Activity rhythm and the ranging of a solitary male mountain gorilla (Gorilla gorilla beringei)

To clarify the advantages of solitary life in gorilla males, a lone silverback mountain gorilla (Gorilla gorilla beringei) was studied for nine months in the natural habitat of the Virunga volcanoes. While the time budget for each activity and daily activity cycle were similar to those of groups, his daily journey distance and ranging patterns differed from those of groups. His movements were little influenced by the distribution and abundance of foods, which strongly influence the movements of groups. He notably increased his day journey distances when he encountered neighboring groups. He persistently followed the groups for days and went out of his usual range area. These encounters shifted his monthly range from his natal group's range to that of other groups. When the silverbacks of the encountered groups noticed his presence, they usually gave hoots and chest-beats and sometimes fought violently with him, while females and immatures did not show positive responses towards him. Lone males could have more chance to contact females and to lure them away from their groups than silverbacks within groups. The lone male stage, accompanied by frequent contacts with different groups, probably provides maturing males with useful knowledge of neighboring groups and areas.     

The Paradoxical Anthropology of Leslie White

The many contradictions in the anthropology of Leslie White derive mainly from the fact that he embraced two contradictory models of culture: the sui generis conception that he received from his Boasian education, and the materialist-utilitarian framework that developed out of his concern with cultural evolutionism. White never reconciled the two, but in any instance of conflict he gave preference to the sui generis, Boasian-derived conception. This led him eventually to repudiate significant aspects of his utilitarian-adaptive framework.     

Biological design — a neglected art

I ought now, perhaps, to offer a summary of what I have been trying to convey in this lecture — but I am haunted by the failure which attended an effort, by an eminent scholar of this city, to do something of the same kind many years ago. Sir John Sheppard, Provost of King's, once gave a public lecture during one of the University's ceremonial gatherings. His subject was the Trojan War. The large audience sat spellbound in admiration of his depth of insight, breadth of knowledge and grasp of detail. As he was leaving after the meeting, a young man came up to him and explained that he was a graduate studuent engaged in research on the economic consequences of the Trojan War. He had, however, been spellbound by the lecture and had been too engrossed to write anything down. Would Sir John be so kind as to lend him his notes so that he could make a summary of the lecture? “My dear chap”, said Sheppard, “I'd be delighted; here are my notes — use them as you wish and let me have them back whenever they have served your purpose”. So saying he handed the young man a postcard on which was written: Agamemnon — Achilles — Agamemnon.I hope that members of the audience won't mind if I leave them to make their own summary of my remarks to which they have listened so patiently this evening.     

Was Linnaeus a Rosicrucian?

Linnaeus's collection of printed books, now in the Linnean Society's possession, is mainly a working library of zoology, botany, mineralogy, materia medica and medicine, but it also contains a number of occult or semi-occult treatises, at least one of which was actually bought by him in his impoverished youth. Historians have been reluctant to take seriously Linnaeus's theory of the cortex and medulla as the means of evolution of most plants by hybridization and the key to all medicine. They have noted with amusement his extremely conceited estimate of his personal relations with God. If he viewed himself as an illuminatus, or magus, both become intelligible; he was discovering active principia and thereby seeing further into the secrets of Nature than anyone else, for which he gave due thanks. He differed from Renaissance neo-Platonists and Hermetic magi in rejecting astral influences on Man, and from the original Rosicrucians also in not taking Christ as the Archimagus. His lack of references to Christ, however, is shared even with wholly orthodox Anglican naturalists and natural theologians, and cannot be taken as evidence for his unorthodoxy. His use of ajjmitas has probably been taken in too modern a sense. It is suggested that some of the correspondences he noted in the Testacea encouraged him to believe that the rudiments of the plan of Creation were already becoming visible.     

