CORRESPONDENCE

the authors on request). A road by any other name A relative age advantage cannot be invoked to explain these data, as is some­ SIR - I agree with M. Benarie (Nature In contrast, the toponymy of British times done to explain success in sports1- 3. 376, 12; 1995) that famous British scien­ and American cities seems bland and ster­ We have no clear-cut answer, but the tists are not as well known in Britain as ile. Britain and the United States have no hypothesis considered self-evident by are native scientists in other countries, but dearth of great men and women - they Michael Holmes4 to explain the relation- in London alone there are 16 roads should have their place in the sun. named after Newton, 10 after Harvey, 6 Cesare Emiliani PORTO FACULTY OF MEDICINE STUDENTS IN after Haldane and 3 after Dalton. Even Department of Geological Sciences, BIRTH-DATE QUARTERS Bessemer and Flamsteed have been hon­ University of Miami, Year of entry Jan-Mar Apr-Jun Jui-Sep Oct-Dec oured. And Pasteur appears as a road Coral Gables, Florida 33124, USA 1991-92 19 34 19 20 name twice in the capital. 1992-93 17 30 20 21 Karl J. Hunter SIR - M. Benarie, in trying to persuade 1993-94 17 30 19 17 Flat 4, 11 Shakespeare Road, the British to abandon the healthy habit of Total 53 94 58 58 Bedford MK40 2DZ, UK not naming streets after eminent people, quotes the Italian example. This is hardly SIR - The Malpas area of Newport, commendable. We have had in recent his­ ship between season of birth and stance Gwent, Wales, has Baird Close, Chadwick tory at least five waves of street name taken in two scientific revolutions by Close, Darwin Drive, Faraday Close, Hal­ changes. prominent scientists seems to be worth dane Place, Kelvin Close, Lister Green, The Risorgimento and unity produced attention: seasons are experienced at dif­ Newton Way, Rutherford Hill, Trevithick a vast shift from saints to Savoia royalty ferent stages of early development, either Close and Whittle Drive, to give just a and Garibaldian characters, followed by indirectly through maternal behaviour selection. re-namings to make room for the heroes and biology before birth, or directly in the John Twin and places of the First World War. Then first year of extrauterine life. During neu­ The Patent Office, came the turn of the Fascist martyrs and robiological development, "the brain must 6 Conde Close, the like. The Second World War (and our wire itself''5, being very much dependent Ross-on-Wye, skill in ending it as allies of our former on external stimuli during critical periods Herefordshire HR9 5UR, UK enemies) and the civil war in northern of early life, so that kind of proposal Italy produced such a turmoil of changes makes real sense. SIR - There is a Darwin Drive in Cam­ as to to make the average Italian envious Isabel Azevedo bridge. Other roads in this city named of the impersonal stability of the English Perpetua Pinto-do-0 after famous scientists include Cockcroft street. Nuno Borges Place, Dalton Square, Davy Road, New­ Marco Fraccaro Faculty of Medicine, ton Road, Rayleigh Close, Rutherford College Cairoli (formerly University of Porto, Road and Harvey Road. Germanico-Ungarico), 4200 Porto, P.-L. Chau 27100 Pavia, Italy Portugal Department of Pharmacology, 1. Dudink A. Nature 368, 592 (1994). University of Cambridge, 2. Edwards, S. Nature 370, 186 (1994). 3. Baxer-Jones A. & Helms, P. Nature 370, 186 (1994). Cambridge CB2 1QJ, UK Birth dates 4. Holmes, M. Nature 313, 468 (1995). 5. Stryker, M. P. Nature 375, 277-278 (1995). SIR- In Ipswich (a town not noted for its SIR - Recent correspondence1- 3 about academic links and unusual in that it still the effects of birth dates on success in var­ has no university), Lister, Kelvin, Rayleigh ious sports prompted us to investigate and Sherrington all have streets named birth dates of students entering Porto fac­ Down House after them and are within 400 metres of ulty of medicine in the past few years. SIR - "Down House - the birthplace of each other. Newton Street and Newton People choose to study medicine for vari­ Darwin's theory of evolution by natural Road are in other parts of the town. In the ous different reasons, but in recent years selection"1. Childhood home of the humanities, Shakespeare, Arnold, Blake, students entering Portuguese medical theory, maybe, but birthplace, no. The Browning, Bunyan, Burns, Byron, Carlyle, schools have had one thing in common: complete theory was surely born in late Chaucer, Coleridge, Constable, Crabbe, they are among the most successful high September 1838 on Marlborough Street Defoe, Dryden, Gainsborough, Garrick, school students. This is due to the scarcity in London, with the famous reading of Goldsmith, Kingsley, Kipling, Macaulay, of places in medical school compared with Malthus, and the realization of the Mitford, Thackeray and Wordsworth are the number of interested candidates, and importance of competition among mem­ also honoured. has resulted in the exclusion of any stu­ bers of the same species2•3• The Darwins John McCauley dent with marks of less than 16-17 out of did not see Down House until July 1842, 29 Waverley Road, 20 in a series of cognitive tests. and did not move into it until September Reading, Berkshire RG30 2QB, UK Our analysis revealed an asymmetry of 1842 (ref. 3)- four years after the theo­ birth-date distribution, constant during ry's birth, and three months after Darwin SIR - In Bologna, where I was born, the three-year period of study. The dates had written out a brief rough draft of there is not only a via Isacco Newton but of birth of 263 medical students, compiled the theory. also a via William Shakespeare, a via into quarters, are shown in the table Alexander H. Harcourt Giorgio Byron and a via Carlo Dickens. (i= 16.437, P<0.001 ). Department of Anthropology, Other streets, piazzas and avenues are As can be seen, there is a significantly University of California, named after other famous men of letters, higher incidence of students born during Davis, California 95616-8522, USA as well as musicians, artists and other per­ the second trimester of the year. This dis­ 1. Nature 375, 546 (1995). sonalities of all sorts. Among scientists, tribution does not reflect any asymmetric 2. Mayr, E. One Long Argument. Charles Darwin and the there are streets named after Einstein, distribution of births in Portugal during Genesis of Modem Evolutionary Thought (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1991). Copernicus, Galileo, Pasteur, Marconi the years of 1973-75 when the students 3. Desmond, A. & Moore, J. Darwin (Michael Joseph, and Fermi. were born (detailed figures available from London, 1991). NATURE · VOL 376 · 3 AUGUST 1995 381