Perhaps the most well-known Cuban innovation is the vaccine CimaVax. Newsela | Cuba's masters of invention After earning his medical degree from the University of Buenos Aires, he worked at the Institute of Physiology with Bernardo Houssay. After the war, he worked on the first proton linear accelerator and was awarded the 1968 Nobel Prize in physics for his work with elementary particles [sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica; PBS; Sullivan; Wohl]. There were major hurdles facing Cubas entry into the technologically advancing world. The term "hispanic" was created and adopted by the United States government in the early 1970s during the Nixon administration. (July 7, 2014) http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/ochoa.html, NASA. Travis Daub is Director of Digital at PBS NewsHour. Cancer is not one disease, but a collection of hundreds of different illnesses. Read more about Cuban inventions in How communism turned Cuba into an island of hackers and DIY engineers. Scottron was a . Try this: Da Vinci was fascinated by flying machines. At the time, researchers were struggling to create targeted pure antibodies that worked against known agents. Learn more: Ann Tsukamoto, Necessity is the Mother of Invention. Convit also developed a vaccination against leishmaniasis, a protozoal skin disease linked to poverty and malnutrition. Photo by Desmond Boylan/Reuters RIGHT: Farmer Carlos Frachi invented a crop irrigation system using soda bottles. She filed her patent in 1966, and it includes innovations still used today. Dictionary of World Biography. A car is rewired for a digital display in Havana. But back in 1881, when Finlay first presented his extensive research suggesting that mosquitoes transmitted the disease to Havanas Academy of Sciences, he became a laughingstock. "Yellow Fever." But over the years, scientists have developed a variety of different treatments that can transform cancer into a chronic, survivable condition. 2012. The following year, he and Felix Bloch pioneered measuring a neutron's magnetic moment, that is, its tendency to align with an applied magnetic field (an important clue that the neutrally charged particle is made of electrically charged fundamental particles). According to the Smithsonian, Victor Ochoa had a reward of $50,000 offered for his delivery dead or alive to Porfirio Diaz, President of Mexico. With fans that include Eric Clapton, Derek Trucks, Steve Gadd, Taj Mahal and Quincy Jones, Martinez is the world's first-call rumbero, and a consummate master of Afro-Cuban folkloric music and. The New York Times. A Julin Acua Gal C Fidel Castro Daz-Balart D Jos Daporta Gozlez E Ernesto Estrada F Carlos Finlay G Alberto Granado M Hctor Maseda Gutirrez Jos Carlos Mills Hilda Molina N Desiderio Navarro P Leopoldo Pando Zayas Javier Perez-Capdevila His finding further enabled him to define five major phases of the ancient capital's history, beginning in the 8th century B.C.E., that lined up with the history of other sites. Deardoff)." May 12, 2014. 1996 - 2023 NewsHour Productions LLC. Sep. 2, 1988. 65, no. But that is just tip of the iceberg. Shortly after taking power, he legalized private home computers, mobile phones, and DVD players. He was prolific, but his best-known inventions include the incandescent light bulb, phonograph, and an early movie camera. Read more about Cuban inventions in our Science Wednesday piece, How communism turned Cuba into an island of hackers and DIY engineers. Long walled off from world trade and modern technology, Cuba has developed a robust culture of DIY engineers who turn household items into useful inventions. Cuba Has Made At Least 3 Major Medical Innovations That We Need - HuffPost Famous People From Cuba On the rooftop of Flauta Magica bar and restaurant, DJ Joan Coffigny spins deep house music. Over time, he worked to develop the daguerreotype, the precursor of modern photography. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Learn more: Ajay BhattThe Inventor of the USB. By most measures, the United States' business-friendly environment has proven to be fertile for medical innovation. Try one of these kid-safe electricity experiments to follow in his footsteps. During that time, Finlay didnt give up on his research. By combining these cells with immortal myeloma cells, Milstein and postdoc Georges Khler produced large amounts of long-lived, identical (monoclonal) antibodies. May 13, 2014. Benacerraf later recalled how the mixture of his heritage and upbringing created difficulties for him both in America and when he later temporarily moved to Paris [sources: Benacerraf; Encyclopaedia Britannica; Nobel Prize]. You may not know what reCAPTCHA is, but you see it almost every time you sign into a new website. By isolating a new class of substances called sugar nucleotides, Leloir found the key to deciphering this voluminous backlog of unsolved metabolic reactions. "Nobel Lecture: Polar Ozone Depletion." "Nobel Lecture: My Life with O3, NOX and other YZOXs." (July 7, 2014) http://yellowfever.lib.virginia.edu/reed/finlay.html, Wohl, Charles G. "Scientist as Detective: Luis Alvarez and the Pyramid Burial Chambers, the JFK Assassination, and the End of the Dinosaurs." Mndez was also the first person of African heritage in space. Try this: For a cool science fair project, learn to make a model of a steam power generator. Steve Wozniak (1950-present) and Steve Jobs (1955-2011) Known for: "Woz and Jobs" are two of the most famous inventors of the 20th century. Note: The first person of Latin American origin in space was Cuba's Arnaldo Tamayo Mndez in 1980, as part of a team from the Soviet Union. She holds several patents for the technology to isolate various types of stem cells. Access to culture was a principal pillar of the communist system Fidel Castro installed in Cuba. (July 7, 2014) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1388825/Cesar-Milstein.html, USA Science & Engineering Festival. Now, in the Internet era there are no shortage of Cuban entrepreneurs aspiring to overcome the technological drought. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/bizarre-brilliant-useful-inventions-cuban-diy-engineers, How communism turned Cuba into an island of hackers and DIY engineers. Government glassware used to distribute food was often reused to store and trade illegal food and medicine, Oroza says. From illegally installing rooftop radio antennas to record American music to hotwiring antique cars, Cubans are ingenious at figuring out workarounds to barriers that would otherwise keep them decades behind their neighbors. During his 75-year career, he received several honors, including Spain's Prince of Asturias Award and France's Legion of Honor. Monoclonal antibodies in the medicine attach to epidermal growth factor receptors on the surface of the cancer cell, thus preventing it from dividing and spreading the cancer. MP3 players and rear-facing cameras are common additions. Similar, yet worlds apart; that's this list in a nutshell. Known for: The Lumire brothers gave us one of the most popular inventions of all timethe movies! The White House is continuing to lift trade restrictions between the U.S. and Cuba. D)." One of the first Black women in U.S. history to receive a patent, she expanded upon . Countries of origin include: Argentina, Cuba, Spain, United States and Venezuela. He also developed Morse Code: a system of dots and dashes used to send these messages. Known for: Yet another artist-turned-inventor, Morse is best known for developing the electric telegraph, which allowed people to communicate over long distances nearly instantly. Hispanic-American Innovators Famous for Changing the World - AOL A large weight is hoisted up and dropped to spin a flywheel to start motors around the farm. Venezuela nominated him for a Nobel Prize in 1988, but he did not win. The VSSP research is so preliminary that Cuban scientists' documents still have to be translated from Spanish into English, says Dr. Kelvin Lee, chair of Roswell Park's department of immunology. Andy Ruiz is one of the first to produce 360-degree video in Cuba. The rikimbili, prohibited, but widely used in Cuba, is made of a bicycle with a motor attached. After all that excitement, he retired from NASA in 2005 [sources: NASA]. Since then, rum and coke has been among the world's most well-known cocktails. . In the 1910s and 1920s, she traveled thousands of miles around Mexico, South America, and Alaska, collecting some 145,000 plant specimens in just 13 years. Ted Cruz is the first Hispanic-American to serve as U.S. To wit: Mark Cuban. in the subject to his philosophy master's degree and law degree, all from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) [sources: Anthropology News; Encyclopaedia Britannica; Gaillard; Smithsonian]. According to an article in the Harvard International Review, the country invests 1.17 percent of its GDP in technological researchmore than the U.S. and on the same level with Israel. (July 4, 2014) http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1968/press.html, Nobel Prize. The Great Fever. "Frank Asaro, Berkeley Lab Nuclear Chemist, Dies at 86." He used and improved on the technology of the time to make the first commercial steamboats. Thanks to Milsteins work, monoclonal antibodies are now used in everything from diagnostic tests to the treatments of several autoimmune diseases to alleviating COVID-19. Try this: Screen movies using a homemade projector built with a cardboard box and a magnifying glass. June 9, 2017. Since 2007, the most important method of distributing the Internet has been the El Paquete Semanalor, The Weekly Package. But after President Obama lowered sanctions in 2009, restored diplomatic ties in 2014, and removed Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list in 2015a digital revolution has dawned. Known for: Edison is one of the most famous inventors of all time. A National Geographic team has made the first ascent of the remote Mount Michael, looking for a lava lake in the volcanos crater. The findings shed new light on the sophistication and development of pre-Hispanic peoples in Mexico and cemented Casos reputation as a leading archaeologist. How a zoo break-in changed the life of an owl called Flaco, Naked mole rats are fertile until they die, study finds. The New York-based Roswell Park Cancer Institute is evaluating CimaVax for use in the U.S. Owners havent been able to acquire new parts since President Kennedy issued a trade embargo in 1962, so they have devised hacks to keep the cars running. Underground DJs like Joan Coffigny and the female duo Pauza spin at clubs like the Fabrica de Arte Cubano and house parties. VSSP, originally designed as a compound to help boost the immune response to vaccines, also appears to enhance the anti-cancer immune response. Try this: Wow your science fair judges by building a Tesla Coil of your own. The electric engine from the widely-owned Soviet Aurika washing machine is commonly repurposed. (July 4, 2014) http://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/02/obituaries/luis-w-alvarez-nobel-physicist-who-explored-atom-dies-at-77.html, The Telegraph (UK). Copyright 2021. He published the results in 2014. Alcohol and tobacco use, as well as human papillomavirus, are major risk factors of the diseases.