The Philosophical Origins of Mitchell's Chemiosmotic Concepts

Mitchell's formulation of the chemiosmotic theory of oxidative phosphorylation in 1961 lacked any experimental support for its three central postulates. The path by which Mitchell reached this theory is explored. A major factor was the role of Mitchell's philosophical system conceived in his student days at Cambridge. This system appears to have become a tacit influence on his work in the sense that Polanyi understood all knowledge to be generated by an interaction between tacit and explicit knowing. Early in his life Mitchell had evolved a simple philosophy based on fluctoids, fluctids and statids which was developed in a thesis submitted for the z at the University of Cambridge, England. This aspect of his work was rejected by the examiners and became a tacit element in his intellectual development. It is argued from his various publications that this philosophy can be traced as an underlying theme behind much of Mitchell's theoretical writing in the 50's leading, through his notion of vectorial metabolism, to the formulation and amplification of the chemiosmotic theory in the sixties. This philosophy formed the basis for Mitchell of his understanding of biological systems and gave him his unique approach to cell biology. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Flora was His Interest and Prime Course of Study: A Botanical Career for W.E. Ricker Disappears

Synopsis Bill Ricker’s career went through many twists in his academic years. He had taken botany in his senior matriculation year at high school and he had collected over 100 species of flora before commencement of university life. At the conclusion of his first university year, he set out over the summer to collect a much larger sample of species, primarily from the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence ecoregion, to fulfil a requirement for a second year botany course (spermatophytes). He identified about 390 species, and some 254 were collected and pooled with those from previous years to make a final submission of 354 spermatophyte species. Field plant identification continued in each academic year thereafter, in concert with collections and identifications of aquatic invertebrates in his summer projects while under the employment of the Ontario Fisheries Research Laboratory. At the conclusion of his undergraduate years, Bill had taken more courses in botany than in zoology, and it was the summer employment that had really prepared him for postgraduate work in fisheries biology, which was ecologically oriented. When Bill left Ontario in the autumn of 1931 he had identified over 600 species of plants, excluding lower cryptogams, but including many aquatic species of higher plants. In western North America Bill’s botanical career began at Cultus Lake in 1931. He again studied all aspects of the basin while employed with the federal government, and from the work he assembled a Ph.D. thesis. At the time of thesis completion he had identified over 300 species of flora, including alpine plants at timberline, 1500 – 1800 m above lake level, and planktonic algae in its water column. In 1939, after more field fisheries work in the Fraser River basin of British Columbia, Bill accepted a position with the biological staff at Indiana University. In this period which concluded in 1950 he identified another 50 – 110 species of flora, all in the Carolinian ecoregion, and hitherto not seen by him. Considering all floral classes, Bill’s eastern North American repertoire had by then added up to 791 species, representative of more than 112 families of plants. Returning west for the remainder of his life, new identifications elsewhere added to his Cultus Lake list which slowly added up to about 1000 species for the west coastal region of North America. Flora was also identified elsewhere in the mid-continental region of North America, in Eurasia where the Abisko region of Lappland was a highlight, and in South America and New Zealand. Records of his botanical prowess, were kept primarily in his diaries, which began in 1923 and were maintained consistently to the end of 1934, and thereafter intermittently to 1949. The diaries reveal that his career as a budding botanist was subtly hijacked by a wily Professor W.H.K. Harkness in the rival Biology Department who out-manoeuvred Drs. R.B. Thompson and R.A. Sifton in the Botany Department. The former always managed to employ Bill in summer and keep him occupied in the department’s labs during the autumn and winter and spring, tying up any free time when the botanist had approached him on lab work. Certainly, the botany courses taken and which he excelled at were more appropriate for his aquatic ecological pursuits. Salesmanship won the day for the zoologists, but Bill was a life-long botanist regardless of whatever else he studied or managed throughout his professional career. The last days of his life had a botanical conclusion.     

George N. Papanicolaou (1883-1962): Fifty years after the death of a great doctor, scientist and humanitarian

Fifty years have passed since the death of Dr George Nicholas Papanicolaou, who was born in Kyme at the island of Euboea in Greece in 1883 and became known for his innovative revolutionary invention of the Pap smear test performed at the Cornell University Medical College in the USA. To date, even after the introduction of HPV vaccination into the clinical practice, Dr George Papanicolaou's method remains an essential component of the prevention strategy against cancer and has resulted in a 70% decrease in cervical cancer mortality over the last 60 years. This article, which presents briefly his biography, is dedicated to him on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death.     

Hubert Lynes:A Biographical Sketch

O rnithology has suffered a grievous loss by the death of Rear-Admiral Hubert Lynes, which occurred after a short illness at a Naval Hospital in Wales on 10 November, 1942, a few days before his sixty-eighth birthday. Those who knew him will remember him not alone for his talents and achievements, but as a man of exceptional character and as an ever faithful friend and good companion.     

