Reminiscences from the first curator of the whitney-rothschild collection

Dr Ernst Mayr has been one of the seminal figures of 20th century biology. His essential contributions were in the development of the Modern Synthesis in evolutionary biology. His landmark book Systematics and the Origin of Species, was published in 1942 and has long been acknowledged as one of the key foundations of 20th century evolutionary biology. In many subsequent articles and books on evolution and the history and philosophy of biology during the past half century, he has continued to be a key contributor of ideas and inspiration to successive generations of evolutionary biologists. In the first of two ‘Roots’ articles, he describes the early stages of his career and the serendipitous events that furthered it. This article was first presented as a talk, on October 27, 1993, at the 50 year Jubilee celebration of the founding of the Whitney wing, the ornithological section, of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. In next month's ‘Roots’ article, Dr Mayr will describe the events that led to the founding of the Society for the Study of Evolution in 1946, in St Louis, Missouri.     

Dr. Haifan Lin. Interviewed by Han Lee and Rachel Rosenstein

Dr. Haifan Lin is professor of Cell Biology at Yale University, where he studies the mechanism of stem cell self-renewal in fruit flies, mice, and human cancer cells. Recently named director of the Yale Stem Cell Center, Dr. Lin has made seminal contributions to the stem cell field, most notably his demonstration of the stem cell niche theory using the fruit fly model, his discovery of the PIWI/AGO gene family that is essential for stem cell division in diverse organisms, and his recent finding of a group of small RNAs called PIWI-interacting, or piRNAs, which may play a crucial role in stem cell proliferation and germline development. Dr. Lin’s work on piRNAs was recognized by Science Magazine as a top scientific breakthrough of 2006. Recently, the Lin lab has begun exploring the role of these molecules in stem cell division and oncogenesis.     

Highly efficient expression of homologous and heterologous genes in Bacillus megaterium

Summary By developing an efficient transformation system it was possible to reintroduce two different glucose dehydrogenase genes of Bacillus megaterium into this host. These genes were previously cloned, sequenced and expressed in Escherichia coli. Since the expression of one of these genes (gdhA) turned out to be extremely high in B. megaterium, an expression system for genes from closely and distantly related organisms using the controlling region of the gdhA gene was developed.Dedicated to Professor Dr. Dr. h. c. K. Esser on the occasion of his 65th birthday     

In silico methods for predicting T-cell epitopes: Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde?

In silico tools offer an attractive alternative strategy to the cumbersome experimental approaches to identify T-cell epitopes. These computational tools have metamorphosed over the years into complex algorithms that attempt to efficiently predict the binding of a plethora of peptides to HLA alleles. In recent years, the scientific community has embraced these techniques to reduce the burden of wet-laboratory experimentation. Although there are some splendid examples of the utility of these methods, there are also evidences where they fall short and remain inconsistent. Hence, are these computational tools ‘Dr Jekyll’ or ‘Mr Hyde’ to the researcher, who wishes to utilize them intrepidly? This article reviews the progress and pitfalls of the in silico tools that identify T-cell epitopes.     

Shigeo Yamanouchi (1876–1973): A noted Japanese phycologist

Dr Shigeo Yamanouchi was born in Yamagata Prefecture and completed his secondary education at Tokyo Higher Normal School (THNS) where he was also a professor until 1904. In 1905, he went to the University of Chicago in the USA and earned a PhD in Botany in 1907. He is best noted for his excellent research on the cytology and life histories of the marine algae Polysiphonia, Fucus, Cutleria, Aglaozonia and Zanardinia, published between 1906 and 1921 while he was associated with the University of Chicago. He also described the freshwater green alga Hydrodictyon africanum. In 1910, he returned to THNS as a Professor and wrote several botanical textbooks, receiving his DSc degree in 1911 and traveling in England and the USA as an advisor for the Japanese Ministry of Education during 1911–1913. For much of the time between 1920 and 1942 he remained in the USA, returning to Japan following the advent of World War II, During his later life, he was in obscurity, and sadly there is very little recorded of his activities in the post-war years. He died in Tokyo on 2 February 1973 at the age of 96.     

