What is the Price for Keeping the American Public Safe from Diet Supple

What is the Price for Keeping the American Public Safe from Diet Supplements? Being overweight and being in sports is a hard aspect of the game to overcome. Many of the athletes in different sports go through tough training and conditioning. Some athletes are under great pressure to make a certain weight in order to stay on the team. If the players are overweight they might be fined or even benched for the certain events. All of the sports that are out there have a lot of competition for staying on teams. There are the athletes that struggle each week to keep their job from younger stronger players coming in. So it is a question of were they turn to get an extra edge over the other player. Most of the time it is with diet supplements or performance enhancers. Congress needs to be more ethical in providing enough research and funding towards dietary supplements research because the cost is greater than loosing a few pounds or getter a better edge in the game. It comes down to being able to keep the American public safe and keep athletes from dieing. Even thou gh the entire dietary supplement industry is a big corporation the companies can not be just out there to make money, when it can harm people. From being an athlete myself I am deeply concerned with the issue of all the muscle enhancers and what is being done in congress and the FDA. The entire diet supplement industry is worth $20 billion dollars. Most of the products that are out on the market are available do have benefits towards different features of performance. There are complaints being given in to the congress that the drug companies are being put in hold for distributing their product in the market. If a company comes out with a new product that could save li... ...and then leaving the person feeling dehydrated and weak. From looking at all of the effects of all of the diet pills and muscle enhancers it is clear that the congress needs to help the FDA more in order to keep the American public safe. Counterarguments may pose that the industry alone makes more than the FDA budget combined so it is not worth it. Most of the companies claim that their product is helpful to the needs that most of the athletes need. It is more than just giving a person an extra edge or making them loose weight. The effects of these pills and powders are not worth the risk. Even if a product says it is herbal and all natural does not give it the right to not go through the right scientific testing. It is based on all of these reasons and being an athlete myself I want there to be more protection on all of the diet supplements and muscle enhancers.

Carbon-14 Dating: an Invaluable Yardstick in the Chronology of Humans Essay

Archeologists use many methods to analyze data from the past. One scientific tool they use is to analyze the radioactive decay of chemical elements found in plant and animal remains, pottery, and even in rocks. Radiocarbon dating, also known as carbon-14 dating, has been one of the most important radioisotope dating methods used. This scientific tool, which was first developed by Willard F. Libby in the late 1940s, has significantly improved the accuracy of assigning dates to past events and artifacts as far back as 70,000 years. It is helping archaeologists, geologists, and anthropologists reconstruct the world’s history by filling in some of the many blank dates in the chronology of the history of our human world and by substantiating and revising other dates. In 1941, the radioactive atom, carbon-14, was isolated and discovered. Utilizing this discovery of the unstable radioactive isotope of carbon, Libby formulated an idea for using the decay rate of this radioactive form of carbon to date the remains of once-living plants and animals such as charcoal, wood, bone, shells, and fossils. In 1948, while at the University of Chicago, he and his colleagues started experimenting with carbon-14 as a means for dating the past. The scientists proved that carbon-14, which is present in our atmosphere as carbon dioxide, is absorbed by plants, animals, and human beings at a constant rate, and that the amount of carbon-14 is stabilized at a specific amount. A living organism can only intake a finite amount of carbon-14. Then, at the moment the living organism dies, it stops taking in any carbon-14, and the carbon-14 remaining in the organism starts to disintegrate at the half-life rate of 5,568 years (Poole 1961:27). (Today, based on refined calculations/techniques the half-life rate of carbon-14 is generally considered to be 5,730 years) (Wheatley 2004:98; DeYoung 2005:46). From the experimental results, Libby devised an apparatus to measure the amount of carbon-14 that had been lost and the amount that still remained in the substance. He planned