A century of trends in adult human height

Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3-19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8-144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries

Electroluminescence from individual InAs self-assembled quantum dots

Emission lines from individual InAs self-assembled quantum dots (SAQD) have been observed in electroluminescence spectra from small-area p-i-n light-emitting-diode heterostructure devices containing an embedded layer of SAQD. In the energy range which corresponds to the blue edge of the luminescence from the dot ensemble, the lines emerge from a zero background with increasing positive bias, a signature that each line is due to exciton recombination from an individual dot. In magnetic field parallel to the growth direction, each line splits into two Zeeman components which exhibit pronounced circular polarizations. The measured value of the g-factor and the observed diamagnetic shift are in good agreement with earlier data obtained from photoluminescence spectroscopy

A re-examination of the life and work of A.F.G. Kerr and of his colleagues and friends

Arthur Francis George Kerr?s life is reviewed and related to a previously published account. Kerr?s collecting activity is analysed using an expanded version of the Thai Biogeography Group?s database of collections. 8,666 of the total 48,970 collections are Kerr?s and 3,178 are those of his colleagues and friends. Therefore, the total number of collections made by Kerr and his acquaintances is likely to be larger and more diverse than previously believed. Mapping of these data using GIS show that Kerr?s collecting activities focussed on particular regions of Thailand at particular times. Also large areas of the country remained unexplored by Kerr and his acquaintances: a pattern that, to some extent, persists to this day. The large, but dispersed, archive of Kerr?s photographs, maps, living collections and correspondence indicate that he was a skilled photographer (taking at least 3,000 images),cartographer (producing many hand-drawn maps) and exceptionally acute, accurate and detailed observer (filling numerous note-books and leaving other records). It is clear that digitising these collections to form an on-line dedicated website is highly desirable to further progress on the flora of Thailand and surrounding countries and would form an unique record of the social history of early 20thC Thailand