Bart's familiar quotations: the enduring biological wisdom of George A. Bartholomew

George A. Bartholomew was one of the most influential organismal biologists of the twentieth century. His insights and research were fundamental to the establishment and growth of physiological ecology and evolutionary physiology. In the process of fostering that area of science, he created a body of literature that is striking in the clarity of its thought and presentation. Here we present some of his most insightful and important quotations, group them thematically, and comment on their original context and their continuing relevance.     

Commentaries on field‐laboratory collaborations in primatology: Introduction to a special section of the American Journal of Primatology

Finding better approaches to bridge field and laboratory primate research was identified as an important goal in a recent (2017) member survey of the American Society of Primatologists. Collaborative field‐captive research was identified by >60% of respondents as somewhat or very underrepresented in the Society. In this introductory essay for a special section of American Journal of Primatology, I review commonalities and differences in the papers that were requested from field‐captive primate collaborative teams. Each team approached important primate biology or welfare problems from different perspectives. The five commentaries in this section addressed how the collaborations began, scientific benefits that accrued, and insights or challenges that researchers faced in the collaboration. Despite the fact that the specific fields of inquiry were different (conservation genetics, chimpanzee captive welfare, environmental physiology, feeding biology, and reproductive physiology), the commentaries converged on the concept that an intentional, interdisciplinary approach, that included field observations and experiments informed by laboratory expertise, were essential to achieving innovative results.     

Physiology in the oeuvre of a prominent Hungarian medical scientist--Endre H"ogyes.

Endre Hógyes, one of the most prominent and internationally-renown leaders in the field of medical research, especially the treatment of rabies, was born one hundred and fifty years ago in Hungary. E. Hógyes had started his medical and research carrier in 1870. In 1889 he had become vice-president of the Royal Hungarian Society of Natural Sciences and was elected as a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) and that member of the National Council of Public Health. Scientific carrier of E. Hógyes has always been closely linked to physiological sciences. E Hógyes made a significant contribution to different areas of physiological sciences; his most important scientific publications in this field deal with renal physiology, respitary mechanics, cerebellar function, and associated eye movement. Endre Hógyes was the first to organize Hungarian physiologists into a community. The "Special Physiological Conferences" were initiated within the Hungarian Royal Society of Natural Sciences in 1891. As a token of appretiation, Hungarian physiologists and other medical professionals have announced the year of 1997 as a memorial year of Dr. Endre Hógyes.     

Laurence Irving: an appreciation

Laurence Irving (1895-1979) contributed significantly over five decades to the development of environmentally oriented physiological studies. He is best known for his investigations of the physiology of diving mammals, the respiratory properties of fish blood, and cold adaptation and acclimatization in poikilotherms and homeotherms, including man. Beyond his own research contributions, Irving benefited American comparative physiology through his key roles in the immigration of Per F. Scholander and Knut and Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen to the United States. The Irving-Scholander research collaboration provides a substantial legacy for comparative physiology. Laurence Irving's administrative contributions include service as the first scientific director of the Arctic Research Laboratory at Barrow, Alaska, and as the founding director of the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. These units have assured the implementation of his philosophy of combining laboratory and field studies in the investigation of environmentally oriented physiological problems. Laurence Irving was an ardent advocate for Alaskan research, and his efforts were an important help in the advancement of science in the state.     

Using a classic paper by Gottschalk and Mylle to teach the countercurrent model of urinary concentration

Most undergraduates lack the scientific background to read and appreciate much of the primary literature in physiology. Even when the underlying concepts are elegantly simple, the inherent complexity of contemporary papers often makes the work inaccessible to them. However, with a little help, they can be guided to an understanding of the creative thought processes that underlie the research and to appreciate its significance. This is especially true of many classic papers in physiology that often rely on easily comprehensible techniques. Moreover, the American Physiological Society (APS) has invited prominent scientists to select important papers in their fields and to write essays that both put the work into historical context and explain why it is scientifically important. The APS Legacy Project makes these classic papers freely available online. One such paper by Gottschalk and Mylle presents data from a series of micropuncture studies that confirm all of the predictions of the countercurrent exchange model of concentrated urine production (2). The included handout of questions for discovery learning and teaching points suggest ways to use the paper as an instructional resource.     