to calculate the age of an object from the amount of carbon-14 left inside it after death. To test the validity of his carbon-14 counting device and subsequent calculations, Libby tested many items that archaeologists had previously dated. Some of the items he tested included: acacia wood from the first stepped pyramid tomb of Egyptian ruler Zoser  (established rate: 2700 B.C.; Libby date: 3979 ±350 years), cypress wood from the tomb of Sneferu in Egypt (established date: 4,575 B.P.; Libby date: 4802 ±210 years), cedar wood from the Egyptian pharaoh Sesostris’s funeral boat (established date: 3750 B.P.; Libby 3621 ±180 years), wood from a mummy coffin from the Ptolemaic period in Egypt (established date: 2280; Libby 2190 ±450 years), wheat and barley seeds (established date: 5000 years old; Libby date 5256 ±230 years), and lastly, Libby dated charcoal from Iraq at 6596 ± 360 years which coincided with the known approximate date (Poole 1961:28-32, Libby 1952:70). Except for the Zoser sample date, which dated too far back in history, his experimental dates were accurate within an acceptable margin of error. These sample tests, along with many others, confirmed that his carbon-14 test dating method was scientifically dependable within an acceptable margin of error for objects already dated. Libby then continued his work on dating objects for which no dates had been established. Scientists and scholars began to send him samples from all over the world to radiocarbon date. This included dating artifacts from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pompeii, Stonehenge, and New Mexico. One of his most significant results occurred when his colleagues dated glacial debris near Two Creeks, Wisconsin. His scientific work provided strong evidence that the last Ice Age in North America had covered the land as recently as 11,000 BCE years ago, not 25,000 years ago as most geologists previously believed (Libby 1952:105). All of these accomplishments and the inroads Libby made in dating the past employing carbon-14 dating earned him the Nobel Prize in 1960. Although radiocarbon dating methods have improved tremendously, Libby’s overall methodology is still utilized and accepted as a dating technique. It is based upon the fact that carbon-14 is a radioactive, unstable isotope of carbon-12 since its molecular composition has two more neutrons than protons. Carbon-14 is made when cosmic rays enter the earth’s atmosphere and collide with nitrogen atoms. The unattached carbon neutrons then combine with nitrogen-14 atoms to become carbon-14 (Nitrogen-14 + neutron → Carbon-14 + proton). As the resulting carbon-14 atoms drift down towards the earth’s surface they combine with oxygen to make carbon dioxide. This carbon dioxide includes the stable, common isotope carbon-12 and also tiny  amounts of radioactive carbon-14. Both kinds of carbon, C-14 and C-12, are absorbed and used by plants and trees during the photosynthesis process and become part of their cellulose structure. Animals then eat these plants containing carbon-14 and carbon-12 and thus forms of carbon enter their tissues. When plants and animals die, they no longer absorb carbon from the atmosphere and the trace amount of carbon-14 in them starts to slowly decay back to nitrogen (Carbon-14 → Nitrogen-14 + Beta (ÃŽ ²)). Beta particles are single electrons that are free from atoms and carry a negative charge (DeYoung 2005:25). At the point of death, all organisms contain one atom of carbon-14 for every trillion atoms of carbon-12 (Poole 1961:25). Carbon dating requires determining the amount of carbon-14 that has disintegrated in the sample and the amount that remains. Generally this is measured as the ratio of isotopes C-14/ C-12. This value is then compared to the initial carbon-14 content in the sample to determine its age taking into account carbon-14’s half-life and other calibration factors (DeYoung 2005:46-48). Since the amount of carbon-14 in each sample is miniscule, it is necessary to have several â€Å"clean† samples of the same artifact being dated. It is imperative to avoid contamination of the artifacts as any carbon-14 found in the non-sample material, such as roots or other decaying remains which might be from a different time period, could significantly distort the results since the percentage of carbon-14 in a sample is minute (Hedman 2007:58). Therefore, scientists or archeologists generally collect large samples because when they cleanse the sample, which includes purification and distillation processes, small amounts of matter tend to be removed. The trowels must be meticulously cleaned and the artifacts are packed in chemically neutral materials to ensure that the sample’s ratio of C-14 to C-12 remains the same. The stratigraphy of where the sample was taken must also be examined to ensure that