A New Biology for a New Century

Biology today is at a crossroads. The molecular paradigm, which so successfully guided the discipline throughout most of the 20th century, is no longer a reliable guide. Its vision of biology now realized, the molecular paradigm has run its course. Biology, therefore, has a choice to make, between the comfortable path of continuing to follow molecular biology's lead or the more invigorating one of seeking a new and inspiring vision of the living world, one that addresses the major problems in biology that 20th century biology, molecular biology, could not handle and, so, avoided. The former course, though highly productive, is certain to turn biology into an engineering discipline. The latter holds the promise of making biology an even more fundamental science, one that, along with physics, probes and defines the nature of reality. This is a choice between a biology that solely does society's bidding and a biology that is society's teacher.     

Concluding Remarks: American Natural History and Biology in the Nineteenth Century

SYNOPSIS. This symposium has illustrated the important rolethat amateur naturalists played in preparing the groundworkfor professional science in the west. Like their eastern counterparts,these naturalists popularized science to the public, createdimpressive collections of natural history artifacts, formeda network of fellow enthusiasts, and initiated the establishmentof organizations and publications to further their interests.This heritage was critical to the development of the professionalbiology community in America and must be emphasized in the historyof American biology in order to understand the unique developmentof the biology community in the United States.     

Evolutionary Developmental Biology: the Interaction of Developmental Biology,Evolutionary Biology,Paleontology, and Genomics

Paleontological Journal - Evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) formed due to the interactions of evolutionary biology, paleontology, and comparative genomics, analyzes the interrelations...     

Possibilities,limits and prospects in Paleopathology of the human skeleton

Without intending to minimize the importance of the study of mummies, especially those performed by our American colleagues, one must be aware that, for the foreseeable future consideration of skeletal material will be the mai source of information in Paleopathology. Therefore, it seems interesting to define the present state of our discipline, at the very time when it is coming back into favour, and is stated as an exact science. Three aspects of Paleopathology will be discussed: its possibilities, its limits and its prospects.     

Restoration Biology: A Population Biology Perspective

A major goal of population biologists involved in restoration work is to restore populations to a level that will allow them to persist over the long term within a dynamic landscape and include the ability to undergo adaptive evolutionary change. We discuss five research areas of particular importance to restoration biology that offer potentially unique opportunities to couple basic research with the practical needs of restorationists. The five research areas are: (1) the influence of numbers of individuals and genetic variation in the initial population on population colonization, establishment, growth, and evolutionary potential; (2) the role of local adaptation and life history traits in the success of restored populations; (3) the influence of the spatial arrangement of landscape elements on metapopulation dynamics and population processes such as migration; (4) the effects of genetic drift, gene flow, and selection on population persistence within an often accelerated, successional time frame; and (5) the influence of interspecific interactions on population dynamics and community development. We also provide a sample of practical problems faced by practitioners, each of which encompasses one or more of the research areas discussed, and that may be solved by addressing fundamental research questions.     

Paleopathology of the commoners at Tell Amarna, Egypt, Akhenaten's capital city

The Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten initiated worship of a single god and established a new capital city (Tell Amarna) that was built and occupied only once from 1350-1330 BCE. This single short occupation offers a unique opportunity to study a short time period. The royal tombs have long been known and studied, but the location of graves for the common inhabitants has been an archaeological puzzle for more than 50 years. Recently four cemeteries have been located and the analysis of commingled bones from the South Tombs cemetery is presented here. The remains yield the following demographic profile: 53 adults with 19 females and 18 males; 14 juveniles between the ages of 5 and 17; and 3 infants. Arthritis and degenerative joint disease of the spine and joints indicates that DJD was not excessive. Only 2 to 8% of the adult population exhibits arthritis. There are 3 healed fractures of the arm (2 to 8% of the adult sample). There is 1 healed compressed fracture of the skull suggesting violence. The adult infection rate is between 2 and 8% with 3 healed and 1 active case of periostitis and no severe infections. Anemia is implicated by 23% of adult frontals exhibiting cribra orbitalia. Life for the common residents of Amarna appears to not have been as good as initially postulated.     

Paleopathology in South American mummies: a review and new findings

This article is a review of research and additional unpublished diseases that have been discovered and documented in naturally mummified remains recovered from South America. A new impetus in paleopathological studies was the work and discovery of a solution for rehydration of mummified tissues by Sir Marc Armand Ruffer in 1913. This solution allows the paleopathologist, after performing the autopsy, to process the tissues in a manner similar to current practices in pathology. In our studies, the most common diseases were infectious in nature, similar to the diseases that are most prominent today in the same regions.     

A Type of Orthogonal Contrasts for Unbalanced Data

A simple method of making a type of orthogonal contrasts among treatments for unbalanced two-way classification data has been described. The method begins with the direct use of absorbing equations, derived from normal equations. Then it is shown that the single components of the treatment sum of squares, adjusted for blocks, are independently distributed.     

