100 YEARS AGO

It is possible to believe that all the past is but the beginning of a beginning, and that all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn. It is possible to believe that all that the human mind has ever accomplished is but the dream before the awakening. We cannot see, there is no need for us to see, what this world will be like when the day has fully come. We are creatures of the twilight. But it is out of our race and lineage that minds will spring, that will reach back to us in our littleness to know us better than we know ourselves, and that will reach forward fearlessly to comprehend this future that defeats our eyes. All this world is heavy with the promise of greater things, and a day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings, beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool, and shall laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars. H.G. Wells

From Nature 6 February 1902.

50 YEARS AGO

Studies have been made of the probable 'handedness' of prehistoric man by investigating the various relics of his tools and weapons. It appears from the way they are carved that prehistoric man was predominantly right-handed. The choice of one hand, usually the right but occasionally the left, and not either hand indiscriminately, is characteristic of man. It would seem that ambidexterity is an animal rather than a human characteristic... although to be left-handed in a right-handed society has numerous disadvantages, in spite of attempts to stamp it out in Britain, Greece, the United States and France, approximately 4–6 per cent of the population are still left-handed. Why should this be? Left-handedness appears to be inherited; how is not known. In certain families there seems to be a high incidence of left-handedness. Some investigators have found that such families also have more than the usual number of twins, so that there might be some connexion between twinning and left-handedness. That more males than females are left-handed seems to be agreed by investigators and raises the interesting question of whether this is the original distribution, or whether it is the result of the pressure of society.

From Nature 9 February 1952.