Top 10 dis­cov­er­ers facts

Roald Amundsen. In a three year journey between 1903 and 1906, Amundsen explored the passage with a crew of no more than six, in the converted 47-ton herring boat Gjøa. Spending winters with ship trapped in ice, he learned from the local Netsilik people about Arctic survival skills that would later prove useful. For example, he learned to use sled dogs and to wear animal skins in lieu of heavy, woolen parkas. Amundsen later led the expeditions to discover the South Pole (1911) and the North Pole (1926).

Norwegian queen. Queen Maud Land was the first part of Antarctica to be sighted. The name was initially applied in January 1930 to the land discovered by Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen and Finn Lützow-Holm during Norvegia expedition of 1929–30. It was named after the Norwegian Queen Maud of Wales, wife of the then-reigning King Haakon VII.

Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit. Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit was a German physicist, engineer, and glass blower who is best known for inventing the mercury-in-glass thermometer (1714), and for developing a temperature scale now named after him

Vasco de Balboa. Spanish explorer Balboa was the first European to sight the Pacific from America in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and reached a new ocean. He named it Mar del Sur (literally, "South Sea") because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan called the ocean Pacífico (or "Pacific" meaning, "peaceful") because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters.

Eugene Shoemaker. The first moon burial was that of Dr. Eugene Shoemaker (astronomer), a portion of whose cremated remains were flown to the Moon by NASA. Shoemaker's former colleague Carolyn Porco, a University of Arizona professor, proposed and produced the tribute of having Shoemaker's ashes launched aboard the NASA's Lunar Prospector spacecraft.

None. Magellan's expedition of 1519–1522 became the first expedition to circumnavigate the Earth. But Magellan himself did not complete the entire voyage, being killed during the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines.

Bjarni Herjólfsson. Bjarni was heading to Greenland to visit his father in 986, when he drifted south and found himself near the coast of today Canada. Despite his crew eagerness, he refused to land and only attested the discovery of a land full of trees and hills.

Microbiology. The Leeuwenhoek-medal is the most prestigious prize in the field of Microbiology. It has been awarded every 10 years since 1877 to a scientist who has made the most important contributions to Microbiology during the last 10 years. The first 13 medals were awarded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Mpemba effect. The Mpemba effect, is the observation that, in some circumstances, warmer water can freeze faster than colder water. There have been reports of similar phenomena since ancient times, although with insufficient detail for the claims to be replicated.

Henri Becquerel. Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 – 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the first person to discover evidence of radioactivity. For work in this field he, along with Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie,[2] received the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him.