From d’Orbigny to the Devonian: some thoughts on the history of the stratotype concept

D’Orbigny’s stratigraphic contributions were enormous, both practical and theoretical. In his practice, d’Orbigny realised the central importance of using fossil faunas to correlate strata across different countries. His ‘succession chronologique des âges du monde’ (of 1852) recognised 5 periods and 27 stages (ignoring his ‘époque actuelle’). The great majority of the latter were from two Periods, Jurassic (stages 7 to 16) or Cretaceous (17 to 23). D’Orbigny described the palaeontological characteristics, and geographical extensions, of each. Some stages he based on countries he never visited and although he never specified ‘stratotype’ localities, he referred to some as ‘étalon’, ‘le mieux’ or ‘le plus beau’. These leads proved crucial when, in the mid 20th century, stratigraphers realised that definitions of chrono-stratal units must be attempted. The first attempts at typification simply followed zoology, where a type specimen tries to define a central position within the morphological variation of a species. In 1962, an early attempt was made to define Jurassic stages by three type horizons at different type localities (or stratotypes as they were now called) for each. A central horizon was chosen as ‘lectotype section’ and upper and lower boundaries for each were defined elsewhere. In France, it was preferred to investigate original intentions at named localities, through unit-stratotypes. These allowed some nationalistic pride, since France was the home of so many d’Orbignyan stages. 1980 saw the publication Les Étages français et leurs Stratotypes. However, British Silurian stratigraphers had realised that such zoologically based concepts would produce conflict, when any defined upper boundary stratotype conflicted with the defined lower boundary of a superjacent unit. They suggested, from 1962, to define only lower boundaries, via ‘golden spikes’, at basal-boundary stratotypes. This was the method chosen for the basal Devonian stratotype at Klonk, Czech Republic, defined in 1972, and a method adopted globally from 1986. However, this was when correlations were still largely based on fossils. The explosion of so many other stratigraphies since, based on magnetic or chemical records, events etc, has produced a first reaction against the idea that such stratotypes should be so defined, while a second, potentially more major claim, is that any ‘golden spike’ concept may no longer ‘glitter’, as competing stratotype concepts may be holding back stratigraphic progress.     

Seedling development in buckwheat and the discovery of the photomorphogenic shade‐avoidance response

Numerous botanists of the early 19th century investigated the effect of sunlight on plant development, but no clear picture developed. One hundred and fifty years ago, Julius Sachs (1863) systematically analysed the light–plant relationships, using developing garden nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus) and seedlings of buckwheat (Fagopyron esculentum) as experimental material. From these studies, Sachs elucidated the phenomenon of photomorphogenesis (plant development under the influence of daylight) and the associated ‘shade‐avoidance response’. We have reproduced the classical buckwheat experiments of Sachs (1863) and document the original shade‐avoidance syndrome with reference to hypocotyl elongation and cotyledon development in darkness (skotomorphogenesis), white light and shade induced by a canopy of green leaves. In subsequent publications, Sachs elaborated his concepts of 1863 and postulated the occurrence of ‘flower‐inducing substances’. In addition, he argued that the shade‐avoidance response in cereals, such as wheat and maize, is responsible for lodging in crowded plant communities. We discuss these processes with respect to the red‐ to far‐red light/phytochrome B relationships. Finally, we summarise the phytochrome B–phytohormone (auxin, brassinosteroids) connection within the cells of shaded Arabidopsis plants, and present a simple model to illustrate the shade‐avoidance syndrome. In addition, we address the relationship between plant density and health of the corresponding population, a topic that was raised for the first time by Sachs (1863) in his seminal paper and elaborated in his textbooks.     

