Book Review Essay: Mary Angela Uwalaka. Ọfọ: Its Juridical and Linguistic Potency. Ibadan, Afrika-Link Books, 1996. 69 pages

Rev. Mother (Dr.) Mary Angela Uwalaka was a distinguished and devoted religious woman linguist. Her major area of research was Igbo syntax, where she made tremendous contributions, through published texts and scholarly articles towards the development of a unified Igbo language and the field of Linguistics. As a renowned scholar, her research interest was not limited to Linguistics only. In the words of Prof. Ben Elugbe, her colleague at the University of Ibadan where Mother Uwalaka worked until her demise in January 7 2007, she also “found time and ability to work and publish in the areas of religion and Igbo culture.” Ọfọ: Its Juridical and Linguistic Potency, which we shall review here, is an evidence that Uwalaka’s interests extended to other areas of Igbo studies, apart from the Igbo language.     

Detection of quantitative trait loci for juvenile growth, flower bearing and rooting ability based on a linkage map of sugi (Cryptomeria japonica D. Don)

 Quantitative traits, including juvenile growth, flower bearing and rooting ability, of a woody plant species, Cryptomeria japonica D. Don, were analyzed in a three-generation pedigree with 73 F₂ progenies using a linkage map with 85 genetic markers (72 RFLP, 11 RAPD, one isozyme and one morphological loci). A cluster of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) related to juvenile growth and female flower bearing was detected on linkage group 2. Some of the influence of this cluster could be attributed to pleiotropic effects of a dwarf locus located in its vicinity. QTLs related to male and female flower bearing were detected at different locations and showed different effects from each other, suggesting that the genetic systems controlling male and female flowering are different. No large QTL affecting rooting ability was detected in the material analyzed in this study. Received: 15 December 1997 / Accepted: 4 February 1998     

Blood,sweat and plaster casts: Reviewing the history,composition, and scientific value of the Raymond A. Dart Collection of African Life and Death Masks

This paper addresses the history, composition and scientific value of one of the most comprehensive facemask collections in Africa, the Raymond A. Dart Collection of African Life and Death Masks. Housed within the School of Anatomical Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa), it comprises 1110 masks (397 life, 487 death, 226 unknown). Life masks represent populations throughout Africa; death masks predominately southern Africa. Males preponderate by 75%. Recorded ages are error prone, but suggest most life masks are those of <35 year-olds, death masks of 36+ year-olds. A total of 241 masks have associated skeletons, 209 presenting a complete skull.Life masks date between 1927 and c.1980s, death masks 1933 and 1963. This historical collection presents uncanny associations with outmoded typological and evolutionary theories. Once perceived an essential scientific resource, performed craniofacial superimpositions identify the nose as the only stable feature maintained, with the remaining face best preserved in young individuals with minimal body fat. The facemask collection is most viable for teaching and research within the history of science, specifically physical anthropology, and presents some value to craniofacial identification. Future research will have to be conducted with appropriate ethical considerations to science and medicine.     

The Chromodorididae (Opisthobranchia: Mollusca) of the Indo-West Pacific: Chromodoris epicuria, C. aureopurpurea, C. annulata, C. coi and Risbecia tryoni colour groups

Twenty-five species of chromodorid nudibranchs from the Indo-West Pacific are described including nine which are new to science. There are six new species of Chromodoris , two of Nounea and a new species which forms the type of a new monotypic genus. Of the other species discussed in this paper, ten are species of Chromodoris , five Risbecia and one Digidentis. Species with the following colour patterns are discussed: white with orange or yellow spots; white with yellow (or orange) and purple spots; white with purple spots or patches and mantle border; white with a sinuous submarginal brown band. A full review of the relevant literature is included as is a discussion on Indian Ocean and West Pacific species pairs.     

