50 YEARS AGO

“The ‘Queen-Substance’ of Honeybees and the Ovary-inhibiting Hormone of Crustaceans” — In the course of work on the social organization of honeybee communities, it has been found that worker honeybees obtain a substance (‘queen-substance’) from their queens which, if obtained in sufficient quantity, inhibits development of their ovaries and the production of further queens. It will also, under experimental conditions, inhibit ovary development in worker ants (Formica fusca)... A similar hormone has been shown to inhibit ovary development in decapod crustaceans. These substances appear to be similar in several respects. Thus both are stable to heat and to acids but less to alkalis, soluble in acetone and alcohol, both are active, at least under certain conditions, when taken orally, and both serve to inhibit development of the ovary and related phenomena.

From Nature 11 February 1956.

100 YEARS AGO

“Result of War affected by Soldier's Stature” — The Japanese had an unquestionable advantage in the recent war as being smaller than the Russians; they were smaller targets for fire-arms. I wish to point out that it is possible to express this advantage quantitatively on the assumption...that bullets are, on average, uniformly distributed over the target presented by a man's body, also that a man presents a target proportional in area to the square of his height. The Anthropological Institute has kindly given me figures for the purpose; the average height of 2500 Japanese... was 1585 millimetres as compared with an average of 1642 millimetres for the average of 177,948 European Russian conscripts. The average Russian height thus exceeds that of the Japanese by about 3.47 per cent. The squares of the two average heights, representing, as I have said, the average targets offered by each to an enemy, differ therefore approximately by 7 per cent, so that the Russian fire was relatively ineffective to that extent.

John H. Twigg

From Nature 8 February 1906.