the study of diseases caused by disorders of the immune system and it also involves diseases of other systems, where immune reactions play a part in the pathology and clinical features. Other immune system include various hypersensitivities that respond inappropriately to otherwise harmless compounds. Clinical immunologists also study ways to prevent the immune systems attempts to destroy allografts, the body’s capability to react to antigen depends on a persons age, antigen type, maternal factors and the area where the antigen is presented. Neonates are said to be in a state of physiological immunodeficiency, once born, a child’s immune system responds favorably to protein antigens while not as well to glycoproteins and polysaccharides. In fact, many of the infections acquired by neonates are caused by low virulence organisms like Staphylococcus, in neonates, opsonic activity and the ability to activate the complement cascade is very limited