Edmund Vincent Cowdry and the Making of Gerontology as a Multidisciplinary Scientific Field in the United States

The Canadian–American biologist Edmund Vincent Cowdry played an important role in the birth and development of the science of aging, gerontology. In particular, he contributed to the growth of gerontology as a multidisciplinary scientific field in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. With the support of the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, he organized the first scientific conference on aging at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where scientists from various fields gathered to discuss aging as a scientific research topic. He also edited Problems of Ageing (1939), the first handbook on the current state of aging research, to which specialists from diverse disciplines contributed. The authors of this book eventually formed the Gerontological Society in 1945 as a multidisciplinary scientific organization, and some of its members, under Cowdry’s leadership, formed the International Association of Gerontology in 1950. This article historically traces this development by focusing on Cowdry’s ideas and activities. I argue that the social and economic turmoil during the Great Depression along with Cowdry’s training and experience as a biologist – cytologist in particular – and as a textbook editor became an important basis of his efforts to construct gerontology in this direction.     

Angelo Mosso and muscular fatigue: 116 years after the first Congress of Physiologists: IUPS commemoration

At the first International Congress of Physiologists in Basel, Switzerland, the Italian physiologist Angelo Mosso (1846-1910) discussed his findings on muscular fatigue while demonstrating the functioning of an ergograph (work recorder). One hundred sixteen years later, Mosso's career, scientific accomplishments, and legacy in the study of muscular fatigue were commemorated at the 2005 International Congress of Physiological Sciences. After receiving his degree in Medicine and Surgery from Turin, Italy, in 1870, Mosso was able to study and interact with renowned physiologists as Wilhelm Ludwig, Du Bois-Reymond, Hugo Kronecker, and Etienne Marey. By 1879, he was Professor of Physiology at the University in Turin, where he conducted research pertaining to blood circulation, respiration, physical education, high-altitude physiology, and muscular fatigue. Using tracings from the ergograph (concentric contractions of the flexor muscles of the middle finger that were volitionally or electrically stimulated), he was able to characterize muscle fatigue and to associate its occurrence with central or peripheral influences. He demonstrated that exercise would increase muscular strength and endurance while prolonging the occurrence of fatigue, which he postulated was a chemical process that involved the production of toxic substances such as carbonic acid. The phenomenon of contracture was described, and his collective studies led to the formulation of laws pertaining to exhaustion and to the 1891 publication of La Fatica (Fatigue). Besides La Fatica, Mosso will be remembered as a scientist with a love for physiology, a concern for the social welfare of his countrymen, and as one who sought to integrate physiological, philosophical, and psychological concepts in his experimental studies.     

Robert Earle Buchanan: an unappreciated scientist

Robert Earle Buchanan (1883-1973), 19th President of the Society of American Bacteriologists (later American Society for Microbiology), was one of the more important 20th century microbiologists. He was a dominant force in creating the field of bacterial systematics and made significant contributions to microbial physiology. He also numbered a number of influential textbooks. A reasonable conclusion is that Buchanan was a major cultivator of modern microbiology. To justify that assertion, I have four major objectives in this essay: i) a brief biographical review of Buchanan's early life; ii) a brief review of his scientific contributions, many of which go beyond his recognized contributions to bacterial systematics; iii) Buchanan was an important academic administrator who created the microbiology program and fostered a strong graduate education program at Iowa State, iv)finally, I close the essay with a focus on Buchanan's "moral character."     