SNP genotyping for detecting the ‘rare allele phenomenon’ in hybrid zones

Hybrid zones are regions where genetically distinct populations meet, mate and produce offspring. In such zones, genetically less compatible gene combinations are usually generated, resulting in reduced fitness, and hybrid zones are often maintained because of continuous removal of unfit genotypes, balanced by gene flow into the zone from the parental populations (and are then referred to as ‘tension zones’). Tension zones often display unexpectedly high frequencies of gene variants that are rare outside the zone. Previous work has shown that this ‘rare allele phenomenon’ is not the result of intragenic recombination or increased mutation rates. Further understanding of the population genetics of the phenomenon requires an approach in which both the numbers of individuals and the numbers of loci is increased. Here, we report an approach using a combination of Illumina next‐generation sequencing and mass spectrophotometer genotyping to identify markers that may be used for genome‐wide investigations of the rare allele phenomenon. We test this approach on a hybrid zone in the land snail Albinaria hippolyti from Greece.     

‘Pho’ Phai and faux phais: The market for fakes and the appropriation of a Vietnamese national symbol

When Hanoi's favorite painter Bui Xuan Phai died in 1988, he became a legend in Vietnamese art circles. He was known as much for his paintings of ‘Old’ Hanoi streets ‐ earning him the nickname of Pho'Phai or ‘street’ Phai‐ as for his frequent visits to the underground cafes where banned writers spent their evenings drinking and philosophizing. As the Vietnamese economy improved in the early 1990s, a clientele for his paintings began to develop among Westerners visiting Hanoi. Gradually, it became increasingly clear that most of the paintings on the market attributed to Phai were in fact forgeries. This article will discuss the expectations of Westerners and their interest in an ‘authentic’ Vietnamese painting and its contrast to Vietnamese visions of their city in decay. The article illustrates how opposite notions of ‘authenticity’ and history define the cultural production of taste and alter perceptions about art and the ‘Orient.’     

ENHANCING EVOLUTION AND ENHANCING EVOLUTION

It has been claimed in several places that the new genetic technologies allow humanity to achieve in a generation or two what might take natural selection hundreds of millennia in respect of the elimination of certain diseases and an increase in traits such as intelligence. More radically, it has been suggested that those same technologies could be used to instil characteristics that we might reasonably expect never to appear due to natural selection alone. John Harris, a proponent of this genomic optimism, claims in his book Enhancing Evolution that we not only have it in our power to enhance evolution, but that we also have a duty to do so. In this paper, I claim that Harris' hand is strong but that he overplays it nevertheless. He is correct to dismiss the arguments of the anti‐enhancement lobby and correct to say that enhancement is permissible; but ‘good’ is different from ‘permissible’ and his argument for the goodness of enhancement is less convincing. Moreover, he is simply wrong to claim that it generates a duty to enhance.     

Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation Trial: A Philosophical Justification for Non‐Voluntary Enrollment

In a current clinical trial for Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation (EPR), Dr. Samuel Tisherman of the University of Maryland aims to induce therapeutic hypothermia in order to ‘buy time’ for operating on victims of severe exsanguination. While recent publicity has framed this controversial procedure as ‘killing a patient to save his life’, the US Army and Acute Care Research appear to support the study on the grounds that such patients already face low chances of survival. Given that enrollment in the trial must be non‐voluntary, the study has received an exemption from federal standards for obtaining informed consent. How exactly, if at all, is non‐voluntary enrollment morally justifiable? In this essay, I appeal to the notable work of Hans Jonas in an effort to defend the EPR trial's use of non‐voluntary enrollment. It is often thought and, as I show, it may appear that Jonas has called for the end of experimental medical practice. Still, I derive from Jonas a principle of double‐effect upon which physicians may be seen as morally permitted to pursue innovations in emergency medicine but only as a byproduct of pursuing therapeutic success. With this position, I argue that the EPR trial can be granted a stronger philosophical justification than simply waiving the requirement of obtaining informed consent. The double‐effect justification would obtain, perhaps regardless of the success of such innovative procedures as therapeutic hypothermia.     

David Graeber's Wunderkammer,Debt: The First 5 000 Years

Graeber’s Debt: The First 5 000 Years has generated extensive commentary in the popular press and has captured the imagination of both activists at the barricades and investment fund managers in the City of London. Everyone is captivated by his critique of the myth of primitive barter. Yet it is a puzzle that a core element of his argument—the myth of primordial debt—has been largely overlooked. This review seeks to redress this oversight and in the process to suggest that Graeber’s emphasis on violence and enslavement, while compelling, is limited by his quest for origins. Feminist anthropology taught us to set aside the question, ‘when did “it” begin’ and instead open up to other questions, beyond the limits and biases the quest for origins presupposes. One wishes Graeber had entered the wonder cabinet he constructed in this book, rather than use it to ground a teleology.     