the carbon sample location was not contaminated. In addition, scientists extract several samples in order to perform similar test on the artifact to confirm the accuracy of the dates they calculate. In order to determine a samples age, scientists perform experimental trials to identify and count the number of carbon-14 atoms in the sample based on carbon-14’s unique physical properties of larger mass and radioactivity (Hedman 2007:58). Today, scientists manipulate two formulas to determine the age of an artifact. One is the formula t = (1/ÃŽ »)  ln (I0/I), where â€Å"ÃŽ »Ã¢â‚¬  symbolizes the decay constant for carbon-14, â€Å"I† stands for the amount of carbon-14 in the dead matter, â€Å"t† represents time in years, and â€Å"I0† is the carbon-14 in living matter (L’Annunziata 2007:526). This formula calculates the time that has elapsed from the time of death of an organism. The second is an exponential decay formula which is A = A0* e^(-ÃŽ »k) (L’Annunziata 2007:523). In this equation, â€Å"A† stands for the amount of carbon-14 atoms remaining after a given time â€Å"t†, â€Å"A0† denotes the number of carbon-14 atoms at the time of observation, and â€Å"ÃŽ »Ã¢â‚¬  remains the decay constant. This formula allows scientists to know the ratio of the present amount of the radioactive isotope that remains versus the original amount in relation to time. This formula also determines the amount of carbon-14 that would diminish over a given time period. An important fact when using these formulas is that archaeologists and scientists are assuming that the production of radiocarbon in the atmosphere and the carbon-12 and carbon-14 ratio has remained constant over time. When Libby and his colleagues developed this dating system in the 1940’s, they relied on the radioactivity of carbon-14’s unstable nuclei. They, as well as subsequent scientists, have used Geiger counters to detect if radioactive carbon is present in a sample. This device is able to detect the beta particles emitted by atoms of carbon-14 as they decay. When these rays hit the Geiger counter, the device clicks indicating that the substance is radioactive. After, scientists start their process of determining the samples historical age. For example, if scientists wants to know the age of a piece of wood destroyed by fire, they take the piece of wood and soak it in chemicals to confirm any contamination particles that remain on the artifact are gone prior to it being tested. The next step is to separate the carbon-14 atoms from everything else in the wood. To do this, scientists place the wood in a heavy glass tube and then burn it. When this reaction occurs, the burning of the wood leaves very little ash and emits carbon dioxide, which is collected in a purification vacuum system. Once the gas containing carbon-14 is completely purified, the gas enters a glass jar, which then enters the carbon-14 counter. This device is comprised of a ring of Geiger counters inside a casing, and all of this is surrounded by lead or iron bricks to filter out even more radiations from the atmosphere. The sample is then tested and an electronic panel counts and records the time elapsed  as each carbon-14 atom disintegrates. From this, scientists can calculate the approximate age of the sample by manipulating the formulas mentioned previously and calculate the number of years that have elapsed since the sample stopped the intake of carbon-14 and began its half-life decay (Poole 1961:40-46). A second method of radiocarbon dating used is the Liquid Scintillation counting method. This was particularly popular during the 1960’s. The Liquid Scintillation counting method converts a sample to carbon dioxide either through combustion or acid hydrolysis. The gas is purified until it is ready to be â€Å"reacted with molten lithium to form lithium carbide, before being catalytically trimerised to benzene† (Higham 2002: paragraph 2). Once this process finishes, the benzene is driven off and collected under a vacuum to be counted for carbon-14 content utilizing a Liquid Scintillation spectrometer. This apparatus counts the pulses of light emitted by the benzene compound when it is bombarded with photons and has a high precision in dating. Advancement in technology has led to the third method of radiocarbon dating, which is more precise than the other two methods. This process is accelerator mass spectrometry or AMS. This technique uses multiple stages of acceleration and ionization, as well as several magnets to separate the carbon-14 isotopes from all other atoms and molecules in the sample. A major advantage of AMS is that all carbon-14 atoms in a sample are counted, not just the ones that happen to decay. This makes this method very sensitive and can give accurate dating even if only one milligram of carbon is provided (Hedman 2007:60). The limit of