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For years, the chemical compounds utilized in hair spray and fridges wreaked havoc on the ozone layer, the protecting shroud that shields us from the solar’s dangerous ultraviolet radiation. But it surely wasn’t till 1974 that folks began to take discover.
That was the yr that Mexican scientist Mario Molina printed a analysis paper that confirmed chlorofluorocarbons — broadly utilized in fridge coolants, spray paint, deodorant sprays and different aerosol merchandise — had been depleting the ozone layer. The results had been dire, for with out the ozone layer to assist defend us from the solar, our planet would not be liveable. His analysis helped change world environmental coverage.
To honor Molina’s pioneering efforts to fight an environmental catastrophe, Google devoted its Doodle to Molina on the Nobel Prize-winning scientist’s eightieth birthday.
Born on March 19, 1943, in Mexico Metropolis, Molina was drawn to science at a younger age, changing a toilet in his residence right into a makeshift laboratory for his chemistry units.
“I used to be already fascinated by science earlier than coming into highschool,” Molina wrote in a biography on the Nobel website. “I nonetheless keep in mind my pleasure once I first glanced at paramecia and amoebae by a somewhat primitive toy microscope.”
After being despatched to a Swiss boarding college on the age of 11, Molina returned to Mexico to check chemical engineering program on the Nationwide Autonomous College of Mexico earlier than incomes a doctorate in bodily chemistry from the College of California, Berkeley, in 1972.
A yr later, whereas working with F. Sherwood Rowland of the College of California at Irvine, Molina discovered that CFCs within the higher ambiance may very well be damaged down by ultraviolet radiation, releasing chlorine atoms, which destroy ozone molecules. Their findings had been printed within the journal Nature in 1974.
Their findings had been denounced by industries that depend on CFCs, with one firm’s government alleging that the pair’s concept was “orchestrated by the Ministry of Disinformation of the KGB.” However in 1985, British researchers found a large gap within the ozone layer over Antarctica.
That discovering led governments world wide to come back collectively within the Nineteen Eighties and signal a treaty referred to as the Montreal Protocol to part out using ozone-damaging substances. Science journal referred to as the accord “essentially the most profitable worldwide effort to combat local weather change and environmental degradation.”
For his or her work, Molina and Rowland shared the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Paul J. Crutzen of the Max Planck Institute in Germany. In asserting the award, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences mentioned the researchers “have contributed to our salvation from a worldwide environmental downside that might have catastrophic penalties.”
In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded Molina the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the very best civilian honor within the US.
Molina died of a coronary heart assault in 2020 on the age of 77.
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