50 Years Ago

A technique has been used with limited success to obtain simultaneous measurement of cosmic radiation at two different altitudes. The method consists of suspending two packets of nuclear emulsion plates from the one balloon, while maintaining a constant vertical separation of 10,000–27,000 ft. between the packets ... in this way the two packets do not separate in latitude and longitude—a factor which enters if two separate independent balloons are flown.

This has been achieved by carrying aloft a cone of nylon string which was allowed to unwind at a predetermined height, leaving one packet of plates suspended at the balloon while the other fell at the end of the string ... As the alarm rings, the alarm winder releases the key ... holding the lower packet and target, which then fall away freely, unwinding the string in the process. Twenty thousand feet of string unwinds in approximately 10 min.

From Nature 20 July 1963

100 Years Ago

The Potato: A Compilation of Information from Every Available Source. By E. H. Grubb and W. S. Guilford.

There are men who, having attained to wealth and fame by the agency of some humble instrument, basely repudiate and kick over the ladder by which they have risen. Not so the authors of the first book on our list. The potato has “made” them, and in return they proceed to “make” the potato ... the authors are so evidently enthusiastic, and discourse so eloquently on the merits of their subject, that we are carried along with them, and forget that, after all, they are only talking about potatoes, and not about alpine plants or roses.

From Nature 17 July 1913