Entry Category: Science and Technology - Starting with M

Raye Jean Jordan Montague was an internationally registered professional engineer (RPE) with the U.S. Navy who is credited with the first computer-generated rough draft of a U.S. naval ship. The U.S. Navy’s first female program manager of ships (PMS-309), Information Systems Improvement Program, she held a civilian equivalent rank of captain. She was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2013 and the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame in 2018. In 2017, with the movie Hidden Figures having awakened an awareness of the previously unacknowledged contributions of black engineers and mathematicians in the American defense and space industries, Montague was featured on the television show Good Morning America and dubbed a “real-life hidden figure.” Raye Jordan was born on …

During the United States Bicentennial Celebration in 1976, sapling trees that had been grown from germinated seeds that had orbited the moon during the Apollo 14 mission were planted across the nation. Four of those saplings, commonly known as moon trees, were planted in Arkansas. In January 1971, Apollo 14, one of six NASA missions to land on the moon, was launched. During each mission, the astronaut were each allowed to carry a small amount of personal belongings, which could include items such as books, condiments, and holiday decorations. Among the possessions of Astronaut Stuart Roosa was a small metal canister about the size of a soft-drink can containing several hundred tree seeds. Roosa, pilot of Apollo 14 command module …

James Norman (Jim) Moore bred a number of fruit species to be more easily grown in Arkansas. One of the world’s leading authorities on small fruits and a well-regarded professor at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), he co-wrote the field-changing Advances in Fruit Breeding (1975) and formed the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Fruit Breeding Program, which became the most productive in the world of horticultural science. Jim Moore was born on June 10, 1931, in Plumerville (Conway County) and grew up in Vilonia (Faulkner County). Moore earned a BSA in 1956 and an MS in 1957 from the University of Arkansas. He married Jan Moore before they moved to New Jersey in 1957 for …

Cotton breeder Carl Avriette Moosberg demonstrated that advances in the early maturing of cotton were possible. His Rex variety, introduced in 1957, reduced expense for pesticide by shortening the time required to maturity, while offering disease resistance and strong fiber. The success of Rex encouraged all major cottonseed companies to develop earlier maturing cotton varieties. Moosberg’s research improved the economics of growing cotton in Arkansas in the mid 1900s. Carl Moosberg was born on August 24, 1905, in Tyler, Texas, the third of four sons born to Frank Olaf Moosberg and Anna Trofast, immigrants from Sweden. He graduated from high school in Wills Point, Texas, in 1923 and went to work for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in …

Fishes commonly known as mullets, of the Family Mugilidae and Order Mugiliformes, are a group of more than seventy mostly marine species within some fifteen to twenty-five genera. The genus Mugil is cosmopolitan in distribution except in upper latitudes, and at least five species occur in North America. The latest evidence suggests that mullets are most closely related to atherinomorph fishes (silversides and topminnows). Although most mullets are strictly marine, the striped mullet (Mugil cephalus) has the physiological ability to travel between freshwater and salt water, spending much of its life in streams. It is a cosmopolitan resident of estuaries, temperate and tropical oceans, salt marshes, and shoreline areas along the Atlantic Coast of Nova Scotia south to Mexico and Brazil. …

Mysida is an order of small, shrimp-like crustaceans in the Class Malacostraca and Superorder Peracarida, with two families, Mysidae (nine subfamilies) and Petalopthalmidae (two subfamilies); 178 genera; and 1,132 species. Most are marine species, but there are about 72 freshwater species, being predominantly found in the Palearctic and Neotropical biogeographical realms. The first report of a species of mysid shrimp documented in Arkansas was in 2012. Species within the order are found throughout the world across a broad range of habitats, such as subterranean, freshwater, and brackish. They can also be found in shallow coastal waters and in surface to deep-sea habitats. In marine waters, they can be benthic (living on the seabed) or pelagic (living in mid-water), but they …

Myxozoans are a group of microscopic, oligocellular, obligate endoparasites that belong to the Phylum Cnidaria, which also includes sea anemones, box jellies, corals, true jellies, sea pens, and hydrozoans. There are two parasitic classes, the Malacosporea and Myxosporea, and more than 2,200 nominal species of myxozoans classified into sixty-four genera and seventeen families. Myxozoans were, for years, placed within their own phylum (Myxozoa). Similarities to cnidarians had been noted at various times but not firmly until 2007. Although morphological and genetic evidence support placement of the Myxozoa as cnidarians, and this taxonomy has been followed by some authorities, others have not reached the same conclusion; exactly where the Myxozoa fit in this taxonomic scheme is not yet entirely known. Less …