The 2001 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth Science presented to Rob Van der Voo

The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, awarded the 2001 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth Science to Rob Van der Voo for his outstanding contributions to the field of paleomagnetism and his reconstruction of ancient continental positions that have lead to a better understanding of plate tectonic processes for the past billion years of Earth history.     

Molecular mechanics—modeling molecular structure and energetics: the 2002 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry presented to Norman Allinger

The Franklin Institute of Philadelphia awarded the 2002 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry to Norman L. Allinger for his pioneering work in computational chemistry in the field of molecular mechanics with his development of the MM series of force fields, their widespread application to the fundamental understanding of molecular structure and energetics, and their implementation as a significant tool to practicing chemists.     

The 2011 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics presented to Nicola Cabibbo

The Franklin Institute of Philadelphia awards the 2011 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics to Nicola Cabibbo for his pioneering work in the field of elementary particle physics, with special emphasis on his role in furthering our understanding of the underlying symmetries that relate one elementary particle interaction to another.     

Metastability,pattern formation,and the discovery of quasicrystals: the 2002 Bower Award for Achievement in Science. Presented to John Werner Cahn

The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, awarded the 2002 Bower Award for Achievement in Science to John Werner Cahn for his research in the field of materials science. Over the past four and a half decades, Cahn's ideas have vitally affected every area of the field and have strongly influenced statistical physics as well. In particular, Cahn's invention of the Cahn-Hilliard equation has been path breaking, as has his contribution to quasicrystallography.     

The 2011 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry Presented to Kyriacos C. Nicolaou

The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, awards the 2011 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry to Professor Kyriacos C. Nicolaou for his extraordinary contributions to chemistry, biology, and medicine through the advancement of the art of synthesis as exemplified by the elegant total syntheses of some of nature's most complex biologically active molecules. Nicolaou is recognized as a world leader in the field of total synthesis for his work in chemical synthesis and chemical biology. His total syntheses are legendary, distinguished for their elegance and practicality. Among his most celebrated achievements are the total syntheses of calicheamicin γ₁^I, Taxol^®, brevetoxin B, vancomycin, and thiostrepton. The impact of his work transcends total synthesis, for it often leads to the discovery and invention of new synthetic strategies and technologies as well as biological tools and drug candidates, thereby facilitating discoveries in biology and medicine. Nicolaou's influence on science and society extends beyond his research discoveries. Through his didactic lectures and writings, he motivates and inspires students into the sciences and informs the public about the importance of science and education to society.     

Biosecurity, bioterrorism and the governance of science: The increasing convergence of science and security policy

Science and security policy are increasingly overlapping because of concerns that legitimate research might be misapplied to develop biological weapons. This has led to an expansion of security policy to cover broad areas of research and scientific practice, including funding, publishing, peer-review, employment, materials transfer, post-graduate teaching and academics’ ability to design and perform experiments and disseminate research. Such changes raise policy concerns because many of the technologies used to produce biological weapons are ‘dual use’ and have legitimate peaceful applications. As a result, attempts to control their generation, diffusion or application can have unintended impacts on socially beneficial applications. This paper explores recent changes in the governance of science and technology and contributes to future policy making by assessing the relative merits of understanding the development of dual use policy in terms of either technology transfer or technology convergence.     

Benjamin Franklin and the glass Armonica

Benjamin Franklin was a man of remarkable versatility, especially well-known as a scientist, writer and politician. Less well-known are his activities as a musician. This article describes his invention of the glass Armonica, on which he played and for which he also composed music. In recent years there has been a revival of interest in instruments of this kind and an acoustical analysis has been made of the vibrating glasses in an attempt to explain their curiously haunting melody.     

The 2003 Benjamin Franklin medal in chemistry for pioneering the development of ultra-fast and multi-dimensional spectroscopies and their applications is presented to Robin M. Hochstrasser