JOSEPH D. HOOKER'S 1839 CABO VERDE COLLECTIONS

Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911) was 22 years old when he undertook his first natural history journey abroad. He was appointed ‘Assistant Surgeon’, under the command of James Clark Ross in the Antarctic Expedition 1838–1845, also known as the South Pole Magnetic Expedition. The two HMS ships The Terror and The Erebus made brief stops in the Macaronesian islands of Madeira, Tenerife (the Canaries), and Santiago (Cabo Verde) where Hooker took the opportunity to observe and collect animals, plants and minerals, so these were the first three collecting sites documented in his Antarctic Journal.     

Progress, spread and natural transmission of Bahia bark scaling of citrus in Brazil

Progress, spread and natural transmission of Bahia bark scaling of citrus were evaluated in a trial where 240 screenhouse‐nursed nucellar grapefruit plants –‘Clason’, ‘Little River Seedless’, ‘Red Blush’, ‘Reed’ and ‘Howell Seedless’ cvs – were planted alongside and 5 m apart from a 10‐year‐old symptomatic ‘Marsh Seedless’ grapefruit orchard. Plants were distributed in 16 rows of 15 trees, with three plants of each cultivar per row. Eight trial plants were kept in screen cages. Incidence of symptomatic plants was assessed at 3‐months intervals, for 5 years, and for further 2 years at irregular intervals. Cumulative maps of disease incidence were produced for each assessment date and used in all analyses. Temporal progress was analysed by nonlinear fitting of three disease progress models. Spread was characterised in three levels of spatial hierarchy by the following analyses: ordinary runs, binomial dispersion index, binary power law fitting, isopath mapping and nonlinear fitting of disease gradient models. The first symptomatic plant was detected 2 years after planting. In the last disease assessment, 5 years after the first, 98% of the unprotected plants were symptomatic. None of the screen‐caged trees showed any symptoms. Bahia bark scaling progress was polyetic and best described by the logistic model. Ordinary runs analysis showed little if any evidence of transmission between adjacent trees. Diseased plants showed a very aggregated pattern inside quadrats (D > 5 and b > 1.53). Isopath mapping showed that main spread was only because of the primary inoculum source. Secondary foci were also observed, but they were never dissociated from main initial disease focus. Disease gradient followed wind direction, starting near the original inoculum source and was best described by exponential model. These results support a hypothesis of Bahia bark scaling transmission by air‐borne vectors with limited dispersion ability.     

Beyond frontiers and time: the scientific and cultural heritage of Alcide d’Orbigny (1802–1857)

Alcide Dessalines d’Orbigny was born on 6 September 1802 in Couëron (near Nantes), France. In his early youth, he developed a life interest in the study of a group of microscopic animals that he named ‘Foraminifera’. In his first scientific work, devoted to this group, he established the basis of a new science, micropaleontology. All his life, he worked on foraminifera, but his concern in natural sciences widely exceeded the domain of micropaleontology. Impressed by his first work on foraminifera, published at the age of 23, the scientists of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN) chose him as the naturalist explorer for an expedition to South America. Alcide d’Orbigny explored Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru from 1826 to 1833. He was a great humanist and applied the view of an ethnologist and historian to the communities with which he shared his daily life in South America. A precursor in biogeography and ecology, he contributed greatly to the advancement of knowledge of the animal and vegetal kingdoms by describing several thousand living species in the nine volumes of his ‘Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale’ (1835–1847). Back in France, he turned his research towards paleontology and stratigraphy. He undertook the immense task of describing all species of fossil invertebrates found in France in the eight volumes of ‘La Paléontologie française’ (1840–1860). He arranged 18 000 species in stratigraphic order in the three volumes of ‘Prodrome de Paléontologie stratigraphique’ (1850–1852), and published three volumes entitled ‘Cours élémentaire de paléontologie et de géologie stratigraphiques’ (1849–1852). These important works led him to create the first geological and stratigraphical scale. Many of the 27 stages established are still used in the standard chronostratigraphic scale. The Chair of Paleontology of the MNHN in Paris was created for him in 1853. He died on 30 June 1857 at the age of 55, in Pierrefitte (France), leaving behind him a huge scientific and cultural heritage. Alcide d’Orbigny bequeathed to posterity a collection of more than 100 000 vegetable and animal specimens. This exceptionally rich heritage, deposited in the MNHN, is an international reference collection, and it is actively consulted by specialists from around the world. The application of his work extends to various fields of academic research (such as earth history, paleoceanography and paleoclimatology), to economics and practical applications in stratigraphy and micropaleontology that greatly contribute to oil and other resource exploration as well as major earth construction. The bicentennial of the birth of Alcide d’Orbigny was celebrated in France during the year 2002 under the patronage of the highest authorities of the state, along with scientific and cultural institutions. A traveling exhibition presented the different facets of his life’s work and international congresses were held in the three places dearest to Alcide d’Orbigny: Santa Cruz (Bolivia), La Rochelle (France) and Paris (France). This year (2003) marks the 150th anniversary of his appointment to the Chair of Paleontology of the MNHN.     

