Posts Tagged: "UC Berkeley"

In the early morning hours of Saturday, August 11th, NASA plans to launch the Parker Solar Probe, a spacecraft that is outfitted with various scientific instruments meant to study the near-Sun environment. At its closest, the Parker probe will collect data at 3.8 million miles from the Sun where it will experience temperatures reaching 2,500°F.

Most fields of chemical science designed to look at biological process involving living molecules suffer from a rather serious drawback— studying those molecules within a living body without interfering with any other processes. Over the past two decades, however, an entirely new scientific field has opened up which enables the study of chemical reactions occurring within living systems with no interference to any biochemical processes native to that living system. Bioorthogonal chemistry was pioneered by Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi, a 2017 inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. This Thursday, October 5th, is the seventh anniversary of the date of issue of the patent for which Bertozzi has been inducted. As we often do, we’ll return to our Evolution of Tech series to see how this particular innovation was developed and how it helped to unlock a completely new field of scientific research.

Margaret Weichert, Trump’s selection for deputy director of management at the OMB, is an inventor who has received “14 successful U.S. patents,” an indication that someone knowledgeable about patents and the U.S. patent system will have a role in shaping U.S. policy on the budget for the executive branch, including the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. As an inventor and entrepreneur, Weichert’s focus was squarely on financial networking and online transactions.