The problematic role of 'irreversibility' in the definition of death

Most definitions of death – whether cardiopulmonary, whole brain and brain stem, or just upper brain – include an irreversibility condition. Cessation of function is not enough to declare death. Irreversibility should be limited to an organism's ability to 'restart' itself after vital organs have ceased to function. However, this would mean that every hour people who cannot be revived without the intervention of medical personnel and their technology are coming back from the dead. However, the alternative of irreversibility being dependent upon technology will lead to even more counterintuitive results such as: some people are dead at a particular time and place, but others in more technologically advanced eras and locations are alive despite their being in identical physical states; in the future, millions of cryogenically frozen human beings could spend centuries in a non–dead state because of the future technological breakthroughs; or large numbers of 'frozen' people are dead for aeons but coroners are not able to declare them so because they are unaware of what biological conditions science will never be able to reverse. So death should be defined only in non–relational biological terms with a self–starting condition similar to that once advocated by Lawrence Becker.     

Reginald Cory, Benefactor of Cambridge University Botanic Garden

Summary.  Reginald Cory (1871–1934) had a lifelong passion for plants and gardens and gave generously in support of many horticultural causes and establishments including Cambridge University Botanic Garden and the Royal Horticultural Society. On his death he left the residue of his estate to the Garden, its largest ever benefaction. Cory's relationship with the Garden is described, and the impact and subsequent use of the donation, which continues to be vital to the Garden's work today is considered.     

UNOBSERVED KILL OF NURSING DOLPHIN CALVES IN A TUNA PURSE-SEINE FISHERY

The kill of dolphins ( Stenella attenuata and S. longirostris ) in the eastern tropical Pacific tuna purse-seine fishery has been underestimated because of unobserved deaths of nursing calves due to separation from their mothers during fishing. Based on an analysis of dolphins killed from 1973 to 1990, and depending on the length at which calves are assumed to become independent, there was a deficit of calves relative to the number of lactating females killed in 24%–32% of 1,847 spotted-dolphin sets and in 13%–19% of 563 spinner-dolphin sets. We found a deficit of 0.31–0.45 spotted dolphin and 0.15–0.26 spinner dolphin calves per set. If these missing calves were added to the observed kill, it would represent an increase in the kill of 10%–15% for spotted dolphins and 6%–10% for spinner dolphins in the sets we examined. We did not attempt to estimate the actual number of unobserved calf deaths due to purse-seine fishing on dolphins, either in the sets we examined or in all dolphin sets. The actual number of unobserved calf deaths is likely to be higher than the calf deficit we found. Separation of dolphin mothers from calves could occur at any of several points in the fishing process, but most of these would be invisible to us and not produce a calf deficit. Estimation of the actual number of unobserved calf deaths would require further information on how frequently permanent mother-calf separations occur, the fraction of calves that survive after separation, the fraction of lactating females set upon that are carrying calves, and the fraction of calves killed that are actually related to lactating females killed in the same set. In any case, the observation of a calf deficit indicates that the reported dolphin kill fails to measure the full impact of purse-seine fishing on spotted and spinner dolphin populations.     

Interactions among adult males and females before and after the death of the alpha male in a free-ranging troop of Japanese macaques

This report documents the social interactions among adult Japanese macaques in a free-ranging troop before and after the death of the alpha male, who died at 28 years of age after occupying his rank position for 17 years. The alpha male’s physical condition had deteriorated due to his extreme age for several months before his death. However, he maintained his alpha position. When he was attacked by the second-ranking adult male, he was rescued by the alpha female. Thereafter, whenever the second-ranking male approached him, the alpha male screamed for the alpha female’s support. The number of adult females to whom the alpha male maintained proximity during his last four months was similar to that during the same period of the previous year. Prior to his death, the alpha male was observed in close proximity to the alpha female much more frequently than was the second-ranking male. These results indicate that the alpha male maintained his position by depending on female support and particularly that of the alpha female.     

