"emotional data"

History The Royal Society's lost women scientists. Richard Holmes reveals how humanity's advancement has effectively been slowed by academia's patronising attitude to women. Here's how astonomer William Herschel annotated his sister's historic paper on discovering new comets:

"Since my sister's observations were made by moonlight, twilight, hazy weather, and very near the horizon, it would not be surprising if a mistake had been made." But it had not. Caroline also kept an observational journal for more than 30 years. This gives not only astronomical data, but emotional data too: it's an invaluable early view of a brother-sister scientific team at work, including their many trials and heartaches. It is one of the earliest records of how science actually gets done, its secret tribulations as well as its public triumphs."

Some subjects demand to be turned into a series for BBC Four.