DNA mediated transformation of the filamentous fungus Curvularia lunata using a dominant selectable marker

Summary A DNA mediated transformation system was developed for the filamentous fungus Curvularia lunata. Incubation of protoplasts with a plasmid (pAN7-1) which contains the Escherichia coli hygromycin B phosphotransferase gene (hph) fused to an Aspergillus nidulans promoter resulted in the formation of hygromycin B resistant transformants. DNA-DNA hybridization experiments revealed that plasmid pAN7-1 became integrated into the fungal genome. All transformants analyzed so far proved to be stable even after vegetative growth for three months without selective pressure.Dedicated to Professor Dr. Dr. h. c. Esser on the occasion of his 65th birthday     

Cleaner Wrasses Keep Track of the ‘When’ and ‘What’ in a Foraging Task1

In recent years evidence has accumulated that at least some animals can remember the ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ of personal experiences. Currently, evidence for such ability is taxonomically restricted to birds and mammals. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that cleaner wrasses Labroides dimidiatus are able to remember when they interacted with what after a single event. In nature, cleaners remove ectoparasites from other reef fishes, so‐called clients. Clients are depleted, non‐stationary food patches at the end of an interaction and replenished only after a delay. In our experiments, we presented twelve cleaners every 2.5 min, a choice between two of a total of four plates with different colours and patterns. One plate was always accessible but contained a non‐preferred food item while the other three contained a preferred food item, but allowed a next feeding event only after 5, 10 or 15 min. Thus, to maximise food intake, cleaners had to remember for each choice when they had last interacted with which plate. When confronted with two plates offering preferred food, cleaners showed an overall significant preference for the plate that allowed access during the trial. For six cleaners, the preference was significant. Also, on trials involving the always accessible plate, cleaners discriminated between trials in which they had to eat the non‐preferred food and trials on which they could eat the preferred food. In conclusion, cleaners are able to track the ‘when’ and ‘what’ (or possibly ‘who’) within a biologically meaningful time period.     

The manzanar project: Towards a solution to poverty, hunger, environmental pollution, and global warming through sea water aquaculture and silviculture in deserts

Summary Dr. Gordon Sato is a former Editor-in-Chief of In Vitro Cellular and Developmental Biology, President of the Tissue Culture Association (now Society for In Vitro Biology), and Director of the W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center (now Adirondack Biomedical Center). He began pilot experiments on the Manzanar Project at test sites in the Salton Sea while a Professor of Biology at the University of California, San Diego and continued the project in the laboratory at the Cell Center in Lake Placid, NY and at Eritrean test sites during their war of independence. Since 1994, he spends up to 10 mo. per yr in Eritrea where he directs the Manzanar Project and trains young Eritrean scientists in the field in the area of what he refers to as “low-tech biotech.” The name of the Manzanar Project was inspired by the camp in California where Dr. Sato and his family were interned during World War II.—The Editor