50 years ago

“A three-dimensional model of the myoglobin molecule obtained by X-ray analysis.” By Drs J. C. Kendrew et al. — Until five years ago, no one knew how, in practice, the complete structure of a crystalline protein might be found by X-rays, and it was realized that the methods then in vogue among protein crystallographers could at best give the most sketchy indications about the structure of the molecule. This situation was transformed by the discovery, made by Perutz and his colleagues, that heavy atoms could be attached to protein molecules in specific sites and that the resulting complexes gave diffraction patterns sufficiently different from normal to enable a classical method of structure analysis, the so-called 'method of isomorphous replacement', to be used to determine the relative phases of the reflexions ... The present article describes the application, at low resolution, of the isomorphous replacement method in three dimensions to type A crystals of sperm whale myoglobin. The result is a three-dimensional Fourier, or electron-density, map of the unit cell, which for the first time reveals the general nature of the tertiary structure of a protein molecule ... Perhaps the most remarkable features of the molecule are its complexity and its lack of symmetry. The arrangement ... is more complicated than has been predicated by any theory of protein structure.

From Nature 8 March 1958.

100 years ago

It is reported by The Hague correspondent of the Globe (March 3) that Prof. Kamerlingh Onnes, professor of physics in the University of Leyden, has succeeded in liquefying helium.

Also

In the report of the Maidstone Museum, Library, and Art Gallery for 1907, attention is directed to the unprecedentedly large number of visitors during the year.

From Nature 5 March 1908.