The characterization of restriction endonucleases: the work of Hamilton Smith

Purification of the HhaII Restriction Endonuclease from an Overproducer Escherichia coli Clone(Kelly, S., Kaddurah-Daouk, R., and Smith, H. O. (1985) J. Biol. Chem. 260, 15339–15344)Catalytic Properties of the HhaII Restriction Endonuclease(Kaddurah-Daouk, R., Cho, P., and Smith, H. O. (1985) J. Biol. Chem. 260, 15345–15351)Hamilton Othanel Smith was born in 1931 in New York City. In 1937, he and his family moved to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, because his father had joined the faculty of the department of education at the University of Illinois. As a boy, Smith was interested in chemistry, electricity, and electronics, and he spent many hours with his brother in their basement laboratory, which was stocked with supplies purchased from their paper route earnings. Smith attended a small college preparatory school called the University Laboratory High School and graduated in 3 years largely due to his science teacher who allowed him to complete chemistry and physics during the summer.Open in a separate windowHamilton O. SmithAfter finishing high school, Smith enrolled at the University of Illinois, majoring in mathematics. During his sophomore year, his brother showed him a book on mathematical modeling of central nervous system circuits by Nicolas Rashevsky. This caught his interest, and after transferring to the University of California, Berkeley, Smith immersed himself in courses in cell physiology, biochemistry, and biology. A guest lecture by Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) Classic author George Wald (1) describing his studies of retinal biochemistry soon converted Smith into a devoted student of visual physiology and eventually motivated him to apply to medical school.In 1952, Smith began his studies at the Johns Hopkins University Medical School. He received his M.D. 4 years later and went to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis for a medical internship. However, in 1957, Smith was called up in the Doctor Draft and joined the U.S. Navy. He finished his Navy service in 1959 and moved to Detroit to begin a medical residency training at the Henry Ford Hospital. There he became interested in bacteriophage and decided that this would be the focus of his research.So, in 1962, Smith began his research career with Myron Levine in the department of human genetics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He and Levine carried out a series of studies demonstrating the sequential action of the phage P22 C-genes, which controlled lysogenization. They also discovered the gene controlling prophage attachment, now known as the int gene, and carried out a study of defective transducing particles formed after induction of int mutant prophage.In 1967, Smith joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins University as an assistant professor of microbiology and continued his bacteriophage research. A year later, working with Thomas J. Kelly, Jr. and Kent W. Wilcox, Smith isolated and characterized the first Type II restriction endonuclease (HindII) from Haemophilus influenzae and determined the sequence of its cleavage site (2, 3). In recognition of this discovery, he was awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Werner Arber and Daniel Nathans.These studies led to Smith''s subsequent research on DNA methylases and nucleases in H. influenzae. The two JBC Classics reprinted here detail Smith''s efforts to discover the rules governing sequence recognition in the Type II restriction endonuclease HhaII via x-ray crystallography. To facilitate these studies, Smith and his colleagues engineered a two-plasmid system in Escherichia coli that overproduced HhaII on induction with isopropylthiogalactoside (IPTG). The first paper describes the induction characteristics of the two-plasmid overproducer clone and purification of the endonuclease. The second paper, published back-to-back with the first, details the catalytic properties of the endonuclease. Smith used two methods to follow the reactions: 1) gel electrophoretic analysis of nicked circular and linear DNA products, and 2) release of ³²P-labeled inorganic phosphate from specifically labeled HhaII sites in a reaction coupled with bacterial alkaline phosphatase. Smith''s two-plasmid system eventually allowed him to obtain crystals of the HhaII endonuclease with a heptanucleotide DNA duplex (4).Smith served on the faculty at Johns Hopkins for 30 years before retiring as American Cancer Society Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of Molecular Biology and Genetics in 1998. In 1993, he accepted an appointment to the scientific advisory council of The Institute for Genomic Research, which led to his collaboration with J. Craig Venter in the sequencing of H. influenzae by whole genome shotgun sequencing and assembly. Five years later, Smith joined Celera Genomics, where he was senior director of DNA Resources and aided in the sequencing of the Drosophila and human genomes. In 2005, he co-founded Synthetic Genomics, an off-shoot of Celera. He also serves as scientific director of the Synthetic Biology & Biological Energy Groups at the J. Craig Venter Institute. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Smith has received several honors including election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1980.¹     

The Society of Nematologists at 50, and Where to from Here?

Nathan Cobb, as the father figure of the Society of Nematologists, set an example to later generations of nematologists in his studies of nematode biology. In the 50 years of the Society’s existence nematological research has greatly expanded that knowledge base. Opportunities over the next 50 years are boundless in view of advancing technologies and emerging challenges, and this leads to speculation as to what future nematological research advances will enhance peoples’ quality of life.     

Uncertain legislator: Georges Cuvier's laws of nature in their intellectual context

