50 Years ago

The Scientific Principles of Crop Protection. By Hubert Martin — To say that, nuclear wars apart, the greatest problem of the future will be to feed the rapidly growing human population is none the less true for being trite. Happily there is no need to think it is insoluble. Average crop yields are so low that the scope for improvement is enormous, and starvation can be avoided for a long time simply by improving the health of crops. Over much of the world most crops are left to fend for themselves, unaided in their struggle with pests and diseases. What annual toll these predators take cannot be estimated at all accurately, but there is little doubt that human beings will have at least twice as much to eat when they stop sharing their crops with pests and diseases.

ALSO:

Prof. Jaroslav Heyrovsky...has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for 1959, for his discovery and development of polarography...The number of papers dealing with polarography now approaches the 10,000 mark, and the technique finds application in many fields of chemistry and biochemistry...For example, the kinetics of electrode reactions and of chemical reactions associated with redox processes have been studied, redox potentials have been determined and the energetics of the reduction of organic compounds have been elucidated.

From Nature 24 October 1959.

100 Years ago

Considerable interest attaches to the discovery of large quantities of shells of the pearl-mussel (Unio margaritifer) in gravel of apparently Pleistocene age in the Thames near Mortlake...The cause of the extinction of the species is explained by the fact that as the land sank the river became more sluggish, and silt and mud commenced to accumulate. Such conditions would prove highly detrimental to its welfare, and the species soon ceased to exist.

From Nature 21 October 1909.