carbon-14 detection using AMS is about one carbon-14 atom for every 1016 stable carbon-12 atoms. This sensitivity is one part per ten thousand trillion or the equivalent of being able to detect a unique grain of sand along a 100 mile-long seashore (DeYoung 2005:50)! This sensitivity means that artifacts can be analyzed without causing damage to them. It also enables objects with small amounts of carbon-14 (like steel tools) to be analyzed and dated. The only drawback is that AMS machines take up entire buildings, are only found in about thirty specialized places throughout the world, and it is very expensive to test samples utilizing this method (Hedman 2007:60). Various scientists use radiocarbon dating as a device to measure ages of artifacts; however, it is categorized under the Culture History theoretical school of thought in archaeology. Culture History  archaeologists focus their work on cultural processes and work to determine human behavior. In the field their focus is keened toward the distribution of artifacts that can define traits, which leads to defining cultures and changes over time. Carbon-14 dating falls under this theoretical school of thought because its purpose is to date artifacts, and when the dates of an artifact are known, they can be related to one another and aid in defining a culture or changes in culture over time (shortman). One of the areas where carbon dating has been particularly useful is in trying to date the evidence of human activity in the Americas. Prior to carbon-14 dating, most scientists believed the last Ice Age ended about 25,000 years ago (Poole 1961:51). In 1950, ancient logs from spruce trees were found under glacial debris near Two Creeks, Wisconsin. Scientists were certain that these trees were crushed by the fourth Ice Age. Pieces of this wood were sent to Libby for dating. Based on his tests, the last Ice Age had spread across the land as recently as 11,000 years ago! This meant scientists had to restudy and revise previous dates of other natural events (Poole 1961:52-53). Another example of how carbon-14 dating helped was dating the evidence of humans coming to the New World. This evidence revolves around the Clovis points, a group of artifacts, found in New Mexico. The Clovis points are large spearheads with a â€Å"flute† at their base and are made from rocks like flint or volcanic glasses like obsidian that can be chipped away to form sharp edges. Clovis points have been found throughout the United States, and at several sites, these artifacts were found with the remains of mammoths. Carbon-14 dating of these Clovis points places them at 11,000 BCE or 13,000 years ago after calibration (Hedman 2007:86). Using this data, the Clovis first-model was developed that suggested that there should not be any people in the Americas much before 13,000 to 14,000 years ago in view of the Ice Age that made travel difficult, even if it did provide a corridor into this land. However, over the years archaeologists have claimed to discover sites that predate the Clovis points. As an example, carbon-14 dating of charcoal samples from the Meadowcroft rockshelter in Pennsylvania suggests that the site is over 15,000 years old. This leads to the belief that people landed in America well before the ice-free corridor opened. In addition, in 1997 independent archaeologists confirmed the accuracy of the date of wooden poles and posts from a site in Monte Verde, Chile. Carbon-14 testing suggested the artifacts were 14,000 to 15,000 years old. This site also appears to be older than Clovis, which is surprising given the fact that it is 10,000 miles south of Alaska (Hedman 2007:88-91). There are controversies surrounding the carbon dating of these sites. As to Meadowcroft, which is near Canada, remains of oak and hickory trees were found in the oldest layers. It seems unlikely deciduous trees could survive the ice age yet the excavators counter this argument saying the area was sheltered which made the climate milder. Meadowcroft skeptics also suggested that the samples might be contaminated since the site is in the heart of coal country. If any of the surrounding material (which no longer had carbon-14 in it since it had already decayed) was mixed with charcoal from the fires, it would dilute the C-14 fraction and the dates would be too old. The archaeologists countered this by saying the dates in each layer of excavation were in order of age. As to Monte Verde, skeptic said the artifacts found were near a stream so the evidence was not reliable. They might be a mixture of material from a range of different times (Hedman 2007:89-91). What is interesting about these examples is it points out some of the shortcomings of radiocarbon dating on the one hand, and on the other hand, it shows that it is a valuable tool for approximating the chronology of