From Darkness to Light

Not so long ago I happened to treat a Jewish eighth-grade gymnasium student brought to Petrograd from a province. It was fall and the following spring he was to take his qualifying examinations. The young man, who belonged to a prosperous family, had brilliant abilities and graduated from each class with excellent grades—what would you think his illness was? He suffered—in his own words—from the throes of creative writing. Days and nights he poured over a notebook with his compositions in search of the best form to express his thoughts. Only after applying incredible efforts could one tear him away from his note-books and send him to bed at five or six o'clock in the morning, and this happened on a daily basis. With each day his mental health grew worse. It was clear that the young man undermined his health by overstudying, and that he had reached the point where he needed to worry about his health, not his studies, because a serious mental illness was descending upon him. The young man was well liked by everyone in his high-school. The teachers considered him the best student, and having learned about his illness, they promised to petition to grant him the right to graduate from school without the final examination and with a certificate of excellent. But none of that helped. The young man could not relax, spending days and nights over his compositions and constantly tormenting himself with his "throes of creative writing."     

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 .     

Professor Ebashi's impact on the study of the regulation of striated muscle contraction

The field of striated muscle regulation has changed tremendously over the last forty years. Many of the problems solved by Dr. Ebashi and by those stimulated by him offer new challenges for future generations of scientists. Many questions remain to be solved, and it should give particular pleasure to Dr. Ebashi to see how the seeds sown by him and his colleagues have now grown into a beautiful tree that bears rich fruit at present and will continue to do so for a long time in the future.     

A Posteriori: Getting to the Bottom of Human Development

This article asserts that the most important physical feature distinguishing man from all other creatures, one which allowed for and contributed to the development of the thumb and the brain, which facilitated and encouraged the development of his imagination, his ability to think abstractly and even to doubt, and made it possible for him to master all other life forms and advance so far in containing and even conquering some forces of nature is his well-developed posterior; superior to that of all other living creatures: while sitting comfortably for long periods freed his hands and vision, it also allowed him to imagine and ponder what was over the horizon.     

Roderick K. Clayton: a life,and some personal recollections

Roderick K. Clayton passed away on October 23, 2011, at the age of 89, shortly after the plan for this dedicatory issue of Photosynthesis Research had been hatched. I had just written a lengthy letter to him to re-establish contact after a hiatus of 2 or 3 years, and to suggest that I visit him to talk about his life. It isn’t clear whether he saw the letter or not, but it was found at his home in Santa Rosa, California. Fortunately, Rod has written two memoirs for Photosynthesis Research that not only cover much of his research on reaction centers (Photosynth Res 73:63–71, 2002) but also provide a humorous and honest look at his personal life (Photosynth Res 19:207–224, 1988). I cannot hope to improve on these and will try, instead, to fill in some of the gaps that Rod’s own writing has left, and offer some of my own personal recollections over the more recent years.     

“That land of flowers,swamps and alligators”: S. B. Buckley’s 1843 trip up the St. Johns River,Florida

In 1843 S. B. Buckley (1809–1884) traveled up the St. Johns River, Florida in search of plants, shells, and possibly other natural history objects. Buckley encountered many difficulties in interior Florida and his trip did not live up to his original expectations. It was unfortunate that the took years to distribute his plant specimens, since few botanists or naturalists had preceded him into that poorly explored region.     

Weeds of Kentucky and Adjacent States. A field guide. By Patricia Dalton Haragan The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0336

In 1843 S. B. Buckley (1809–1884) traveled up the St. Johns River, Florida in search of plants, shells, and possibly other natural history objects. Buckley encountered many difficulties in interior Florida and his trip did not live up to his original expectations. It was unfortunate that the took years to distribute his plant specimens, since few botanists or naturalists had preceded him into that poorly explored region.     

