Advances in sedimentation velocity analysis.

On February 20, 1996, a workshop titled "Advances in Sedimentation Velocity Analysis" was held at the Biophysical Society meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, in honor of Professor David Yphantis's 65th birthday. Although he is known more for his work with sedimentation equilibrium, David's work on instrumentation and data analysis is the foundation for many of the recent advances in both equilibrium and velocity sedimentation. Over the years he has trained numerous graduate students, most of whom have gone on to emphasize the use of analytical ultracentrifugation to answer biochemical questions involving macromolecular assembly. His laboratory was one of very few that continued to use and develop analytical ultracentrifugation during its nadir in the 1970s and early 1980s. The rebirth and resurgence of analytical ultracentrifugation owe a great deal to his persistence and enthusiasm. These efforts have borne fruit. In the last five years, through his work at the National Analytical Ultracentrifugation Facility, he has helped train nearly 100 individuals in the delicate art of nonlinear least-squares analysis of equilibrium sedimentation data. Furthermore, the number of researchers using the ultracentrifuge and the number of papers published has skyrocketed in the last few years. This workshop, then, was a way to thank David for his years of devotion to analytical ultracentrifugation.     

L. H. Bailey's citations to Gregor Mendel

L. H. Bailey cited Mendel's 1865 and 1869 papers in the bibliography that accompanied his 1892 paper, Cross-Breeding and Hybridizing, and Mendel is mentioned once in the 1895 edition of Bailey's "Plant-Breeding." Bailey claimed to have copied his 1892 references to Mendel from Focke. It seems, however, that while he may have first encountered references to Mendel's work in Focke, he actually copied them from the Royal Society "Catalogue of Scientific Papers." Bailey also saw a reference to Mendel's 1865 paper in Jackson's "Guide to the Literature of Botany." Bailey's 1895 mention of Mendel occurs in a passage he translated from Focke's "Die Pflanzen-Mischlinge."     

Historical aspects of F. W. putnam's systematic studies on fishes

Summary As a student and collaborator of Louis Agassiz on the study of fishes, F. W. Putnam gave promise of becoming a leading ichthyologist with special interest in taxonomy generally and the Etheostomidae in particular. While he was noted briefly in these fields, contributed a number of minor papers, and aided in the posthumous publications of some of Agassiz's work on fishes, he neither reached his original goal nor completed his major projected works. For in 1874 he switched careers and was appointed Curator of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, and is remembered today primarily as a founder of American archaeology rather than as a systematic ichthyologist.Paper read at the 19th annual meeting of the Society of Systematic Zoology, New York City, 27 December 1967. Quotations are taken from the F. W. Putnam papers in the Archives of Harvard University, with permission of the Archives and the Putnam family.     

1 July 1858 and the 1844 essay: what Lyell and Hooker decided; and what Darwin did not want and did not know

Two ‘papers’ of Darwin's were read at the famous 1 July 1858 meeting of the Linnean Society: an excerpt from his 1844 essay and a summary of his theory, enclosed in an 1857 letter to Asa Gray. Quite apart from not selecting the essay excerpt, Darwin's letters appear to indicate that he definitely did not want, and hence did not expect, an excerpt from his 1844 essay to be included (and that he did not learn of its inclusion until some 2 weeks after the meeting). As a result, we refine Darwin's role in ‘the delicate arrangement’, as well as the basis for Hooker's and Lyell's. In particular, why did they choose an essay excerpt to be presented contrary to Darwin's wishes? In direct opposition to the popular view, the essay excerpt was the afterthought, the last‐minute add‐on, not the enclosure to the Gray letter.     

怀念伍献文所长

1985年4月3日,我们敬爱的老所长、我国鱼类学和水生生物学的奠基人之一、著名的动物学家伍献文教授安详地离开了人世。伍献文教授的一生是为发展中华民族文化科学事业而奋斗的一生,他的历史业绩将永远为人们所缅怀。       

纪念戴芳澜教授诞辰九十周年

戴芳澜教授(1893.5.4—1973.1.3)是我国真菌学的创始人,也是我国植物病理学的主要奠基人之一。他为祖国培养了大量人才。为纪念他的光辉业绩,值戴教授诞辰九十周年、逝世十周年之际,特发表他的一篇评论性论文;戴教授的主要著作目录;俞大绂、陈鸿逵、周家炽、裘维蕃、相望年等教授的怀念性文章和他一生中各时期的照片两版,以资纪念。     