history when used with other dating techniques. Even though carbon-14 is a great tool in establishing the age of artifacts, it has some drawbacks. First, it can only date objects up to about 70,000 years ago since its half-life is 5,730 years (Wheatley 2004:98). In addition, its accuracy is debated. Some scientists question the validity of using 5,730 years as a half-life since this assumes nuclear half-lives have always been stable. Moreover, radiocarbon dating assumes that the carbon-14 content of the atmosphere has remained constant over the years and that living things have a constant ratio of C-14 to C-12 in them when alive based on the C-14 content in the atmosphere. However, it is known that since the 1950s, the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere has increased because of nuclear bombs and reactors. Artifacts from this era would be dated younger than they really are since they have a higher C-14 to C-12 ratio. By the same token, the ratio between carbon-14 and carbon-12 during the industrial era would be lower due to the burning of fossil fuels and the release of large amounts of carbon dioxide. Because of the increased levels of carbon dioxide, it would  cause things to appear older than their true age. Fortunately, scientists have been able to adjust their radiocarbon dating results to account for changes in the carbon-14 levels in the atmosphere by taking into account information obtained from tree-ring dating. The carbon-14 data is calibrated to the tree ring dates. This has greatly improved the accuracy of this dating technique (Wheatley 2004:98). The earth’s magnetic field can also impact carbon-14 dating results. Cosmic rays are charged particles, so they can be deflected by magnetic fields. Shifts in the magnetic field will influence the quantity of cosmic rays that enter the earth’s atmosphere. If the magnetic field is strong, the number of cosmic rays entering the atmosphere will be reduced. This in turn affects the amount of C-14 in the atmosphere. There have been variations in the earth’s magnetic field. For example, based on data from volcanic rock, the earth’s magnetic field was stronger around 2000 BCE than it is today. At about the same time, the carbon-14 content of the atmosphere dropped. Today, the radiocarbon dating process considers these variations in magnetic fields when dating artifacts (Hedman 2007:75-76). Lastly, another key assumption in radiocarbon dating is the fraction of C-14 to C-12 was the same for organisms living in the past as it is for organisms living today. It is known that some living organisms can accumulate more carbon-14 in their bodies than others. This is known as mass fractionation. For example, corn’s photosynthesis process causes it to have 2-3% higher carbon-14 fraction than sugar beets or tree leaves growing at the same time. If scientists did not take this into account, carbon-14 would underestimate the date of materials derived from corn (Hedman 2007:68-69). Despite these limitations, in my opinion, carbon-14 dating is an invaluable tool in helping date artifacts. Even though it can only date artifacts that are 70,000 years old or younger, it has enabled archeologists, geologists, and anthropologists to have a better understanding of how and where people lived over time in a large part to the chronological information it provides. Specifically, it helped revise the human timetable when it dated the Ice Age to being as recent as 13,000 years ago, not 25,000 years. Radiocarbon dating has also aided in confirming previously established dates. Some may discredit this dating technique because of some of its assumptions, however, refinements to this carbon dating process and collaboration with other dating techniques, such as  dendrochronology, continue to confirm that carbon-14 is still an important yardstick in measuring time and has significantly helped the field of archeology. Bibliography â€Å"Dating.† Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2009. Encylopaedia Britannica Online. 09 Sept. 2009 . DeYoung, Don. Thousands, Not Billions: Challenging an Icon of Evolution: Questioning the Age of Earth. Green Forest: New Leaf, 2005. 13-62. Hedman, Matthew. The Age of Everything: How Science Explores the Past. Chicago: University of Chicago P, 2007. 49-95. Higham, Thomas. â€Å"The 14C Method.† Radiocarbob WEB-info. 9 Aug. 2002. 26 Sept. 2009 . L’Annunziata, Michael. Willard F. Libby. Radioactivity Introduction and History. Amsterdam: Elsevier B.V., 2007. 518-28. Poole, Lynn, and Gary Poole. Carbon-14. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1961. Wheatley, Abigail, and Struan Reid. Radioactive Dating. The Usborne Introduction to Archaeology. London: Usborne Ltd., 2004. 98-99. Willard, Libby F. Radiocarbon Dating. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1952. 69-111.

