Today in Science (1113)

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Events

1971 - Mariner 9 becomes the first spacecraft to orbit another planet (Mars). Though switched off on 27th October 1972, the probe is still in Mars orbit and stable until at least 2022.

Births

1924 - Motoo Kimura, Japanese geneticist (above)

Deaths

1606 - Geronimo Mercuriali, Italian philologist and physician

1994 - Motoo Kimura, Japanese geneticist

More like this

Your nominations? Mine below.... Charles Darwin R.A. Fisher Sewall Wright J.B.S. Haldane Motoo Kimura Ernst Mayr Richard Lewontin J. M. Smith W.D. Hamilton Theodosius Dobzhansky
Below I mentioned the doyen of living population geneticists, James Crow, yeah, Jim Crow.
Via RPM I see that Chad at Uncertain Principles is asking about seminal discoveries and experiments in biology.
Recently a few blogs I follow have been having a back and forth "debate" which seem to recapitulate in the most general sense the "selectionist vs. neutralist" debates of the 1970s.