A scientific trailblazer...

At 7 p.m. Tuesday, NOVA presents a new episode that explores the life of the pioneering African American scientist Percy Julian. In the first half of the 20th century, Julian broke the color barrier in the realm of professional science more than a decade before Jackie Robinson did the same in baseball. The scientific and societal impact of his work is still felt today.

As an organic chemist, Julian made many exciting discoveries. One of the most important resulted in a way to derive synthetic steroids from soybeans, allowing for drugs like cortisone to be created on a mass scale and helping ease the pain of millions of people who suffer from chronic pain.

In addition to the program, which features interviews with friends, family and scientific peers (including his son Percy Julian Jr., a civil rights lawyer in Madison) and dramatizations of Julian's life, NOVA also offers a collection of added resources on a specially prepared Web site. Viewers interested in learning more about Julian's background and important work can find reactions from other folks who knew him, a timeline of his career accomplishments and even an interactive demonstration of the creation of steroids.

Elsewhere on the Web, Julian's alma mater, DePauw University has an in-depth Web tribute to him. As a distinguished member of the National Academy of Science, Julian's biography is available on their site. And Capital Times columnist Doug Moe wrote a recent column about the program and Julian's son.