Stories about Great Thinkers and Inventors

The following stories about great thinkers and inventors will help to motivate your students and enhance their appreciation of the contributions of inventors. As students read these stories, they will also realize the inventors are male, female, old, young, minority, and majority. They are ordinary people who follow through with their creative ideas to make their dreams a reality. FRISBEE  ® The term FRISBEE did not always refer to the familiar plastic disks we visualize flying through the air. Over 100 years ago, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, William Russell Frisbie owned the Frisbie Pie Company and delivered his pies locally. All of his pies were baked in the same type of 10 round tin with a raised edge, wide brim, six small holes in the bottom, and Frisbie Pies on the bottom. Playing catch with the  tins  soon became a popular local sport. However, the tins were slightly dangerous when a  toss  was missed. It became the Yale custom to yell Frisbie when throwing a pie tin. In the 40s when plastic emerged, the pie-tin game was recognized as a manufacturable and marketable product. Note:  FRISBEE  Ã‚ ® is a registered trademark of Wham-O Mfg. Co. Earmuffs Baby, Its Cold Outside Baby, Its Cold Outside may have been the song running through 13-year-old Chester Greenwoods head one cold December day in 1873. To protect his ears while ice skating, he found a piece of wire, and with his grandmothers help, padded the ends. In the beginning, his friends laughed at him. However, when they realized that he was able to stay outside skating long after they had gone inside freezing, they stopped laughing. Instead, they began to ask Chester to make ear covers for them, too. At age 17 Chester applied for a patent. For the next 60 years, Chesters factory made earmuffs, and earmuffs made Chester rich. BAND-AID  ® At the turn of the century, Mrs. Earl Dickson, an inexperienced cook, often burned and cut herself. Mr. Dickson, a Johnson and Johnson employee, got plenty of practice in hand bandaging. Out of concern for his wifes safety, he began to prepare bandages ahead of time so that his wife could apply them by herself. By combining a piece of surgical tape and a piece of gauze, he fashioned the first crude adhesive strip bandage. LIFE-SAVERS  ® Candy During the hot summer of 1913, Clarence Crane, a chocolate candy manufacturer, found himself facing a dilemma. When he tried to ship his chocolates to candy shops in other cities they melted into gooey blobs. To avoid dealing with the mess, his customers were deferring their orders until cool weather. In order to retain his customers, Mr. Crane needed to find a substitute for the melted chocolates. He experimented with hard candy which wouldnt melt during shipment. Using a machine designed for making medicine pills, Crane produced small, circular candies with a hole in the middle. The birth of LIFE SAVERS! Note on Trademarks  ® is the symbol for a registered trademark. The trademarks on this page are words used to name the inventions. Thomas Alva Edison If I were to tell you that  Thomas Alva Edison  had shown signs of inventive genius at an early age, you probably would not be surprised. Mr. Edison achieved enormous fame with his lifelong contributions of volumes of inventive technology. He received the first of his 1,093 U.S. patents by age 22. In the book, Fire of Genius, Ernest Heyn reported on a remarkable resourceful young Edison, though some of his earliest  tinkering  clearly lacked merit. Age 6 By the age of six, Thomas Edisons experiments with fire were said to have cost his father a barn. Soon after that, it is reported that young Edison tried to launch the first human balloon by persuading another youth to swallow large quantities of effervescing powders to inflate himself with gas. Of course, the experiments brought quite unexpected results! Chemistry and electricity held great fascination for this child,  Thomas Edison. By his early teens, he had designed and perfected his first real invention, an electrical cockroach control system. He glued parallel strips of tinfoil to a wall and wired the strips to the poles of a powerful battery, a deadly shock for the unsuspecting insect. As a dynamo of  creativity, Mr. Edison stood as decidedly unique; but as a child with a curious, problem-solving nature, he was not alone. Here are some more inventive children to know and appreciate. Age 14 At age 14, one schoolboy invented a rotary brush device to remove husks from wheat in the flour mill run by his friends father. The young inventors name?  