Introduction to the Nigel Barlow Symposium

Dr Nigel Barlow died on 4 June 2003 aged 53 in Christchurch, New Zealand. Nigel completed his PhD at the University of East Anglia in 1977 and emigrated to New Zealand in 1979 where he worked initially at Palmerston North and for the last 12 years for AgResearch at Lincoln. Nigel made an enormous contribution to New Zealand ecological science through the use of mathematically based models. In particular, he worked on insect pests such as grass grubs and vertebrate pests such as possums and rabbits, producing over 130 papers. Nigel’s models of bovine tuberculosis underpinned the current strategies and expenditure of over $50 million each year on the control of wildlife vectors on this disease. Nigel’s capabilities as a scientist were not only in the applied field but also reflected in his ability to win funds with his student John Kean from the prestigious Marsden Fund for basic research on the causes of rarity. He was Editor of the New Zealand Journal of Ecology from 1985 to 1990 and of the Journal of Applied Ecology. Nigel was awarded the New Zealand Ecological Society Award for his outstanding contribution to applied ecology in 1996 and posthumously in 2003 the Caughley Medal for lifetime contributions to wildlife management and ecology by the Australasian Wildlife Management Society. Nigel was a true polymath and enthusiast about all natural history. He had an interest in bird-winged butterflies and regularly vanished into the jungles of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea to study them. He was fascinated by crocodilians and anacondas, mountain climbing, landscape painting, and malt whisky. At work he was resistant to bureaucratic interference but happy to pass on his abilities and insights to his students and numerous colleagues.     

Tschermak: a non-discoverer of mendelism. II. A critique

An examination of Tschermak's two papers of 1900 not only reinforces our conclusion cited in our first paper on Tschermak that he was not a rediscoverer of Mendelism, but also he did not understand Mendel when he had read it. His concept of dominance differed from that of Mendel, and his use of his own concept is inconsistent and contradictory. His discussion of his backcross data indicated that he had no idea of the nature of Mendelian ratios. Nowhere did he develop the ideas of segregation and independent assortment.     

Thirty‐five years of spatial autocorrelation analysis in population genetics: an essay in honour of Robert Sokal (1926–2012)

We could not start this review, literally from the beginning, without expressing our sadness over the passing of Professor Robert R. Sokal. We are sure, nevertheless, that the importance of his scientific achievements will ensure he is long remembered. In this modest tribute to Professor Sokal, we highlight his contributions to the field of population genetics and spatial statistical methods. Specifically, we discuss how two papers, co‐authored with Professor N. L. Oden and published in the pages of the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society in 1978, revolutionized the field of analytical population genetics. In these papers, Sokal and Oden created an elegant framework for inferring evolutionary processes (e.g. isolation‐by‐distance, demic diffusion, selection gradients, genetic drift) from the spatial autocorrelation analysis of genetic variation patterns. We also highlight the pivotal importance of Sokal's work to the development of emerging fields (e.g. landscape and conservation genetics). We hope this virtual issue containing the papers that Professor Sokal published in BJLS, and later, related papers by other researchers, will help to remember his work and maintain his legacy of spatial analysis in genetics, ecology, and evolutionary biology. © 2012 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, ??, ??–??.     

George A. Bartholomew's Contributions to Integrative and Comparative Biology

The Bartholomew Award has now completed a decade of recognizingoutstanding young investigators in comparative physiology andbiochemistry or in related fields of functional and integrativebiology. It honors Professor George A. Bartholomew (Bart tohis many students and other friends), whose research contributionscontinue to be important in shaping these fields. Bart's influencereflects a steadfast adherence to a set of basic precepts: theinherent unity of biology; the need for an evolutionary perspectivein functional studies; the value of modern natural history inguiding research investigations; the focus on the organism andits function in nature, even in highly reductionist studies;the importance of biological variability within and betweenspecies; and the crucial interactions of physiology and behaviorin allowing animals to deal with environmental challenges. Werehe to have done nothing else in his career, he would remainan important figure in the fields with which the Society ofIntegrative and Comparative Biology's (SICB) Division of ComparativePhysiology and Biochemistry is concerned. However, his influenceis also felt through his inspirational performance as an undergraduateteacher, his skill and wisdom as a graduate mentor, his manyservices to the University of California, his insightful contributionsto scientific committees and policy boards at the national level,and his presidency of the American Society of Zoologists (nowSICB). This symposium offers the opportunity for honoring Bartfor all his accomplishments and fine personal qualities, whileillustrating the contributions of the impressive set of youngerinvestigators who are recipients of the George A. BartholomewAward.     

