Science and technology in Venezuela
In the nineteenth century, several scientists visited Venezuela such as Francisco Javier de Balmis, Agostino Codazzi, Jean-Baptiste Boussingault, Mariano Rivero, François de Pons, José Salvany, Auguste Sallé, Robert Hermann Schomburgk, Wilhelm Sievers, Carl Ferdinand Appun, Gustav Karsten, Adolf Ernst, Benedikt Roezl, Karl Moritz, Friedrich Gerstäcker, Anton Goering, Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert, Augustus Fendler, Federico Johow, Charles Waterton, Alfred Russel Wallace, Everard im Thurn, François Désiré Roulin, Henry Whitely, Jean Chaffanjon, Frank M. Chapman, Émile-Arthur Thouar, Jules Crevaux and many others, some of whom are buried in Venezuela.
Louis-Daniel Beauperthuy (Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, France, August 25, 1808 – Demerara, British Guiana, September 3, 1871) was a Venezuelan-French physician who made important contributions to the study of the causes of infectious diseases such as yellow fever, malaria, and leprosy.
[11] Under the direction of Gabaldón, Venezuela became the first country which organized a nationwide campaign against malaria by using DDT, which led to be the first to achieve eradication of the disease in a large area extension of the tropical zone.
[11] He also discovered new species of malarial parasites and devoted himself to studying the mosquito Anopheles nuneztovari, action that catalyzed the recognition of educational needs and preparing managerial staff of the Ministry of Health, through the creation of the school that bears his name in Maracay, a deep and additional contribution.
Felix Pifano (San Felipe, Yaracuy, May 1, 1912 – August 8, 2003) was a Venezuelan physician and researcher, graduated in the Central University of Venezuela (1935) and laureate of the National Academy of Medicine in Paris.
In his recently founded section he studied Chagas disease, Trypanosoma rangeli, cutaneous and visceral leishmaniasis, intestinal and hepatic amebiasis, schistosomiasis, onchocerciasis, Systematic mycoses, malnutrition and poisonous animals.
In this discipline studied the importance of insects as vectors in the transmission of diseases, was the author of numerous papers and identified Necator americanus as the cause of anemia in patients who had suffered from malaria.
[18] After twenty years in Monagas state, Nuñez Tovar lived temporarily in Caracas and La Victoria, settling permanently in Maracay after being appointed medical brigade in the garrison of the city.
It is visited by important scientists such as Cecilio Romagna (Argentina), Maria and Leonidas Deanne, Antonio Dacio Franco do Amaral, Emmanuel Dias (Brazil), Jécar Nehgme (Chile), Emile Brumpt and Jean Coudert (France), Enrique Tejera, Arnoldo Gabaldon, Humberto Fernández Morán, Felix Pifano, Otto Hernandez Pieretti, José Vicente Scorza (Venezuela).
Baruj Benacerraf (Caracas October 29, 1920 – Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, US, August 2, 2011)[19] was a Venezuelan-born American immunologist, who shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the "discovery of the major histocompatibility complex genes which encode cell surface protein molecules important for the immune system's distinction between self and non-self".
Author of Elements of Chemical Philosophy where he defended the atomic theory (1881), wrote about his investigations in the Annales of the Science Agronomique Française et Etrangère, Bulletin of the Société Chimique de France and the Compte-Rendus, with wide popularization in Germany, England, United States and Venezuela.
Four months after his entry, Roubicek raised the board of directors the need to change the formula of the beer as it detected that the consumer wanted a product more refreshing and so adapt it to the Venezuelan palate and our tropical climate.
Inciarte was the first Venezuelan to become chief petroleum engineer for any of SHELL's Group of Companies Worldwide, and after many years of a very successful career in PDVSA was named the first president of INTEVEP (Venezuela's Technology Research and Development Center).
Alexander von Humboldt mentions a meeting with this man in 1800 cite:We found in Calabozo, in the heart of the plains, an electric machine of large disks, electrophores, batteries, electrometers, a material almost as complete as that of our physicists in Europe.
Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert (Grosswaltz, 1796– Ciudad Bolivar, 1870),[30] German surgeon general in Simón Bolívar's army who developed the recipe of the called Angostura bitter as a tonic for soldiers affected by upset stomachs and tropical diseases.
He left formal education after the fourth year of primary school, but soon began to develop an interest in mechanics, enjoying discovering for himself the speed ratios produced by connecting oranges of different diameters and rotating them by means of jets of water.
Humberto Fernández-Morán (Maracaibo, February 18, 1924 – Stockholm, March 17, 1999) was a Venezuelan research scientist, renowned for inventing the diamond knife or scalpel, significantly advancing the development of electromagnetic lenses for electron microscopy based on superconducting technology, and many other scientific contributions.
[52] His work and research is on the design and development of silicon-based microsystems that draw and condition power from tiny batteries, fuel cells, and generators that harness ambient energy from motion, light, temperature, and radiation to supply mobile, portable, and self-sustaining devices such as wireless microsensors for biomedical, consumer, industrial, and military applications.
After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, in 1939 he was exiled with his family to Paris and from there to Caracas, after receiving an invitation from the Venezuelan government to work as professor of physiology in the faculty of medicine of the Central University of Venezuela in 1940.
In 1955 nationalizated as Venezuelan Pi Sunier wrote in Caracas ten books and two novels, apart from the essays and monographs collected in scientific journals and in cultural publications, which is an inventory of great value that earned him the Kalinga Prize, granted by UNESCO in 1955.
José María Vargas (La Guaira, March 10, 1786 – New York City, April 13, 1854) graduated with a degree in philosophy from the Seminario Tridentino obtained in 1809 his medical title from the Real y Pontificia Universidad de Caracas.
The influence of the French school, dominant then, made a deep and lasting impression on his mind, although he continued to draw on other sources, which is evident in his admiration for Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Charles Darwin and Ernst Haeckel.
His expertise have landed him on NASA and European Space Agency teams preparing interplanetary vehicles that will launch in the coming few years, including the OSIRIS-REx project and the Marco Polo-R mission.
[85] The project was ended in 1984 by president Jaime Lusinchi, but left behind a legacy in authors related to intelligence as Edward De Bono, Martin Seligman, Howard Gardner and Robert Sternberg.
He was a fervent disciple of the positivism sponsored in Venezuela by Dr. Adolf Ernst, he belonged to the Academies of Medicine, History and Language and was a corresponding member of numerous foreign scientific corporations.
[92] He has published more than 1,000 works,[93] more than 20 books and monographs, and produced, directed, written and/or hosted more than 1500 radio programs and 50 TV shows and documentaries in areas ranging from science to history and philosophy.
For his contribution to the development of science journalism, Bastidas received recognition from the governments of Venezuela and Spain, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which awarded him the Kalinga Prize (Paris, 1980).
Her research has advanced the scientific foundation of heat transfer enhancement by flow destabilization and hemodynamics mass transport in biological systems including aortic aneurysms and intravenous blood oxygenators.
Other major projects include the development of the Identity, Privacy and Security Institute, which works in collaboration with policymakers, regulatory agencies and industry, plus multidisciplinary centres in sustainable energy and global engineering.
The National Science, Technology and Innovation Plan 2005–2030, subtitled Building a Sustainable Future, has fixed the following strategic objectives:[117] Scientific publishing has been steadily declining in Venezuela, with a drop of 24% observed over the 2015–2019 period.
