About the Author
STENO'S ASSISTANT
Noah Short, who is a recent graduate of Missouri State University with a B.S. in Geology, created the YouTube page Steno's Assistant. He designed the channel to assist students, or anyone, interested in Mineralogy to understand and identify certain minerals in, what geologists call, “thin section”, meaning rocks and minerals cut to about 30 microns thick, so that polarized light can transmit through them.
Each mineral displays unique optical properties, so sometimes it is easy to identify certain minerals, while other times it may take longer, or more assistance from special equipment.
The inspiration for this channel is Bl. Nicolas Steno. BI. Nicolas Steno was raised as a Protestant in Denmark, and attended school in Italy to be a biologist in the mid 1600s. While Nicolas was in Italy, one of the few countries in Europe still strongly Catholic at that time, he made many Catholic friends, and he began questioning his Protestant religion.
He then became Catholic, and soon entered into the priesthood. He then was recommended to be a bishop, as was sent to Germany to convert the Protestants. He did much good for the Church and had a pious death.
Similar to St. Hildegard, the diocese canonized him as a saint, while Rome still has him as Blessed.
His scientific work includes, but is not limited to:
1. Discovering a specific saliva gland (known as the parotid duct, or ductus stenonianus).
2. Identifying crystallographic rules and angles by stating that angles that are between two faces of a crystal are constant. Although simple, it is a fundamental part of Mineralogy.
3. Making observations of Geology that we use to this day, specifically: Original Horizontality (all sedimentary rock was deposited horizontally), Lateral Continuity (all rocks should spread out in all directions until they pinch out or cut off), Cross-cutting Relationships (if one rock is intruding into another, that rock that is intruding must be younger than the rock it is in), and Principle of Inclusions (if chunks of rock are found in another rock, those chunks must be older than the rock that is holding them).
Bl. Nicolas is the patron of Geologists. Pray for us!