Germs and Jim Crow: The Impact of Microbiology on Public Health Policies in Progressive Era American South

Race proved not merely a disadvantage in securing access to prompt and appropriate medical care, but often became a life and death issue for blacks in the American South during the early decades of the twentieth century. This article investigates the impact some of the new academic disciplines such as anthropology, evolutionary biology, racially based pathology and genetics had in promoting scientific racism. The disproportionately high morbidity and mortality rates among blacks were seen as a consequence of inherent racial deficiencies that rendered any attempt to ameliorate their situation as futile. While the belief in a different pathology in blacks initially deterred most health officials from taking any action, advances in medicine and microbiology, in particular the germ theory, stirred a variety of responses out of sheer self preservation, as fears among whites at the first sign of an epidemic initiated sporadic and limited actions. Ironically, in an era of deepening scientific racism, public health initiatives based on a better understanding of disease causing microorganisms, gradually improved black health. However, some public health measures were hijacked by eugenicists and racists and, rather than addressing the ill health of blacks, public health policy complied with the new laws of heredity by promoting drastic measures such as involuntary sterilization or even abortion. This further complicated the strained relationship between southern blacks and health care professionals and effected ongoing distrust towards public healthcare services.     

Darwinism and the Origin of Life: The Role of H.C. Bastian in the British Spontaneous Generation Debates, 1868--1873

Henry Charlton Bastian's support for spontaneous generation is shown to have developed from his commitment to the new evolutionary science of Darwin, Spencer, Huxley and Tyndall. Tracing Bastian's early career development shows that he was one of the most talented rising young stars among the Darwinians in the 1860s. His argument for a logically necessary link between evolution and spontaneous generation was widely believed among those sympathetic to Darwin's ideas. Spontaneous generation implied materialism to many, however, and it had associations in Britain with radical politics and amateur science. Huxley and the X Club were trying to create a public posture of Darwinism that kept it at arm's length from those negative associations. Thus, the conflict that developed when Huxley and the X Club opposed Bastian was at least as much about factional in-fighting among the Darwinians as it was about the experiments under dispute. Huxley's strategy to defeat Bastian and define his position as “non-Darwinian” contributed significantly to the shaping of Huxley's famous address “Biogenesis and Abiogenesis.” Rhetorically separating Darwinism from Bastian was thus responsible for Huxley's first clear public statement that a naturalistic origin of life was compatible with Darwin's ideas, but only in the earth's distant past. The final separation of the discourse on the meaning of Brownian movement and “active molecules” from any possible link with spontaneous generation also grew out of Huxley's strategy to defeat Bastian. Clashes between Bastian and the X Club are described at the BAAS, the Royal Society, and in the pages of Nature and other journals. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Evolution alpiner Populationen vonEuphrasia (Scrophulariaceae): Die tetraploideE. minima

A systematic analysis of the variable and probably allotetraploidE. minima is presented, its infraspecific taxonomy is discussed.E. tatrae is provisionally included intoE. minima although some differences may exist;E. mendonçae may be a relic of a formerly wider distribution ofE. minima; E. willkommii seems to be closer toE. stricta s. lat. than toE. minima. 4x-E. minima is supposed to be derived from phylogenetic lines close to extant dwarf alpine forms of 2x-E. alpina (including its yellow flowering subsp.christii;Vitek 1985b) and 2x-E. hirtella (vgl.Vitek 1985a). Some characteristics (e.g., its small flowers) could have been introduced through hybrid introgression from other 2x-species, particularlyE. inopinata and/orE. sinuata (vgl.Ehrendorfer & Vitek 1984).     

Cooling in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and estuary region at 9.7 to 7.2 C ka (11.2-8.0 cal ka): Palynological response to the PBO and 8.2 cal ka cold events, Laurentide Ice Sheet air-mass circulation and enhanced freshwater runoff