Throughout his distinguished career of over 40 years, Robin Hochstrasser has made significant contributions to several areas of science in the fields of chemical and biochemical physics. He has been at the forefront and made fundamental contributions to the fields of photochemistry, solid-state chemistry, ultra-fast laser spectroscopies, and protein dynamics. He has been a prolific researcher, producing over 560 publications. His work has been characterized by experts in the fields as “a constant stream of experiments of lasting significance” (J. Phys. Chem. 100 (1996) 11791).Robin began his career in the 1960s using a variety of magnetic and electric field measurements to study crystals at low temperatures to understand spin quantization in solids and electron exchanged-mediated energy transfer. This work, described as a “classic contribution” (J. Phys. Chem. 100 (1996) 11791) was the basis for much of the subsequent experimental and theoretical work on the effect of magnetic fields on molecular spectra and on the measurements of dipole moments.In the late 1970s, Robin recognized the power of laser technology for the study of molecules and soon became a leader in the field investigating solid, gas phase, and condensed phase systems. He developed and applied various ultra-fast laser techniques to study the structure and dynamics of complex molecules in liquid phase, chemical, and biochemical reactions. He made seminal contributions to the development of two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy (2D IR) on a time scale of a picosecond or less. This 2D IR spectroscopy measures coupling between two functional groups in a large molecule and can thus be used to measure distances, as for example, two amide carbonyl groups in a peptide molecule. On the ultra-fast timescale, one application of 2D IR is to gain information on the rate of protein folding and unfolding in solution. Some of Robin's greatest contributions to understanding biomolecules are said to be in the experimental studies on the picosecond and femtosecond dynamics of heme proteins. Using techniques he developed he was able to observe the interactions of oxygen, carbon monoxide, and nitric oxide with hemoglobin inside the protein.     

The 2008 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry is presented to Albert Eschenmoser, Dr. sc.nat

The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, awards the 2008 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry to Professor Albert Eschenmoser for his seminal efforts in the chemical etiology of nucleic acid structure, which through systematic exploration employing chemical synthesis of potentially natural structural alternatives to DNA, demonstrated that Watson-Crick base pairing is not unique to the ribofuranosyl system, and that DNA’s structure represents an optimization of several factors rather than a maximization of base-pairing strength.In his early scientific career, Professor Albert Eschenmoser established himself as one of the premier synthetic organic chemists in the world, with the monumental achievement of two total syntheses of Vitamin B₁₂, the first in collaboration with Professor Robert B. Woodward of Harvard University.However, since the 1980s, Professor Eschenmoser has concentrated his research interest in establishing the area of chemical etiology of nucleic acid structures to understand better the structural and functional uniqueness of the molecular basis of nature’s genetic information carrier—DNA and RNA. This systematic investigation of potential natural nucleic acid alternatives has demonstrated experimentally that Watson-Crick base pairing is not a unique property of DNA and RNA. Moreover, his research on homo-DNA revealed that the helicality of the famous double-stranded DNA is a direct outcome of the 5-membered ring nature of the deoxyribofuranose structure unit, while the study on p-RNA demonstrated that nature did not choose her genetic system by the standard of maximal base pairing strength, but instead optimization. Of equal significance, his recent design and synthesis of TNA (α-threofuranosyl nucleic acid), found to possess extraordinary base-paring properties, led to the hypothesis suggesting TNA as a possible precursor to the “RNA World”. Finally, his research on the correlation between the differences in the pKa of nucleic bases and their base-pairing strength led to a novel principal for the selection of nucleic base alternatives with proper bonding strength.     

The 2005 Benjamin Franklin medal in physics presented to Yoichiro Nambu

The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, awarded the 2005 Benjamin Franklin medal in physics to Yoichiro Nambu for his seminal contributions which introduced the modern concept of broken symmetry to elementary particle physics, for his invention of the particle property called color which is the key to quark confinement, and for his ground-breaking work on the theory of string-like elementary particles.     

The finite element method and earthquake engineering: The 2006 Benjamin Franklin Medal in civil engineering presented to Ray W. Clough

The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, PA awarded the 2006 Benjamin Franklin Medal in civil engineering to Ray W. Clough for revolutionizing engineering and scientific computation, and engineering design methods through his formulation and development of the finite element method, and for his innovative leadership in applying the method to the field of earthquake engineering with special emphasis on the seismic performance of dams.     

The 2005 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science presented to Aravind Joshi

The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, awarded the 2005 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science to Aravind Joshi for his fundamental contributions to natural language processing technology and to cognitive science, including particularly the development of the Tree Adjoining Grammar (TAG) family of formalisms and tractable polynomial time algorithms that analyze the complex, varied surface word orders of human languages while simultaneously recovering local elementary syntactic domains corresponding to meaning. In addition, Joshi has been a major collaborator on a new theory of discourse coherence that has influenced all subsequent work on anaphora resolution, and is currently applying TAG to address modeling problems in the life sciences.     