H.J. Muller's contributions to mutation research

H. J. Muller is best known for his Nobel Prize work on the induction of mutations by ionizing radiation. Geneticists are less familiar with his contributions to mutation and how he related the process of mutagenesis to the gene and distinguished gene mutations from other genetic and epigenetic events such as polyploidy, chromosome rearrangements, and position effects. The hallmark of Muller's contributions is his design of genetic stocks to solve genetic problems and allow experimentation to reveal new phenomena. In this review I relate Muller's personality to his teaching and research and present a history of Muller's ideas on mutation from his first days in Morgan's fly lab to his final thoughts on what became called “Muller's ratchet”, a term he did not get to enjoy because it was coined seven years after his death.     

Marquis: A Defense of Abortion?

This is a reply to Don Marquis'Why Abortion is Immoral.' Marquis, who asserts that abortion is morally wrong, bases his argument on the following premise: Killing a being is morally wrong if that being is the sort of being who has a valuable future. I argue that this premise is false. I then assert that if I am correct about this premise being false, Marquis is faced with a dilemma. If he does not alter the premise in a way that makes it true, his argument is unsound. However, if he does make such an alteration, he must also alter a second premise in his argument, and this second change opens him to the charge of question begging. In addition, I conclude that such an alteration requires Marquis to adopt a position much like that taken by Judith J. Thompson in 'A Defense of Abortion,' a position he initially states is indefensible.     

Speaking out about the social implications of science: the uneven legacy of H. J. Muller

H. J. Muller (1890-1967) was unusual as a scientist because he spoke out on numerous occasions about the uses and abuses of genetics in society. In this article, I follow Muller's efforts to do so and the consequences that they had on his career, his productivity as a research scientist, and his reputation. The shifting sites of Muller's work--which ranged from Columbia University to Texas, from Berlin to Moscow and Leningrad, from Madrid to Edinburgh, and from Amherst to Indiana University--made his activism unusual. Muller paid a price for his activism, and his reputation today is still marred by what most historians would consider risky judgments and reversals of position about genetics and society. My analysis is not a defense but rather an evaluation of the circumstances that led him to these positions and an analysis of the consequences of challenging society when scientists believe their science is being ignored or abused.     

Obituary

Stephen Lapage was Curator of the National Collection of Type Cultures (NCTC), 1965–78. He took early retirement because of ill health; he made a good recovery from major surgery but sadly died in October 1990. He was a member of the Society for Applied Bacteriology from 1962 and served on its Committee, 1969–72. He had a national and international reputation for his energy and enthusiasm for various aspects of research and development in bacterial taxonomy and culture collections. Many will remember a colleague with very considerable organizational abilities, good humour and wide interests.     

Professor A. J. E. Cave 1900–2001

Few have served the Zoological Society of London longer or more faithfully than Alexander Cave who died on 17 May at the great age of 100.
As a Fellow, his record is outstanding: Member of Council, Vice President, Silver Medallist of the Society, Honorary Research Associate; and withal, an unending stream of original papers on various aspects of comparative anatomy. Unending? Well, almost, for he was still being published in his 95th year. Nor should be forgotten the great volume of work that he did in refereeing papers for the Journal of Zoology – an onerous and time-consuming task that he dealt with meticulously.     

Conflict and death in a late prehistoric community in the American Midwest

Over the past two decades, it has been recognized that the effects of intergroup conflict in prehistoric small-scale societies were greater than previously thought. Osteological evidence provides otherwise unobtainable information on the number of people who were killed, and who was most likely to become a casualty. One such site is Norris Farms #36 in the American Midwest, dating to ca. AD 1300. Skeletal evidence of injuries (blunt force trauma and arrow wounds), body mutilation (scalping, decapitation, and dismemberment), and scavenger damage indicate that one-third of the adults died in a series of ambushes, although children were mostly spared. Both young and old adults were killed, and the age distributions of the male and female victims were similar. Individuals with disabilities that interfered with mobility were more likely to be killed than their healthier counterparts. This level of conflict-related mortality almost certainly had an effect on the community's ability to conduct its affairs and, indeed, to survive as a viable economic and social group.     

