Google doodle honours Mexican Nobel laureate Dr. Mario Molina
Just like Physics and Life Sciences, Chemistry too is a vital field in science that has its own set of ground-breaking research and chemists making significant contributions. One such chemist is the late Mexican Nobel Laureate Dr. Mario Molina who was recently honoured by Google doodle on his 80th birth anniversary.
The creative doodle featured the Nobel laureate in an animated avatar. While the second ‘O’ from GOOGLE turned into O3 for oxygen, it was the Sun that took the place of the third ‘O’. It also displayed a portion of the Earth with industries and residences alongside the depleting ozone layer. In addition, there was also a spraying can and a refrigerator as part of the doodle.
As you can probably guess, all these elements are closely linked with Dr. Molina whose 1970s research was primarily based on chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs. As many of you might know, CFCs are present in refrigerants, aerosol sprays, air conditioners, and are toxic solvents that deeply hurt the ozone layer. What happens as a result? The Sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays are able to reach the Earth’s surface.
Born on March 1943, Dr. Molina was always interested in the world of science since his boyhood and would spend hours watching microorganisms using his toy microscope. In fact, as a kid, he had even turned his bathroom into a makeshift science laboratory. Fast forward to his academic life, Molina graduated with a degree in chemical engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Later, he earned his doctorate from Germany’s University of Freiburg and postdoctoral from University of California.
Since then he has worked as a chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in 1995 won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry alongside his colleague Paul J. Crutzen. It was right after they had published their findings about CFCs in the Nature journal.
In fact, it was this chemist duo who first revealed the impact of such synthetic chemicals on the Earth’s atmosphere. Later, it even became the basis for the Montreal Protocol, a global treaty that successfully managed to ban the production of 100 ozone depleting chemicals by the first decade of the 21st century. The world even considers this pact as one of the most impactful environmental alliances ever formed that has been influential in tackling the climate change.
Dr. Molina, who passed away on 7th October 2020 at the age of 77 from a heart attack, has his legacy being carried on at Mexico’s Mario Molina Centre.
Apart from the Google Doodle, the tech giant also paid tribute to Dr. Molina by mentioning him on their official website and thanking him for his critical scientific discoveries.