50 Years Ago

The British preoccupation with the need to persuade young people into science and engineering, but particularly the latter, was continued last week by the Research and Development Society ... Adults, at least, are prepared to take the subject seriously ... the British educational system is designed to produce “cultured gentlemen”, with the result that trained scientists consider that collaboration is a kind of cheating, that engineering is inferior and that the profit motive is even worse. Yet teamwork, technology and business sense are essential for the survival of the British economy. But what if you cannot even bring the horse to the water, let alone persuade him to drink properly? ... One of these days something may be done about it.

From Nature 7 October 1967

100 Years Ago

I have spent a good many hours lately in a Devonshire garden in which there was a border of massed mauve asters which was a great attraction to butterflies ... The object of my letter is to describe to your readers two “scraps” which I witnessed between tortoiseshell butterflies and wasps, in each of which the butterfly was victorious ... The butterfly sprang on to the back of the wasp, the head of each being towards the tail of the other, and a furious rough-and-tumble took place some 6 ft. from the ground. The wasp was unable to use its sting, as the butterfly was on its back, and at the end of perhaps five seconds the butterfly, which had been buffeting the wasp with its wings, dropped to within a foot of the grass, relaxed the hold which it had exerted, and allowed its enemy to drop breathless and beaten on to the lawn. Nature had taught the butterfly to adopt the same tactics ... which enabled G. Carpentier to win his fight with Bombardier Wells.

From Nature 7 October 1917 Footnote 1