A book on the subject came out earlier this year that I've been wanting to read, "Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves" by Nicola Twilley
check out Bill Bryson’s “at home” if you’re looking for something a little less specific to refrigeration and more fun narration of similar novel life/home inventions. To give a sense of depth, refrigeration is probably a few pages. It’s very high level but a fun read about things you’ve forgotten to think about around the house
They said these innovations are what the state is known for, but I've been a Minnesota resident my entire life and didn't know refrigerated trucking was invented here.
Same! This coin would be a cool little Minnesota artifact to own. I guess they'll be available to purchase here some time ($~35 for a set of 25 of them, or $~14 for a single "proof coin", whatever that is): https://www.usmint.gov/coins/coin-programs/american-innovati...
"Proof coins" are extra shiny coins made for collectors. They polish the blank, polish the die, and then stamp it more than once. Blank areas of the coin have a practically mirror shine finish.
Unlike California, MN is not good at promoting all the things they do and so people never think of them despite all the cool/useful inventions that come from there. (I now live in Iowa which is even worse about promoting).
Probably should - California has a lions share of all the innovations. I would guess that it would be even more concentrated than just the correlation to population given the research institution / market structures.
Other states should most certainly promote their successes.
I just decided to pull mine up... I live in Florida, and I had no idea of the following:
* Air conditioning: In 1851, Dr. John Gorrie invented a machine to cool air, which laid the groundwork for modern air conditioning and refrigeration
* Gatorade: The sports drink was developed at the University of Florida to help the football team rehydrate.
* Sunscreen: Benjamin Green invented the first commercial sunscreen in 1944.
* IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC): A team in Boca Raton developed the first IBM PC in 1981.
* Supercapacitor: A new type of supercapacitor was invented in Florida. (2013)
There's a bunch more, seems like a number of them have to do with the weather ;) I knew about Gatorade, but had no idea about the rest.
This makes me kind of wish I had this when I was in public school as part of one of our courses, it's kind of nice to learn about the innovation around you, especially when you don't exactly live in a place known for it. I think its inspiring to a younger mind to know you can be creative and innovative living just about anywhere.
> Air conditioning: In 1851, Dr. John Gorrie invented a machine to cool air, which laid the groundwork for modern air conditioning and refrigeration
And modern cooling was invented by Carrier, with the original use case to actually control humidity to help the publishing/newspaper industry:
> On December 3, 1911, Carrier presented what is perhaps the most significant document ever prepared on air conditioning – Rational Psychrometric Formulae – at the annual meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. It became known as the "Magna Carta of Psychrometrics."[8][9] This document tied together the concepts of relative humidity, absolute humidity, and dew-point temperature, thus making it possible to design air-conditioning systems to precisely fit the requirements at hand.
The idea of temperature (first in cinemas and theatres) came later. People under-estimate how much humidity control is needed for comfort: many building codes are adding language to have a standalone whole house dehumidifier.
Its funny because in Florida you kinda need the dehumidifier, it makes a major difference, I have small ones all around the house, but for years I didn't know this. I actually believe wholeheartedly I get sick way less because of it. In other places / states you need a humidifier instead.
During the pandemic there was controversy about who received Moderna/Phizer vs who received J&J's vaccine. They were giving black neighborhoods J&J because it didn't have as strict refrigeration requirements, and a lot of black neighborhoods don't have a nearby pharmacy which can store the vaccines. J&J was thought to be less effective and had a higher rate of vaccine injury though.
J&J was very effective. They came later and turned out to be less effective than Moderna/Phizer - but their vaccine was still very good when viewed in isolation - they just were unfortunate to have an amazingly great competitor to compare against.
Given the most common vaccine injury is caused by improper administration, I wonder if that could be related? ie. less trained staff would potentially be administering vaccines in black neighbourhoods? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoulder_injury_related_to_vac...
Side effects of the vaccine basically. I guess technically headaches or fatigue would be a vaccine injury
But I use the phrase "thought to" intentionally: I don't know what the science says now, but at the time there were reported cases of myocarditis in people who took the JnJ vaccine. This was like May of 2021, so I don't know if the science ever panned out on that, but it definitely drove discussions around health equity with the vaccine
The logistical chain for keeping products products is really interesting:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_chain
Besides food, another area where it is critical is pharmaceuticals.