Alexander Graham Bell. Age 16 At 16, another of our junior achievers saved pennies to buy materials for his chemistry experiments. While still a teenager, he set his mind on developing a commercially viable aluminum refining process. By age 25,  Charles Hall  received a patent on his revolutionary electrolytic process. Age 19 While only 19 years old, another imaginative young person designed and built his first  helicopter. In the summer of 1909, it very nearly flew. Years later,  Igor Sikorsky  perfected his design and saw his early dreams change aviation history.  Silorsky  was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1987. The are more childhood problem-solvers that we can mention. Perhaps youve heard about: Samuel Colts  childhood experience with underwater explosives;Fourteen-year-old Robert Fultons manually operated paddlewheel; andGuglielmo Marconis early mechanical/electrical tinkering.Even television tinker,  Philo T. Farnsworth, conceived his optical scanning idea at the tender age of 14. Inventions Inventions tell something about the inventors place in the society in which they live, a closeness to certain kinds of problems, and possession of certain skills. It is not surprising that up until the mid 20th Century, womens inventions were often related to childcare, housework, and healthcare, all traditional female occupations. In recent years, with access to specialized training and broader job opportunities, women are applying their creativity to many new kinds of problems, including those requiring high technology. While women have frequently come up with new ways to make their work easier, they have not always received credit for their ideas. Some stories about early women inventors show that women often recognized that they were entering a mans world, and shielded their work from the public eye by allowing men to patent their inventions. Catherine Greene Although  Eli Whitney  received a  patent for a cotton gin, Catherine Greene is said to have posed both the problem and the basic idea to Whitney. Furthermore, according to Matilda Gage, (, 1883), his first model, fitted with wooden teeth, did not do the work well, and Whitney was about to throw the work aside when Mrs. Greene proposed the substitution of wire to catch the cotton seeds. Margaret Knight Margaret Knight, remembered as the female Edison, received some 26 patents for such diverse items as a window frame and sash, machinery for cutting shoe soles, and improvements to internal combustion engines. Her most significant patent was for machinery that would automatically fold and glue paper bags to create square bottoms, an invention which dramatically changed shopping habits. Workmen reportedly refused her advice when first installing the equipment because, after all, what does a woman know about machines? More about  Margaret Knight Sarah Breedlove Walker Sarah Breedlove Walker, the daughter of former slaves, was orphaned at seven and widowed by 20.  Madame Walker  is credited with inventing hair lotions, creams, and an improved hair styling hot comb. But her greatest achievement may be the development of the Walker System, which included a broad offering of cosmetics, licensed Walker Agents, and Walker Schools, which offered meaningful employment and personal growth to thousands of Walker Agents, mostly Black women. Sarah Walker was the first American woman  self-made millionaire. More about  Sarah Breedlove Walker Bette Graham Bette Graham hoped to be an artist, but circumstances led her into secretarial work. Bette, however, was not an accurate typist. Fortunately, she recalled that artists could correct their mistakes by painting over them with gesso, so she invented a quick drying paint to cover her typing mistakes. Bette first prepared the secret formula in her kitchen using a hand mixer, and her young son helped to pour the mixture into little bottles. In 1980, the Liquid Paper Corporation, which Bette Graham built, was sold for over $47 million. More about   Bette  GRaham Ann Moore Ann Moore, a Peace Corps volunteer, saw how African women