1890 in science
The year 1890 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below. Biology September 25 – Sequoia National Park created in the United States. October 1 – Yosemite National Park created in the United States. Walter Heape successfully breeds rabbits from fertilised ova transferred from the biological mother to the uterus of an animal of a different breed. Francis Galton announces a statistical demonstration of the uniqueness and classifiability of individual human fingerprints. Jacques Loeb publishes his first major work on tropism, Der Heliotropismus der Thiere und seine Uebereinstimmung mit dem Heliotropismus der Pflanzen. Henry Luke Bolley at the new North Dakota Agricultural College isolates the organism responsible for potato scab and develops an effective treatment. Chemistry Nikolai Menshutkin discovers that a tertiary amine can be converted into a quaternary ammonium salt by reaction with an alkyl halide – the Menshutkin reaction. Emil Fischer establishes the stereochemistry and isomeric nature of the sugars by epimerization between gluconic and mannonic acids and synthesizes glucose, fructose and mannose from glycerol. Computer science June 1 – The United States Census Bureau begins using Herman Hollerith's tabulating machine to record census returns using punched card input, a landmark in the history of computing