Vincenzo Malacarne (1744-1816): a researcher in neurophysiology between anatomophysiology and electrical physiology of the human brain

Since his first years at Turin until the last years of his life at Padua, Vincenzo Malacarne devoted most of his time to the examination of the structures and the various parts of which the cerebellum and the human brain are composed. He is rightly considered as one of the first to have correctly described the anatomy of the cerebellum, as well in the field of human anatomy and comparative anatomy. However, his work cannot be reduced to these studies. He worked out a cerebral physiology, with organic and intellectual phenomena in mind, established on an anatomopsychic parallelism. This parallelism is itself founded on a rational and mathematical criterion: the number of lamellae contained in the cerebellum. A letter written by him in 1792 and addressed to Abbot Denina was recently found by the present author in November 2005 at the Academy of Sciences of Turin. Malacarne exposed his project of studying the animal electricity put forward by Galvani within the cerebral organ. May it be that Malacarne had in mind the physiology of his time while trying to record an electric activity within the brain?     

Cell volume regulation and ischemic tissue damage

Over years of friendly meetings with Professor Aharon Katzir-Katchalsky, many topics of mutual interest were discussed. He was the ideal person to come to with a problem. After being subjected to his critical, analytic mind, most research problems seemed simple, more clearly defined and understandable. His broad biologic and scientific background grew from an apparently insatiable interest in all natural phenomena. He generously shared his knowledge and imparted his wisdom with a share of his own infectious excitement. He was quick to sense the significance of understanding of biological processes to their practical application. For this reason it seems appropriate to relate the progress made in the understanding of cell volume regulation, which had been discussed on several occasions with him, to its possible significance as a factor in disease processes.Dr. Frega is a Fellow of the National Kidney Foundation, Inc., 1972–73.     

Ernst Blasius's contributions to plastic surgery

Blasius was a famous teacher and surgeon. Apart from his own writings on surgery and his new methods for reconstructions, such as the replacement of nose, lips, and eyelids, some theses were also inspired by him. His main work is his three-volume Handbuch der Akiurgie, to which he added an excellent atlas, from which a few illustrations are presented here. His books dealt not only with reconstructive problems, but also with almost every surgical event, e.g., amputations, laparotomy, dental extraction, and so on. Blasius's efforts were concerned with overcoming and preventing the worsening of the shape of newly reconstructed noses, lips, and eyelids due to secondarily healed scars, which was the common practice of the great surgeons of his time, such as von Graefe and Dieffenbach. Therefore, his efforts were toward the primary closure of wounds. In rhinoplasty, Blasius extended the forehead flap into three long points, and then extensions were made by infolding them. Furthermore, he mentioned the first use of a nasolabial flap to reconstruct the lower eyelid. Moreover, Blasius laid down basic principles in flap surgery, such as the V-Y plasty and probably the earliest record of the Z-plasty. His publications and illustrations give an excellent picture of the great advances made by him during the first half of the nineteenth century, thus making him an important contributor to the renaissance of plastic surgery.     

The plaintiff's attorney and obstetrics

This paper was presented before a meeting of plaintiffs' attorneys, including those who specialize in malpractice actions against physicians-the National Association of Claimants' Compensation Attorneys (NACCA). Doctor Eastman is known internationally for his contribution in the field of obstetrics. In recent years his interests have led him into the field of forensic obstetrics, a complex and difficult subject. Some of these problems are explored by Dr. Eastman in this paper and his comments will be of interest to physicians and attorneys. It is to be hoped that NACCA members benefited by this accurate and scientific presentation.     

Darwin diagnosed?

While waiting in lodgings to join H.M.S. Beagle just before Christmas 1831, Charles Darwin suffered chest pain and heart palpitations. On his return to England he began to suffer from a range of gut problems and systemic symptoms around the body, which were to plague him for the rest of his life. At least 40 conditions have been proposed to explain Darwin's illness, which left him disabled, sometimes for weeks on end. Here we show that lactose and food intolerance is the only condition that explains all his symptoms. Furthermore, there is now a molecular basis to account for these, based on metabolic toxins produced by microbes in the intestine. This mechanism has important implications in several other diseases, including diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, Parkinson's disease and some cancers. Lactose intolerance also has fascinating things to tell us about molecular evolution – the origin of lactose, the unique sugar in milk; why white humans were able to invade the plains of Europe after the last ice thaw, some 10 000 years ago; and one of the most intriguing problems in evolution – the origin of a new enzyme such as lactase, the enzyme responsible for cleaving lactose into its constituents monosaccharides, galactose and glucose.