An examination of post-Younger Dryas (YD) pollen stratigraphies in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and St. Lawrence estuary region reveals features in the pollen records that represent breaks in the normal vegetation succession, widespread vegetation suppression, and a delay in migration of plant taxa between 9.7 and 7.2 ¹⁴C ka (11.2 and 8.0 cal ka). The domination of Alnus crispa at sites bordering the St. Lawrence estuary-Gulf region in Gaspésie and northern New Brunswick within this timeframe represents a diversion from the typical vegetation progression from Picea and/or Populus or Picea/Betula to Pinus and/or Betula, and signifies a shift to a cooler, drier climate. Coinciding with the A. crispa expansion and domination in that region was the contraction of Picea populations in other areas. In southwestern New Brunswick and eastern and southeastern Nova Scotia, Picea was replaced by the first appearance of tree birch, B. papyrifera; whereas in western and southwestern Newfoundland, Picea gave way to a resurgence of shrub birch, Betula glandulosa. The Picea contraction and immediate resurgence of Betula represents cooling, and is reliably dated at 9720 ± 110 ¹⁴C BP (10,800-11,240 cal BP) in southwest Newfoundland. This first post-YD episode of widespread cooling is correlated with the North Atlantic Preboreal Oscillation (PBO) centered around 9650 ¹⁴C BP (10,900-11,180 cal BP) in the adjacent Great Lakes region. Sites exposed to winds from the Gulf of St. Lawrence in eastern New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and northern Nova Scotia show a lingering persistence of Picea and delay in arrival of Pinus to 8.0 and 7.7 ¹⁴C ka (9.0 and 8.4 cal ka), yet Pinus was dominant as early as 9.4 ¹⁴C ka (10.6 cal ka) in southwestern New Brunswick. At the same time, tundra vegetation persisted at high elevations in western and southwestern Newfoundland only to be replaced by upslope migration of shrub-birch heath by 8 ¹⁴C ka. Prolonged broad-scale cooling to 8 ¹⁴C ka and to as late as 7.7 ¹⁴C ka extended up to 200 km inland in areas exposed to the St. Lawrence estuary and Gulf region and was in response to strong, cold, dry anticyclonic winds coming off the retreating Laurentide Ice Sheet in combination with enhanced freshwater runoff through the Gulf of St. Lawrence.The end of the period of prolonged cooling and onset of regional warming coincided with the diversion of western Canada runoff and Agassiz-Ojibway drainage to Hudson Bay and reduced effect or final break-up of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Several sites document a subsequent cold shift, that interrupted regional warming at 7650 to 7200 ¹⁴C BP (8400 to 8000 cal BP), and which is variously represented by the suppression of Pinus and resurgence of Picea, sometimes with A. crispa (Québec-Maritime region), or by an abrupt decrease of Picea and resurgence of Betula (western Newfoundland). This second post-YD cool interval is equated with the 8200 cal BP cold event registered in the Greenland ice isotopic record.     

The sedimentation properties of ferritins. New insights and analysis of methods of nanoparticle preparation

Background

Ferritin exhibits complex behavior in the ultracentrifuge due to variability in iron core size among molecules. A comprehensive study was undertaken to develop procedures for obtaining more uniform cores and assessing their homogeneity.

Methods

Analytical ultracentrifugation was used to measure the mineral core size distributions obtained by adding iron under high- and low-flux conditions to horse spleen (apoHoSF) and human H-chain (apoHuHF) apoferritins.

Results

More uniform core sizes are obtained with the homopolymer human H-chain ferritin than with the heteropolymer horse spleen HoSF protein in which subpopulations of HoSF molecules with varying iron content are observed. A binomial probability distribution of H- and L-subunits among protein shells qualitatively accounts for the observed subpopulations. The addition of Fe²⁺ to apoHuHF produces iron core particle size diameters from 3.8 ± 0.3 to 6.2 ± 0.3 nm. Diameters from 3.4 ± 0.6 to 6.5 ± 0.6 nm are obtained with natural HoSF after sucrose gradient fractionation. The change in the sedimentation coefficient as iron accumulates in ferritin suggests that the protein shell contracts ∼ 10% to a more compact structure, a finding consistent with published electron micrographs. The physicochemical parameters for apoHoSF (15%/85% H/L subunits) are M = 484,120 g/mol, ν? = 0.735 mL/g, s_20,w = 17.0 S and D_20,w = 3.21 × 10⁻⁷ cm²/s; and for apoHuHF M = 506,266 g/mol, ν? = 0.724 mL/g, s_20,w = 18.3 S and D_20,w = 3.18 × 10⁻⁷ cm²/s.

Significance

The methods presented here should prove useful in the synthesis of size controlled nanoparticles of other minerals.