50 Years Ago

Among the numerous well-known scientists who were born in 1857...Ronald Ross is widely known, for the story of his long and patient attempts to identify the carrier of malarial fever has often been written... An outstanding centenary of the present year is that of the birth of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, the German physicist, who was the first to detect electromagnetic waves in free space and measure their velocity... Elwood Haynes (1857–1925) is another American who should be remembered this year. He discovered several important alloys, including tungsten chrome steel, and in 1919 filed a patent for stainless steel... The question of the inheritance of acquired characteristics has recently received much attention. An early worker in this field of research was the Danish botanist W. L. Johannsen (1857–1927). One of the founders of modern research in heredity, he introduced the terms 'pure line', as well as 'gene', genotype' and 'phenotype'.

From Nature 5 January 1957.

100 Years Ago

In a recent note attention was directed to the recent renewal of experiments with Count Zeppelin's latest airship on the Lake of Constance... The 1906 Zeppelin airship...is 11 metres high, and each of the two cars can hold four persons, besides having a separate motor. The author states that with both motors working simultaneously a speed of 15 metres per second, or 54 kilometres per hour, can be maintained for sixty hours with the quantity of benzene the machine will carry... The advantages of the Zeppelin airship are more or less counterbalanced by the present necessity of using a sheet of water for starting and landing. Apart from the uses of such a machine in warfare, its applications in time of peace to the meteorological survey of the atmosphere are contemplated.

From Nature 3 January 1907.