biology

Milton Wainwright

Milton Wainwright is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Milton Wainwright rather than just read about it. In short: Milton Wainwright (born 23 February 1950) is a British microbiologist who is known for his research into what he claims could be extraterrestrial life found in the stratosphere. Biography Wainwright graduated from the University of Nottingham in the field of botany.

Key takeaways

Milton Wainwright belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Milton Wainwright to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Milton Wainwright from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Milton Wainwright (born 23 February 1950) is a British microbiologist who is known for his research into what he claims could be extraterrestrial life found in the stratosphere.

Biography Wainwright graduated from the University of Nottingham in the field of botany. He obtained a PhD from the same university in the field of mycology. From 1974 to 1975 he went to the National Research Council of Canada as postdoctoral fellow, where he obtained a qualification in environmental microbiology. From 1975 to 1986, he was a lecturer in microbiology at the University of Sheffield.

Research Wainwright's interests are in astrobiology and the history of science. In 2008, he claimed that the idea of natural selection is not original to Charles Darwin's or Alfred Russel Wallace's theory. Also, he has claimed that the red rain in Kerala is a biological entity. Wainwright has also written widely about the history of the discovery of penicillin (including that Adolf Hitler's life was saved by the drug) and streptomycin and on the hypothesis that bacteria and other non-virus microbes cause cancer. In the 1980s Wainwright interviewed Rutgers University faculty members for his 1990 book on antibiotics, Miracle Cure, asking questions about Albert Schatz, which piqued the curiosity of some professors, who made their own inquiries and spoke with Schatz. A group of them began to lobby for Schatz's rehabilitation, because they were convinced that Schatz had been the victim of an injustice when the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded solely to Selman Waksman. This culminated in Rutgers awarding Schatz the 1994 Rutgers University Medal, the university's highest honor. Wainwright identifies as an agnostic.

Books Wainwright, Milton (1990). Miracle Cure: The Story of Penicillin and the Golden Age of Antibiotics. Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-16492-0. Wainwright, Milton (1999). An Introduction to Environmental Biotechnology. doi:10.1007/978-1-4615-5251-2. ISBN 978-1-4613-7394-0.

Honours and awards Honorary Professor, Cardiff University, Great Britain, 2009 Honorary Professor, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia, 2010 Honorary Professor and Fellow of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology, University of Buckingham, Great Britain, 2012

Articles Wainwright, M.; Alharbi, S.; Wickramasinghe, N.C. (January 2006). "How do microorganisms reach the stratosphere?" (PDF). International Journal of Astrobiology. 5 (1): 13–15. Bibcode:2006IJAsB...5...13W. doi:10.1017/S1473550406002825. S2CID 19014202. Shivaji, S., Chaturvedi, P., Kuresh, K., Redy, C.B.S., Wainwright, M. et al. (2006). Bacillus aerius sp. nov. isolated from cryogenic tubes used for collecting air samples from high altitudes. International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology 56,1465–1473. Wainwright, M. (2008). Some highlights in the history of mycology—a personal journey. Fungal Biology Reviews, 7, 2297–102. Wainwright, M., Leswd, A. and Alshammari, F. (2009). Bacteria in amber coal and clay in relation to lithopanspermia. International Journal of Astrobiology 8,141–143. Wainwright, M. (2010). The overlooked link between non-virus microbes and cancer. Science Progress 93, 393–40. Wainwright, M. (2002). Do fungi play a role in the aetiology of cancer? Reviews of Medical Microbiology 13, 1–6. Wainwright, M. (2006). The potential role of non-virus microorganisms in cancer. Current Trends in Microbiology 2, 48–59. Wainwright, Milton (July 2010). "The origin of species without Darwin and Wallace". Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences. 17 (3): 187–204. doi:10.1016/j.sjbs.2010.04.001. PMC 3730928. PMID 23961077. Wainwright, M. (2011). Charles Darwin mycologist and refuter of his own myth. Fungi 4, 12–20. Wainwright, M. (1991). Streptomycin: discovery and resultant controversy. Journal of the History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 13, 97–124. Wainwright, M. and Swan, H.T. (1986). C.G. Paine and the earliest surviving clinical record of penicillin therapy. Medical History 30, 42–56.

See also Panspermia Chandra Wickramasinghe

References

External links "Milton Wainwright". University of Sheffield. Archived from the original on 9 March 2016.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Milton Wainwright

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Milton Wainwright claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Milton Wainwright before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Milton Wainwright ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Milton Wainwright

In research: Milton Wainwright appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Milton Wainwright in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Milton Wainwright is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1950 births, Academics of the University of Sheffield, Alumni of the University of Nottingham, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Milton Wainwright outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Milton Wainwright in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Milton Wainwright means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Milton Wainwright out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Milton Wainwright in simple terms?

Milton Wainwright (born 23 February 1950) is a British microbiologist who is known for his research into what he claims could be extraterrestrial life found in the stratosphere. Biography Wainwright graduated from the University of Nottingham in the field of botany.

Why does Milton Wainwright matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Milton Wainwright?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Milton Wainwright.