On the legacy of W.S. McCulloch

In this paper, we review McCulloch's legacy, from his early work in neurophysiology, and its relationship to his philosophical quest for an 'experimental epistemology' to his role in the cybernetics movement during the 1940s and 1950s and his contributions to the development of computer science and communication theory. There are three parts in chronological sequence. First, the period up to his work at Yale University with Dusser de Barenne, where he concentrated on the experimental study of the functional organization of sensory cortex. Second, the time of his Psychiatric Chair at the University of Chicago and the organization of the Macy Foundation Conferences. To this period corresponds the genesis and publication of the most influential and quoted work by McCulloch and Pitts: A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Neurons Activity. Third, the period of his research activity at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology where he, Lettvin, Maturana and Pitts produced epochmaking papers on epistemological neurophysiology, the modelling of the reticular formation and other work with da Fonseca and Moreno-Díaz. We finally refer to the International Conference that took place in McCulloch's memory at the 25th anniversary of his death. Our main conclusion is that McCulloch's writings are still a source of inspiration from neurophysiology to artificial intelligence and robotics.     

Herbert Tabor (1918–1920): obituary.

This invited Letter commemorates the life and scientific legacy of Dr. Herbert Tabor (1918–1920), a leading scientist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda Maryland and former Chief Editor of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Dr. Herbert Tabor in his second floor laboratory of Building 8 taken in 2005 (photo credit Dr. Harry Saroff).Herbert Tabor was born in New York City on November 28th, 1918, at the start of the “Spanish Flu” pandemic. After attending public schools in the city, he matriculated in 1935 to Harvard College, where he studied biochemical science and he entered Harvard Medical School in 1937. In his final year, Herb worked in the Department of Biological Chemistry with A. Baird Hastings to determine the ionization constant of MgHPO4. This work was published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry, marking the beginning of his long involvement with the journal.After graduation in 1942, Herb held an internship at Yale-New Haven Hospital, where he engaged in some laboratory work in clinical chemistry. While there, Herb performed the first therapeutic injection of penicillin in the USA, rapidly curing the patient of severe septicemia. The country being at war, in January 1943, he was commissioned in the US Public Health Service and served as medical officer on a US Coast Guard cutter, which was providing escort service to North Atlantic convoys. The following September, he was transferred to The National Institutes of Health, which had just moved to a new site in Bethesda Maryland, then a small town outside of Washington D.C. Herb was assigned to work with Sanford Rosenthal, who was interested in the electrolyte imbalance response to trauma and burn injuries and how these might be treated by administration of saline solution. In 1946, Herb married Celia White, who he had met in Boston, some years earlier. That same year, he helped form a lunch time seminar group to discuss the biochemical literature. Founding members included other biochemist luminaries such as Leon Heppel, Bernie Horecker and Arthur Kornberg.Meetings were held every day and the seminar lasted for many years through many changes in participants. In the early 1960’s, during a casual conversation at the seminar, Herb was surprised to discover the origin of the penicillin which he had administered in 1942. It had been prepared by an NIH colleague, Gil Ashwell, who had worked at Merck at the time. The drug was considered so precious, that Gil also had the job of its recovery from the patient’s urine. Herb and Celia moved into commissioned officer housing, conveniently located on the NIH campus in 1949. This was just 10 min from the laboratory. This is where they raised their family and stayed for over 70 years. Celia left George Washington University in 1952 and joined Herb at NIH. They began their work together on the biosynthesis, function and genetics of polyamines in normal and cancerous cells. This would occupy the rest of their careers. Sanford Rosenthal retired in 1961 and Herb took over as chief of the Laboratory of Biochemical Pharmacology, NIAMD (as it then was). He held this position until 1999.It is impossible to write about Herb Tabor without remembering his long association with The Journal of Biological Chemistry. He served on the editorial board from 1961 to 1966 and was appointed as an executive editor in 1968. Following the resignation of William Stein, he was promoted to editor in chief in 1971. Herb was devoted to all aspects of publishing the journal, though he did say that he was pleased that restrictions on his primary role as a civil servant got him out of many telephone calls from disgruntled authors. During his tenure, the annual output of published papers increased more than fourfold, with accompanying increases in the size of the editorial board. He was the moving force behind changing the journal to an electronic format. Initially this involved parallel publication of papers on CD-ROM in 1992. Finally, in 1995 the journal was moved onto the internet. J. Biol. Chem. was one of the first biological journals to make this move. Herb stood down as executive editor in 2010, assuming the title of co-editor.During his career, Herb received many prestigious awards. Notably, in 1971, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 1977, to the National Academy of Sciences and in 1986, the Hillebrand Award from the American Chemical Society. Montgomery County, MD recognized his scientific achievements, by naming November 28th 2018, his hundredth birthday, as Dr. Herbert Tabor Day. Celia retired from NIH in 2005 and died in 2012. Herb never talked about retirement. Publishing his last scientific paper in 2019 (Keller et al. 2019) he passed away in his sleep on August 20th 2020, at his home on the NIH campus. He is survived by his four children, Edward, Marilyn, Richard and Stanley, together with 10 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren.     