A Survey of Introductory Biology Courses and Staffing in Departments of Biology,Botany, and Zoology

Information and Control in the Living Organism. An Elementary Introduction B. HASSENSTEIN London: Chapman &; Hall. £1.30 Reviewed by O. Lowenstein

Inequalities and Optimal Problems in Mathematics and the Sciences G. Stephenson London: Longmans. £1.50 Reviewed by O. Lowenstein

Ecology of Leaf Surface Microorganisms Edited by T. F. Preece and C. H. Dickinson pp. xvii+640 London and New York: Academic Press. 1971 £9.00 Reviewed by R. Warren

Mathematics for Ecologists I. Chaston Pp. 132 London: Butterworths. £2.20 Reviewed by B. Dudley

Beginning Ecology H. J. Killick Pp. ix+121+35figs Ibadan: Ibadan University Press Price in Nigeria 12/- Reviewed by J. G. Vaughn

An Experience with Organisms D. L. Murray Pp. x+209+24 figs Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Inc. £1.75 An Experience with Cells D. L. Murray and H. E. Bushe Pp. viii + 193+56figs Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Inc. £1.40 Reviewed by G. W. Shaw1

A Practical Course in Biology W. Belfield and M. Dearden Pp. xiii + 174 and figs Oxford: Pergamon Press. £1.50 Reviewed by John H. Gray

Food Tests; Book 2 Enzymes; Book 3 Soil D. G. Mackean Pp. 32 each London: John Murray 1970 £0.25 each. Teachers' notes £0.30 each Reviewed by John A. Barker

Nutrition and Food Science Reviewed by E. A. Nanson

Biobits and Dore-Smith Atomunits Principles of Model Construction I. Smith, M. J. Smith and C. F. Dore Pp. 48+31 figs London: Capital Biotechnic Developments Ltd., Heinemann. Free Reviewed by J. M. Ashworth

Museums in Education Education Survey 12 Department of Education and Science Pp. 55 + 10 plates London: HMSO. 1971. £0.50 Reviewed by I. M. Evans

Biology in the Nineteenth Century: Problems of Form, Function and Transformation William Coleman London: Wiley History of Science Series. 1971 £3.50 hardback. 7£1.75 paperback Reviewed by Sydney Smith

Storage and Retrieval of Biological Information Reviewed by R. W. J. Keay     

A Comparison of Predictive Methods in Extinction Risk Studies: Contrasts and Decision Trees

Over the last two decades an increasing emphasis has been placed on the importance of controlling for phylogeny when examining cross-species data; so-called comparative methods. These methods are appropriate for testing hypotheses about correlations between evolutionary events in the history of a clade and adaptive responses to those changes. When this approach is applied to extinction risk, possible correlations between evolutionary changes in, for example, body size or habitat specialisation and some measure(s) of current threat status are examined. However, there may be a mismatch here between the results of such studies, and the real, pragmatic needs of species conservation. This kind of approach certainly adds to our knowledge of some fundamental processes, but it is more difficult to see how this can be applied to conservation decision-making. For more practical purposes a decision-tree approach can be extremely useful. This paper illustrates the use of a contrasts based analysis of extinction risk compared with a decision-tree analysis for Galliformes (Aves). While the contrasts analyses concur with some general macroecological trends found in other studies, the decision-tree models provide lists of species predicted to be more at risk than current assessments would suggest. We argue that in practical terms, decision tree models might be more useful than a macroecological linear model-based approach.     

Paleopathology and the origin of agriculture in the Levant

This study addresses changes in health which were consequential to the Neolithic transition in the southern Levant, judged on the basis of the study of specific and nonspecific stress indicators, trauma, and degenerative joint disease in 200 Natufian (hunter‐gatherer) skeletons (10,500–8300 BC) and 205 Neolithic (agricultural) skeletons (8300–5500 BC) from the southern Levant. The comparison of the health profiles of pre‐Neolithic (Natufian) and Neolithic populations reveals a higher prevalence of lesions indicative of infectious diseases among the Neolithic population, and an overall reduction in the prevalence of skull trauma among males. No change over time was observed in the prevalence of degenerative joint disease. These results indicate that in the southern Levant the Neolithic transition did not simply lead to an overall deterioration in health but rather resulted in a complex health profile which was shaped by 1) an increase exposure to disease agents, 2) changes in diet, 3) population aggregation in larger and denser settlements, 4) changes in activity patterns and the division of labor, and possibly 5) a higher resistant immunological system and response capacity to environmental aggressions (mainly infections). Am J Phys Anthropol 143:121–133, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Paleopathology of the Late Roman-Early Byzantine cemeteries at Sayala,Egyptian Nubia

The paleopathological pattern of three large burial complexes CI-CIII and of cemetery N (but not of cemetery A) at Sayala, Egyptian Nubia, shows a predominance of traumatism over other pathologies. Males compared with females were more often afflicted by injuries. In the skull, mostly the frontal and parietal regions, and more often the left than the right side, show traumatic changes. Cuts are most common, suggesting their origin from swords and daggers. Also traumatism of the vertebral column is high, comprising more compression fractures than post-traumatic synostoses of vertebrae, and afflicting mostly the lumbar, lower thoracic and lower cervical regions. This suggests falls in a sitting position, probably while riding camels. In the remaining postcranial skeleton, mostly fractures are present, most often afflicting the antebrachial bones, especially on the left side. The majority of the ulnar fractures are typical parry fractures. Most injuries are well healed, only some showing quick death after affliction. The overall pattern suggests fighting as the leading cause of the traumatism. Among other pathologies, osteophytosis, especially in males, occurs rather commonly and more intensively than with the comparative sample of the C-Group people. Evidence of inflammations and tumours is rare. Some senile changes, many congenital anomalies, occasional orthopaedic deviations, and affections of unknown origin complement the paleopathological picture. Some functional changes disclose overloading of both extremities. According to these findings, the way of life and the question of ethnic identification of the people are discussed.