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Humanity's earliest known ancestor discovered

The species is called Saccorhytus coronaries. It is the oldest known member of the phylum Deuterostomia, to which we, humans, belong. It lived approximately 540 million years ago in the Fortunian stage of the Cambrian Period. Fossils of the species were first discovered in the Shaanxi province of China.

First approved drug for the causative treatment

The drug is called hydroxyurea, proper chemical term is hydroxycarbamide. Sickle-cell anaemia is an abnormality in the oxygen-carrying protein haemoglobin inside red blood cells. This leads to a rigid, sickle-like shape of the cells. Hydroxyurea reactivates fetal haemoglobin production in place of the normal haemoglobin.

American physicist and electrical engineer John Bardeen dies

He is noted for invention of the transistor with William Shockley and Walter Brattain and for a fundamental theory of conventional superconductivity, known as the BCS theory, with Leon N Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer. Both these achievements were rewarded by Nobel Prize in physics, making John Bardeen only one person who won it twice.

The Luxor statue cache is unearthed

It is a grouping of Ancient Egyptian statues, discovered in Luxor, beneath the solar court of the 18th dynasty Pharaoh Amenhotep III. The cache was buried during the Roman conversion of the area into a military camp. Originally, five statues were found at a three foot depth below a covering layer of small stones; eventually 26 statues were uncovered.

Rubik's Cube is patented

It was invented by Hungarian architect Ernő Rubik. Although it is widely reported that the Cube was built as a tool to students to understand 3D objects, his actual purpose was solving the structural problem of moving the parts independently without the entire mechanism falling apart. Hundreds of millions cubes were sold worldwide.

Computer program Sketchpad is written by Ivan Sutherland

It was written by American computer scientist Ivan Sutherland. It is considered to be the ancestor of modern computer-aided design (CAD) programs as well as a major breakthrough in the development of computer graphics in general. Sutherland demonstrated with Sketchpad that computer graphics could be used for both artistic and technical purposes.

Founder of the Porsche car company Ferdinand Porsche dies

He founded the Porsche car company. His famous designs include the first gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle (Lohner-Porsche), the Volkswagen Beetle, the Mercedes-Benz SS/SSK, several other important developments. In addition, Porsche designed the 1923 Benz Tropfenwagen, which was the first racing car with a mid-engine, rear-wheel drive layout.

Anniversaries of the (in)famous