INSpiREzine O Canada - Maple Leaf Edition | Page 28

A) The Antigravitational Suit (or G-Suit) is a flight suit worn by pilots and astronauts when subjected to high levels of acceleration force (g-force). It is designed to prevent blackouts caused by blood pooling in the lower part of the body thus depriving the brain of blood. The first g-suits were developed by a team led by Wilbur R. Franks at the University of Toronto in 1941 and first used operationally in 1942.

B) Computerized Braille

In 1972, Roland Galarneau, a legally blind Quebecois engineer with just 5 percent vision, developed the "Converto-Braille": a home-made electromechanical computer linked to a typing machine that could scan and translate texts into Braille at a rate of 100 words per minute.

C) The Cardiac Pacemaker

Engineer John Alexander Hopps is credited with the invention of the artificial pacemaker (aka, the stimulator-defibrillator). In collaboration with Dr. Wilfred Bigelow and Dr. John Callaghan, the world's first external artificial pacemaker was successfully used to restart a dog’s heart in 1950.

D) The Dow Process is a method of bromine extraction using electrolysis to oxidize bromide to bromine. The process was invented by Herbert Henry Dow in 1891, at a time when bromine was the primary ingredient in medicines and was widely used in photography.