The 2004 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science presented to Richard M. Karp

The Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science is awarded to Dr. Richard M. Karp for his contributions to the understanding of computational complexity. His work helps programmers find workable solution procedures avoiding approaches that would fail to find a solution in a reasonable amount of time. Scientific, commercial, or industrial situations where his work applies include establishing least-cost schedules for industrial production, transportation routing, circuit layout, communication network design, and predicting the spatial structure of a protein from its amino acid sequencing.     

“Follow the Water”: Steve Squyres and the Mars Exploration Rovers

Steve Squyres was responsible for assembling the team of scientists, engineers and instruments that formed the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER). Squyres developed a vision that small-scale observations made by a robotic geologist on Mars would be the key for resolving the mystery of water on Mars. Prior to the MER missions, planetary scientists were divided between groups holding that ancient fluvial-like surface features on Mars were formed by water and those holding that the erosive and depositional forces were tied to liquid and gaseous CO₂. At issue was a fundamental understanding not only of early Martian geological processes and early solar luminosity, but also the possibility of life on Mars. To resolve these questions, Squyres and his team developed a new breed of rovers that were capable of identifying minerals and collecting textural observations. The resulting twin rovers, Opportunity and Spirit, have successfully resolved the single most important question about Mars that scientists have been debating for the past 30 years, providing compelling evidence for the action of water on the Martian surface. Squyres and the MER team have also initiated a new era in planetary exploration and inspired a new generation of students to become scientists and explorers. Steve Squyres and the MER team produced fundamental insights into the geology and climatology of Mars. These have resulted in major advances in our understanding of the potential for life on other planets and of life’s evolution on Earth. For the discovery and elucidation of water on Mars through the “robotic geologists” of the Mars Exploration Rovers, Steve Squyres was awarded the 2007 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth and Environmental Science.     

The 2004 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Mechanical Engineering presented to Roger Bacon

The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, PA, awarded the 2004 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Mechanical Engineering to Roger Bacon for his fundamental research on the production of graphite whiskers and the determination of their microstructure and properties, for his pioneering development efforts in the production of the world's first continuously processed carbon fibers and the world's first high modulus and high-strength carbon fibers, and for his contributions to the development of carbon fibers from alternative starting materials.     

The 2004 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Engineering presented to Robert E. Newnham

The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Engineering to Robert E. Newnham for his invention of multiphase piezoelectric transducers and their spatial architecture which revolutionized the field of acoustic imaging. The background and significance of his research is presented. Attention is focused on the impact his research prompted in the field of medical imaging, in particular non-invasive, real-time visualization of internal tissue and organs of human body using ultrasound energy. Societal impact of Dr. Newnham's work is also pointed out.     

The 2001 Benjamin Franklin medal in chemistry presented to K. Barry Sharpless

The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, PA awarded the 2001 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry to K. Barry Sharpless for his important innovative scientific contributions to the field of asymmetric catalytic oxidation, which resulted in highly enantioselective processes for the epoxidation, dihydroxylation and aminohydroxylation of olefins.     

The 2001 Bower Award & prize for achievement in science presented to Paul Baran

The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania awarded the 2001 Bower Award and prize to Paul Baran for his efforts to advance our knowledge of physical science or its application for his seminal invention of packet switching—the foundation of modern communications networks and, in particular, the Internet.Simply stated the technology of packet-switching, allows pieces of information to be divided into small packets or “envelopes” of information that are addressed, sent using multiple available routes to a specific destination, then reassembled. This technology—a post office-like system—revolutionized the telecommunications industry. Originally devised during the cold war for a military communications system survivable in the event of nuclear attack, packet switching became the foundation of computer networks including the Internet and truly has altered the world in which we live.     

The Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science presented to Judah Folkman

The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania awarded the 2001 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science to Judah Folkman for his founding of the field of angiogenesis research and demonstration that angiogenesis is a necessary factor in the conversion of abnormal cells to malignant tumors.     

The 2001 Benjamin Franklin medal in physics presented to Alan Guth, Ph.D. of Cambridge, Massachusetts

The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, awarded the 2001 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics to Alan H. Guth for his efforts to advance our knowledge of physical science and its application of the inflationary scenario, in which the universe undergoes a rapid expansion in the first stages of the Big Bang.