V.—Notes on some Eastern Forms ofSturnus vulgaris

T he late Prof. Sushkin, shortly before his death, was engaged on a revision of the races of Sturnus vulgaris , for which purpose he assembled all the examples available in Russia, a great many of them breeding birds, and others were loaned him from private collections in England. Altogether he examined and compared over 2000 specimens. The Professor certainly never finished, and possibly never even started to write out, his paper on this difficult group; but before his death he sent to me an outline of his results in the form of a private letter (18 July, 1927), which seems worth putting on record, especially as it will be some years before anyone gets together so large a series of eastern forms for examination.—E d .     

A 'misplaced chapter' in the history of photosynthesis research; the second publication (1796) on plant processes by Dr Jan Ingen-Housz,MD, discoverer of photosynthesis

In 1779, the Dutch physician Jan Ingen-Housz (1730–1799) obtained a leave-of-absence from his post as Court Physician to Empress Maria Theresa of Austria in order to do research (in England) on plants during the summer months. He performed more than 500 experiments, and described the results in his exceptional book Experiments Upon Vegetables (1779). In addition to proving the requirement for light in photosynthesis, Ingen-Housz established that leaves were the primary sites of the photosynthetic process. Later, Ingen- Housz published research papers on various subjects but aside from his 1779 book, he published only one more communication on photosynthesis and plant physiology. This was entitled 'An Essay on the Food of Plants and the Renovation of Soils'. The essay was published in 1796 as an appendix to an obscure British government report, which is rare and virtually unknown. The present paper describes the 1796 essay, which is particularly interesting in that it shows how Ingen-Housz's concepts were modified by new interpretations of chemical phenomena described in Lavoisier's great and revolutionary book Traité Élémentaire de Chimie (1789). Ingen-Housz not only discovered photosynthesis, but plant respiration as well, and the 1796 essay is testimony to his remarkable insights.     

George I. Finch and his pioneering use of oxygen for climbing at extreme altitudes.

George Ingle Finch (1888-1970) was the first person to prove the great value of supplementary oxygen for climbing at extreme altitudes. He did this during the 1922 Everest expedition when he and his companion, Geoffrey Bruce, reached an altitude of 8,320 m, higher than any human had climbed before. Finch was well qualified to develop the oxygen equipment because he was an eminent physical chemist. Many of the features of the 1922 design are still used in modern oxygen equipment. Finch also demonstrated an extraordinary tolerance to severe acute hypoxia in a low-pressure chamber experiment. Remarkably, despite Finch's desire to participate in the first three Everest expeditions in 1921-1924, he was only allowed to be a member of one. His rejection from the 1921 expedition was based on medical reports that were apparently politically biased. Then, following his record ascent in 1922, he was refused participation in the 1924 expedition for complex reasons related to his Australian origin, his forthright and unconventional views, and the fact that some people in the climbing establishment in Britain saw Finch as an undesirable outsider.     

