1892 - Science

Science

The Germ-Plasm: A Theory of Heredity (Das Keimplasma) by biologist August Weismann at the University of Freiburg advances a novel concept of the physical basis of heredity (see 1865; DNA, 1870). Unaware of Gregor Mendel's studies or the existence of DNA, Weismann suggests that somatoplasm is the essential element of eggs and sperm, which are independent of all other bodily cells, and carry from one generation to the next all of the hereditary physical characteristics involved in determining the progeny's race, gender, and appearance. Now 58, Weismann first proposed the theory 9 years ago after working on hydrozoa and finding that the germ cells of animals contain "something essential for the species, something which must be carefully preserved and passed on from one generation to another"; his ideas challenge the prevailing Lamarckian theory of heredity (see DeVries, 1900).

Irish physicist George F. (Francis) FitzGerald, 41, at Dublin's Trinity College suggests that a body is shorter (along its line of motion) when in motion than when at rest, and that this contraction affects the instruments used in the experiment. FitzGerald has studied the results reported by Albert A. Michelson and Edward Morley in 1887 (see Lorentz, 1895).

The Dewar flask invented by chemist Sir James Dewar at Cambridge University is a vacuum vessel that permits low temperature laboratory work (see Dewar, 1873). Now 50, he suggests that scientists buy liquid nitrogen, use it to fill multi-gallon metal vacuum containers, and then pour it into smaller Dewar flasks, or beakers, that would be made of double-walled glass, silvered on the inside to prevent radiant heat transfer and then evacuated (see food [Thermos bottle], 1903).

Archaeologist and educational reformer Sir Daniel Wilson dies at Toronto August 6 at age 76, having been president of the University of Toronto since 1881; anatomist and paleontologist Sir Richard Owen dies at London December 18 at age 88, having opposed Darwinian doctrine to the end.