50 Years Ago

As regards technical development, very high frequency, “VHF”, is undoubtedly the radio system of the future. The possibility of stereophonic broadcasting on some regular scheduled basis is just beginning to show above the horizon. Even to-day, some 6 million people who have no television depend entirely on sound for their broadcasting service, and the needs of this audience are as diverse as ever. Extensions which the British Broadcasting Corporation has in mind at present concern particularly the Light Programme and the Third Network.

From Nature 25 July 1964

100 Years Ago

The Progress of Eugenics. By Dr. C. W. Saleeby — Dr. Saleeby divides eugenics into natural or primary and nurtural or secondary. Natural eugenics is further sub-divided into positive, negative, and preventive ... In treating these subjects Dr. Saleeby says, “We must be scientific or we are lost,” and it is certainly true that he would have succeeded better if he had himself maintained a more scientific attitude. He falls far short of it in particular in that he appears to judge of the validity of scientific work by the conclusions it arrives at ... Nevertheless, there is much contained in the book that is sensible ... and this circumstance makes its faults all the more regrettable. Besides that to which allusion has already been made there are two others, first the obtrusive egotism of the writer, and secondly his habit of misrepresenting people from whom he differs in opinion. To say that “for years the chief object of the biometrical laboratory at University College has seemed to be, and now clearly is, to prove the inheritance of this or that human character is 'not Mendelian'” is little short of libellous.

From Nature 23 July 1914