Conclusion We should now be able to come to some general conclusions about the main lines of Cuvier's development as a naturalist after his departure from Normandy. We have seen that Cuvier arrived in Paris aware of the importance of physiology in classification, yet without a fully worked out idea of how such an approach could organize a whole natural order. He was freshly receptive to the ideas of the new physiology developed by Xavier Bichat.Cuvier arrived in a Paris also torn by many overlapping debates on the nature of classification, and in particular that between the natural and artificial systems. The very validity of the enterprise of classification was questioned in many quarters. Cuvier's achievement on his entry into the Parisian world of science was not simply to establish himself as a highly competent anatomist: far more important, he also began to use ideas from many different specialties to change completely the notion of what was involved in natural history.¹²⁴ At the same time that he himself swung away from the guiding image of the field naturalist as the ideal of the specialty, he took ideas from the new physiology to answer questions about the order of the animal world, and from comparative anatomy to resurrect extinct creation — and to come to conclusions from that creation about the history of the forms of life and the manner of their succession. He showed himself able to alter the relationships between natural history and many other fields of study in a way that implied, rightly or wrongly, his own complete mastery over such a movement. Partly he was able to do this because the ideas he borrowed were not themselves logically articulated and thus could be easily adapted and refocused for many different specific purposes. The value of the heuristic possibilities inherent in the idea of life, for example, far outweighed its inability to generate full systems of classification. Cuvier also consistently refused to consider in science matters relating to the first causes of events. Freed from the consideration of first-order phenomena, he was able to use second-order explanations across a far wider field of applicability. Personal doubts about the validity of a theology that had used science in order to bolster its own claims were combined here with the strong influence of the Kantian critique of the limits of human reason.¹²⁵ Cuvier's characteristic mode of procedure was that of intellectual appropriation and a bold capacity for altering the relationships between different fields of knowledge, rather than, with the exception of taxonomy, the technique of expanding their subject matter. His claims to originality came, first, from this reappropriation and reorientation and, second, from the sheer scope of his work, which aimed at nothing less than the cataloging and classification of all animate objects.¹²⁶ They rested also on his acute use of his assertion of a certain relationship with the past of his subject. Very often he would present this history in such a way as to obscure his own intellectual genealogy, and often too he would give differing accounts of the priority of use of an idea in order to distract attention from the questionable exactitude of his own claims to originality. Cuvier came to Paris at precisely the time when society and institutions were most profitably malleable for a newcomer; it was also a time when many scientific disciplines had reached a stage advanced in terms of their factual content, yet relatively inadequate in conceptual organization. They were ripe for takeover by large-scale organizing ideas such as the animal economy and the subordination of characteristics. Paleontology is a particularly good example of a specialty in this particular form of underdevelopment in 1795.Cuvier paid a high price for his initial success. His electic applications of large-scale organizing ideas tended to mean that little of his own work had complete coherence at all levels. Ideas, as we have seen, that proved capable of providing a complete reform of the larger groups of the animal kingdom were incapable of producing its detailed working-out in the taxonomy of smaller groups, which had to be supplied from observed analogical correlations. Further, his physiological approach to classification involved the breakdown of strict correspondence between organs and functions, which left the way open for workers such as Geoffroy St. Hilaire gradually to tilt the balance away from the study of the correlations of hierarchies of functions, and toward morphology as the basis of the order of nature. Cuvier's brilliant appropriations from physiology from the beginning, therefore, contained the seeds of conflict with Geoffroy.Cuvier's eclectic approach made it very nearly impossible for him to present a clear idea of the ways in which the life sciences could be said to be lawful. In spite of his efforts to assimilate them to the position of the physical sciences in this respect, he was forced in the end to accord only an ambiguous status as laws to observational correlations. From this area of failure came much of the attempt to give his own two laws — the correlation of parts and the subordination of characteristics — predictive qualities, particularly in relation to paleontological research.It is not surprising that Cuvier's title as the legislator of natural history should represent more a claim than a reality. How, then, was he able to emerge as the leading French naturalist of his day? First of all must be adduced the sheer scale of his undertakings. Then comes his expertise as a practical anatomist, and the range of different topics toward which he turned his interest. His collaborators cannot be given credit for his output nor, as we have seen, for slavish adherence to his ideas. Cuvier was able to successfully claim to have dominated the underdeveloped specialties, such as paleontology, and turned them into a major heuristic input into both geology and comparative anatomy; but in other fields, such as physiology, he appropriated concepts and encouraged research but made little impact on the field himself. His attempts in 1812 to head off, or neutralize and absorb the growth of morphological studies landed him in a dangerously rigid position, which despite his encouragement of the new physiological research under the Restoration made further elaboration of his own conceptual underpinnings almost impossible.Cuvier's authority in the scientific world would in any case have been great because of his substantive achievement in taxonomy, but the rest of his work had enough ambiguities and dislocations for it to need the support of his political and social power. Cuvier's detractors seized on a vital fragment of the truth when they accused him of finding the political dimension all-important: it obscured the disjunctions in his theories and at the same time gave him the authority to make new claims for the status of the observational sciences - and for their relations of power with their surrounding specialties. Cuvier's science both thrived on and was halted by the power games of intellectual appropriation, manipulation of the past to confirm the present, and continual claims for hegemony.     

