50 Years Ago

The creation of lawrencium, the eleventh new man-made element beyond uranium (element 92), was announced on April 13 by the University of California and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. An isotope of this element was formed on February 14 by bombarding ... californium (element 98) with boron-10 or boron-11 nuclei in a heavy-ion linear accelerator at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory of the University of California; the four nuclear scientists who carried out this experiment ... propose to name the new element lawrencium in honour of the late Ernest Orlando Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron and founder of the laboratory which bears his name ... Although it may be possible to create one or two more new elements by this technique, it is improbable that elements beyond number 105 will be synthesized and satisfactorily identified.

From Nature 29 April 1961

100 Years Ago

Last summer a pair of robins built their nest in an old fish-basket that was hanging in a shed at the back of my house. All went well until the young birds were about a week old — then happened what appeared to me to be a catastrophe. My Aberdeen terrier pup “Bebe”, who must have had some natural desire to catch the mother bird, managed one morning to make a meal of her. Contrary to what I should have expected, the male bird kept close to his young family. Day by day I turned over part of the garden to supply him with a little help in his task. In due course he taught the whole of his young family to fly. I have made enquiries, but cannot find anyone who has had a similar experience, and wondered what your readers might know about such cases.

From Nature 27 April 1911