50 Years Ago

The view that “Mankind takes his dental problems with him wherever he goes” was the theme of the paper read by B. Lawrence Shalit to the conference on “Planetology and Space Mission Planning” ... Mr Shalit put forward his plan for dental care in space “to prevent the astronauts from being incapacitated by dental problems and secondarily, to protect the oral cavity of the individual astronaut from permanent damage of any type during space flight” ... Mr Shalit rejects the notion that it would be simplest “to equip all future astronauts with full dentures”: not merely would this make mastication less efficient but “the loss would be psychologically upsetting or even unacceptable” ... On longer space flights, Mr Shalit suggests that the potential hazards of dental caries should be minimized by “reduction in frequency of eating”, and that astronauts should be trained in scaling teeth.

From Nature 25 February 1967

100 Years Ago

The economic importance of coal we perhaps realise. It is the only raw material we produce in great quantity ... Our output of coal and our home consumption in the year 1913, a period undisturbed by domestic troubles or by war, touched high-water mark in production and consumption ... Not only are we exhausting our supplies at a far higher proportionate rate than our nearest commercial rivals, but we are retaining for our home use a much smaller proportion of the output. ... if Great Britain is to maintain her place among the great nations she must remain a great manufacturing centre, and this depends entirely on cheap fuel. The necessity for economy in place of waste is apparent, and enormous economies are undoubtedly possible.

From Nature 22 February 1917 Footnote 1