The legacy of Hans Molisch (1856–1937), photosynthesis savant

Hans Molisch (1856–1937) was an exceptionally gifted and productive researcher who had broad interests in plant biology, physiology and biochemistry. In addition, he pioneered in isolating a number of species of purple photosynthetic bacteria in pure culture (including Rhodobacter capsulatus), which facilitated his discovery of basic aspects of bacterial photosynthesis. Molisch demonstrated conclusively that molecular oxygen is not produced by photosynthetic bacteria, and discovered the photoheterotrophic growth mode. The range of Molisch's research accomplishments was impressive, and he emerges as a major figure in the history of photosynthesis research. This essay reviews the numerous research contributions made by Molisch, particularly in regard to advancing knowledge of the several forms of photosynthetic metabolism. An English translation of his 1914 paper on the photosynthetic creation of visual images on leaves is included as an Appendix.     

Epistemic and community transition in American evolutionary studies: the ‘Committee on Common Problems of Genetics,Paleontology, and Systematics’ (1942–1949)

The Committee on Common Problems of Genetics, Paleontology, and Systematics (United States National Research Council) marks part of a critical transition in American evolutionary studies. Launched in 1942 to facilitate cross-training between genetics and paleontology, the Committee was also designed to amplify paleontologist voices in modern studies of evolutionary processes. During coincidental absences of founders George Gaylord Simpson and Theodosius Dobzhansky, an opportunistic Ernst Mayr moved into the project’s leadership. Mayr used the opportunity for programmatic reforms he had been pursuing elsewhere for more than a decade. These are evident in the Bulletins he distributed under Committee auspices. In his brief tenure as Committee leader, Mayr gained his first substantial foothold within the coalescing community infrastructure of evolutionary studies. Carrying this momentum forward led Mayr directly into the project to launch the journal Evolution. The sociology of interdisciplinary activity provides useful tools for understanding the Committee’s value in the broad sweep of change in evolutionary studies during the synthesis period.     

The Role of Binding Energy in Catalysis: the Work of William P. Jencks

Two Functional Domains of Coenzyme A Activate Catalysis by Coenzyme A Transferase. Pantetheine and Adenosine 3′-Phosphate 5′-Diphosphate (Fierke, C. A., and Jencks, W. P. (1986) J. Biol. Chem. 261, 7603–7606)William Platt Jencks (1927–2007) was born in Bar Harbor, Maine. He became interested in chemistry when he received a chemistry set for Christmas in 1934. He immediately carried out one of the experiments described in the instructions, the addition of dilute acid to a sulfide salt to produce H₂S. The experiment was so successful that his house had to be evacuated due to the smell of rotten eggs. According to Jencks, “My family and I did not find it necessary to replicate this experiment” (1).Open in a separate windowWilliam P. JencksJencks enrolled at Harvard College, intending to study chemistry. However, after taking a first year course in chemistry that “described a large number of chemical reactions, one after the other, with no indication of what was interesting about any of them” (1), he switched his major to English. Despite this change in the direction of his studies, Jencks ended up entering Harvard Medical School after his junior year because he wasn''t sure what else to do.After completing his first year of medical school, Jencks spent a summer at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, taking courses and doing research on lobster shell pigments with Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) Classic author George Wald (2). He received his M.D. in 1951 and then interned at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. However, after a while, Jencks found medicine to be “a very broad field in which it would be difficult to obtain definitive answers to fundamental problems” (1). Wald suggested Jencks try doing research at Massachusetts General Hospital with Nobel laureate Fritz Lipmann (who was featured in a previous JBC Classic (3)). Jencks ended up spending 2 years with Lipmann, studying coenzyme A transferase, which led to his longtime interest in the physical organic chemistry of acyl transfer reactions. After leaving Massachusetts General Hospital, Jencks spent a year doing postdoctoral studies at Harvard University with Nobel laureate Robert Woodward before joining the faculty at Brandeis University in 1957, serving as assistant, associate, and then full professor of biochemistry. He retired in 1996 as professor emeritus of biochemistry.During his 39 years at Brandeis University, Jencks studied the mechanisms by which enzymes facilitate chemical reactions of molecules that are not otherwise inclined to react at a useful rate.The JBC Classic reprinted here looks at the noncovalent interactions between succinyl-CoA 3-ketoacid coenzyme A transferase and coenzyme A. In the paper, Jencks and Carol A. Fierke used a small coenzyme A analog, methylmercaptopropionate, to show that noncovalent interactions between the enzyme and the side chain of CoA are responsible for the reaction rate increase brought about by the enzyme. They report that interaction between the enzyme and the pantetheine moiety of CoA provides the majority of substrate destabilization and rate acceleration, whereas the interaction with the 3′-phospho-ADP1 moiety provides binding energy that overcomes this destabilization and permits significant binding of acyl-CoA substrates to the enzyme. This paper helped to illuminate a striking example of the role of binding energy in catalysis.Jencks received many honors and awards for his contributions to science, including memberships in the National Academy of Sciences (1971) and the American Philosophical Society (1995) and foreign membership in the Royal Society. He also received the 1962 American Chemical Society (ACS) Award in Biological Chemistry, the 1993 American Society of Biological Chemists Award, the 1995 ACS James Flack Norris Award in Physical Organic Chemistry, and the 1996 ACS Repligen Award for Chemistry of Biological Processes.¹     