Engaging with Lyell: Alfred Russel Wallace’s Sarawak Law and Ternate papers as reactions to Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) and Charles Darwin (1809–1882) are honored as the founders of modern evolutionary biology. Accordingly, much attention has focused on their relationship, from their independent development of the principle of natural selection to the receipt by Darwin of Wallace’s essay from Ternate in the spring of 1858, and the subsequent reading of the Wallace and Darwin papers at the Linnean Society on 1 July 1858. In the events of 1858 Wallace and Darwin are typically seen as central players, with Darwin’s friends Charles Lyell (1797–1875) and Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911) playing supporting roles. This narrative has resulted in an under-appreciation of a more central role for Charles Lyell as both Wallace’s inspiration and foil. The extensive anti-transmutation arguments in Lyell’s landmark Principles of Geology were taken as the definitive statement on the subject. Wallace, in his quest to solve the mystery of species origins, engaged with Lyell’s arguments in his private field notebooks in a way that is concordant with his engagement with Lyell in the 1855 and 1858 papers. I show that Lyell was the object of Wallace’s Sarawak Law and Ternate papers through a consideration of the circumstances that led Wallace to send his Ternate paper to Darwin, together with an analysis of the material that Wallace drew upon from the Principles. In this view Darwin was, ironically, intended for a supporting role in mediating Wallace’s attempted dialog with Lyell.     

Explaining the freemartin: Tandler and Keller vs. Lillie and the question of priority

The correct explanation for the freemartin phenotype in the female twin of a female-male pair in cattle was first reported by Tandler and Keller (1911. Deutsche Tier?rzt Wochenschr 19:148-149). This same explanation for the freemartin was independently discovered by Lillie (1916. Science 43:611-613). Today both set of scientists are given credit for this discovery; it is the basis for much of the subsequent work on the developmental basis for sex differentiation in vertebrates. Even though Lillie published after Keller and Tandler, he gets credit for this discovery because: (1) Keller and Tandler published in a veterinary journal and as a consequence their work was not disseminated as broadly throughout the larger scientific community; this problem was compounded by the fact that their definitive 1916 paper was published under wartime conditions during World War I, and (2) Lillie was an influential scientist with a group of graduate students who could elaborate on and extend his work; they published a number of papers on the freemartin. At some point while Lillie was doing his initial work on the freemartin he may have become aware that Keller and Tandler were also working on the freemartin problem; this information may have shaped his decision on when to publish.     

Three Centuries of Protozoology: A Brief Tribute to its Founding Father,A. van Leeuwenhoek of Delft*

SYNOPSIS. It was exactly 300 years ago this month (August 1974) that the 17th century modest draper from Delft, Holland—Antony van Leeuwenhoek—discovered protozoa. Describing them, often with amazing accuracy considering the optical equipment he was using (simply a home-made “glorified”hand lens), in letters to the Royal Society of London, he established himself, certainly, as the founding father of protozoology. It is particularly appropriate for an assemblage of protozoologists to pay homage to this intrepid “philosopher in little things,”a man with an insatiable curiosity about his wee animalcules, on the tricentenary of his discovery of them, since it was an event of such long-lasting significance.     

In memoriam: Napoleon A. Chagnon

Anthropologist Napoleon A. Chagnon was a central figure in the development and foundation of evolutionary approaches to human behavior. We highlight his ethnographic fieldwork, contributions to studies of kinship and marriage, and his foundational role in the development of evolutionary approaches to human behavior. As a holistic anthropologist Chagnon led anthropology toward the integration of cultural and evolutionary theory. Finally, his leadership was central in the foundation of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society.EpigraphRicardo, a Brazilian Protestant missionary who was assisting the scientific team and who has worked with the Yanomami for over 25 years … told me to run and get my camera. “There's going to be a fight,” he said. Then he turned to leave. “Aren't you going to stay?” I asked. “Nah, happens all the time. You stay, you're an anthropologist, should be interesting. Call me if anyone gets hurt.”     

中国兽类学四十年的发展与展望

2020年是中国动物学会兽类学分会成立和《兽类学报》创刊40周年。近40年来中国兽类学在各个领域都有了健康快速地发展,特别是分类学与区系演化、种群生态学、生理生态学、行为生态学、保护生态学、保护遗传学、分子进化、栖息地评估等领域。本期有11篇论文,分别对我国这些领域的发展进行了总结,并对未来的发展提出了展望。野生哺乳动物疫病及其传播规律、兽类在生态系统中的地位和作用、保护生理学、保护宏基因组学等是需要加强发展的领域。