carried babies on their backs by tying cloth around their bodies, leaving both hands free for other work. When she returned to the United States, she designed a carrier which became the popular SNUGLI. Recently Ms. Moore received another patent for a carrier to conveniently transport oxygen cylinders. People needing oxygen for breathing assistance, who were previously confined to stationary oxygen tanks, can now move about more freely. Her company now sells several versions including lightweight backpacks, handbags, shoulder bags, and wheelchair/walker carriers for portable cylinders. Stephanie Kwolek Stephanie Kwolek, one of Duponts leading chemists, discovered the miracle fiber, Kevlar, which has five times the strength of steel by weight. Uses for Kevlar are seemingly endless, including ropes and cables for oil drilling rigs, canoe hulls, boat sails, automobile bodies and tires, and military and motorcycle helmets. Many Viet Nam veterans and police officers are alive today because of protection provided by bullet-proof vests made from Kevlar. Because of its strength and lightness, Kevlar was chosen as the material for the Gossamer Albatross, a pedal airplane flown across the English Channel. Kwolek was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1995. More on  Stephanie Kwolek Gertrude B. Elion Gertrude B. Elion, 1988 Nobel laureate in Medicine, and Scientist Emeritus with Burroughs Wellcome Company, is credited with the synthesis of two of the first successful drugs for Leukemia, as well as Imuron, an agent to prevent the rejection of kidney transplants, and Zovirax, the first selective antiviral agent against herpes virus infections. Researchers who discovered AZT, a breakthrough treatment for AIDS, used Elions protocols. Elion was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1991, the first woman inductee. More on Gertrude B. Elion Did you Know That.. windshield wipers were patented by  Mary Anderson  in 1903?dandruff shampoo was patented by Josie Stuart in 1903?a dishwasher was patented by  Josephine Cochrane  in 1914?the first disposable diaper was patented by Marion Donovan in 1951?a compact portable hair dryer was patented by Harriet J. Stern in 1962?a dough product for frozen pizza was patented by Rose Totino in 1979?the Melitta Automatic Drip Coffee Maker was patented by Melitta Benz in Germany in 1908? Between 1863 and 1913, approximately 1,200 inventions were patented by minority  inventors.  Many  more were unidentified because they hid their race to avoid discrimination or sold their inventions to others. The following stories are about a few of the  great minority  inventors. Elijah McCoy Elijah McCoy  earned  about 50 patents, however, his most  famous one  was for a metal or glass cup that fed oil to bearings through a small-bore tube. Elijah McCoy was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1843, the son of slaves who had fled Kentucky. He died in Michigan in 1929. More about  Elijah McCoy Benjamin Banneker Benjamin Banneker created the first striking clock made of wood in America. He became known as the Afro-American Astronomer. He published an almanac and with his knowledge of mathematics and astronomy, he assisted in the surveying and planning of the new city of Washington, D.C. More about  Benjamin Banneker Granville Woods Granville Woods  had more than 60  patents. Known as the Black Edison, he improved Bells telegraph and created an electrical motor that made the underground subway possible. He also improved the airbrake. More about  Granville Woods Garrett Morgan Garrett Morgan  invented an improved  traffic signal. He also invented a safety hood for firefighters. More about  Garrett Morgan George Washington Carver George Washington Carver aided the Southern states with his  many inventions. He discovered over 300 different products made from the peanut which, until Carver, was considered a lowly food fit for hogs. He dedicated himself to teaching others, learning and working with nature. He created over 125 new products with the sweet potato and taught poor farmers how to rotate crops to  improve  their soil and their cotton.  George Washington Carver  was a great scientist and inventor who learned to be a careful observer and who was honored throughout the world for his creation of new things. More about  George Washington Carver