The "sensational" power of movement in plants: A Darwinian system for studying the evolution of behavior

Darwin's research on botany and plant physiology was a landmark attempt to integrate plant movements into a biological perspective of behavior. Since antiquity, people have sought to explain plant movements via mechanical or physiological forces, and yet they also constructed analogies between plant and animal behavior. During the Renaissance and Enlightenment, thinkers began to see that physiochemical explanations of plant movements could equally apply to animal behavior and even human thought. Darwin saw his research on plant movements as a strategic front against those who argued that his theory of evolution could not account for the acquisition of new behavioral traits. He believed that his research explained how the different forms of plant movement evolved as modified habits of circumnutation, and he presented evidence that plants might have a brain-like organ, which could have acquired various types of plant sensitivity during evolution. Upon publication of The Power of Movement in Plants, his ideas were overwhelmingly rejected by plant physiologists. Subsequently, plant biologists came to view the work as an important contribution to plant physiology and biology, but its intended contribution to the field of evolution and behavior has been largely overlooked.     

The Claude Bernard Distinguished Lecture. In pursuit of meaningful learning

The Bernard Distinguished Lecturers are individuals who have a history of experience and expertise in teaching that impacts multiple levels of health science education. Dr. Joel Michael more than meets these criteria. Joel earned a BS in biology from CalTech and a PhD in physiology from MIT following which he vigorously pursued his fascination with the mammalian central nervous system under continuous National Institutes of Health funding for a 15-yr period. At the same time, he became increasingly involved in teaching physiology, with the computer being his bridge between laboratory science and classroom teaching. Soon after incorporating computers into his laboratory, he began developing computer-based learning resources for his students. Observing students using these resources to solve problems led to an interest in the learning process itself. This in turn led to a research and development program, funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), that applied artificial intelligence to develop smart computer tutors. The impact of problem solving on student learning became the defining theme of National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported research in health science education that gradually moved all of Dr. Michael's academic efforts from neurophysiology to physiology education by the early 1980's. More recently, Joel has been instrumental in developing and maintaining the Physiology Education Research Consortium, a group of physiology teachers from around the nation who collaborate on diverse projects designed to enhance learning of the life sciences. In addition to research in education and learning science, Dr. Michael has devoted much of his time to helping physiology teachers adopt modern approaches to helping students learn. He has organized and presented faculty development workshops at many national and international venues. The topics for these workshops have included computer-based education, active learning, problem-based learning, and the use of general models in teaching physiology.     

Alcide d’Orbigny (1802–1857) : sa vie et son œuvre

Numerous fields of Life and Earth Sciences as well as Human Sciences are indebted to Alcide d’Orbigny for his huge and innovating work. From his long journey in South America, he brought back a rich wealth of scientific collections and information related to Botany, Zoology, physical and human Geography, Geology, and Ethnography. Founder of Micropalaeontology, by his foraminiferal studies, and of Biostratigraphy, he is still present in Sciences today thanks to the numerous implications of his works in numerous domains of both academic research and economic sector.     

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。       

Prison became second home for psychiatrist (George Scott).

Retired prison psychiatrist George Scott recalls his career working in Canada''s penal system, including his peacemaking role in a hostage-taking incident and his work with Steven Truscott. Life "inside" is dangerous for guards, inmates, staff and psychiatrists, he says, but he never regretted his decision to devote his career to studying criminal behaviour.