Many of the historic moments in modern science can be explored online, now that the archive of the first 80 years (1869-1949) of the famous science journal Nature has gone live
Every article published in Nature, back to volume 1, issue 1, will now be available online.
Nature's archive reveals a wealth of treasures from the journal's first 80 years, including the first observation of X-rays (Wilhelm Rontgen, 1896) the discovery of the electron (JJ Thomson, 1897), the first fossil evidence that humans originated in Africa (Raymond Dart, 1925), and the discovery of the neutron (James Chadwick, 1932).
Containing over 4000 issues and an estimated 180,000 articles, the 1869-1949 archive completes the digitisation of Nature.
The project has taken over five years to complete, beginning with the launch of the 1987-1996 archive in 2003.
A special web feature, The History of the Journal Nature, featuring timelines, video interviews, and profiles of editors has been developed to celebrate the launch of the 1869-1949 archive.
In places Nature's early archive reads like science fiction, with its foretelling of science and technology we take for granted today.
The forensic use of fingerprints in solving crime was suggested as early as 1880: "When bloody finger-marks or impressions on clay, glass, etc, exist, they may lead to the scientific identification of criminals".
Scotland Yard introduced fingerprint identification in 1901, based on an 1892 book by Francis Galton.
Motion-capture photograph pioneer Edward Muybridge suggested the development of the 'photo finish' in Nature in 1880.
Lamenting the 'dead heat' in horse racing, he asked why officials would not "avail themselves of the same resources of science" and employ up to twenty cameras to decide the rightful outcome of races.
It would be more than 50 years before the 'photo finish' was widely used in sport.
The Nature archive 1869-1949 is an integrated part of the nature.com platform.
The articles are available as PDFs of the original journal article, but HTML abstracts are available.
All users can browse the archive.
Access is by site license for institutions, or articles can be purchased individually.
Institutions wishing to purchase a site license will pay a one-time fee, and post-cancellation rights will apply.
Nature Publishing is offering a discounted pre-launch price for institutions that purchase the archive before the end of 2007.
A selection of Nature's greatest hits, including the article by Dart, and Watson and Crick's 1953 paper that deciphers the structure of DNA, are featured in A Century of Nature.
Selected content is free for a limited time.