AIF 的生物特性与功能

凋亡诱导因子(AIF)是一种具有氧化还原酶活性的黄素蛋白,在参与线粒体组成和能量代谢方面发挥重要作用。此外,AIF是一种不依赖caspase的凋亡因子,在凋亡刺激影响下,AIF经蛋白酶水解形成57 kD的成熟AIF,释放到胞质中,通过自身的NLS及CypA的辅助作用转位入核,引起染色质凝集和DNA的大片段化,导致细胞凋亡。AIF的这种双功能性是由其结构决定的,特有的插入序列构像的改变可影响其诱导细胞凋亡的活性。本文主要对AIF的结构及其功能作用进行综述。     

Post-copulatory mate guarding by males of the demselfly Hetaerina vulnerata Selys (Odonata: Calopterygidae)

Males of the calopterygid damselfly Hetaerina vulnerata remain with their mates after copulating with them. The species exhibits two unusual features of post-copulatory mate guarding. First, a male will often leave his territory to accompany a female in tandem on a search for oviposition sites elsewhere. Second, a male will perch near his ovipositing female even though she completely submerges when egg-laying and cannot be captured and mated by another male while she is underwater. These activities carry two potential costs: (1) a male may miss other receptive females while guarding one mate and (2) he may lose his territory to an interloper while he is absent. These costs were low, however, because territorial males secured only one mating per 3.6 days on average. Moreover, 23 times out of 26, territorial males reclaimed their plots quickly after being away for 30–60 min. The gain from postcopulatory guarding came from being present to recapture a female should she fly up from the water after rejecting an oviposition site. There was a 40% chance that a female would leave one site to search for another during an oviposition bout. If the male were not present, his mate would be captured and mated by another individual (no female ever selected an oviposition site without being carried to it by a male). Her new partner would fertilize the remaining eggs in the female's clutch (if sperm precedence occurs in this species). The total number of eggs fertilized by a male will be affected by how well he prevents any one mate from copulating again before she lays her entire clutch and the total number of receptive females he captures. The variation in the degree of mate guarding by male odonates seems to be the evolutionary outcome of differences in fitness gains derived from these two competing activities in different ecological settings.     

Bioethics,Disability, and the Good Life: Remembering Christopher Newell, 1964–2008

The untimely passing of Reverend Canon Dr Christopher Newell, AM, came as a shock to many in the bioethics world. As well as an obituary, this article notes a number of important themes in his work, and provides a select bibliography. Christopher's major contribution to this field is that he was one of a handful of scholars who made disability not only an acceptable area of bioethics—indeed a vital, central, fertile area of enquiry. Crucially Christopher emphasised that where we do ethics is actually in everyday life—while we mourn his passing, his rich work and example will continue to inspire bioethical inquiry.     

Stem demography and post fire recruitment of Podocarpus drouynianus: a resprouting non-serotinous conifer

Podocarpus drouynianus is unusual in the Podocarpaceae and conifers in general in being a strongly resprouting species which thrives in a fire-prone environment. The species is a dioecious, multi-stemmed shrub endemic to the eucalypt forests of the south-west of Western Australia. Stems are killed by fire but it is able to regenerate its foliage from a lignotuber. The total bud bank seems to be released by burning and death of the shoots, while pruning without fire releases only a proportion of available buds. Growth rate of resprouts is initially rapid, with stems reaching 25% of their mature length in the first year after fire. However, growth of juvenile plants is very slow. Fire promotes cone production on the new stems about one year after fire. The large seed is recalcitrant but timing of germination coincides with the wettest time of the year in the area where the species grows. Pyrogenic coning avoids loss of seed due to severe fires and is a form of mast reproduction that benefits this species by increasing pollen transfer and producing a mass seed crop to attract the primary vertebrate disperser – the emu. The strong resprouting ability ensures the species is resilient to frequent disturbance and to severe predation of the seed crop. Vertebrate dispersal tends to concentrate seed lots, making them vulnerable to predation if they are deposited in open areas. However, being dispersed by a large vertebrate will ensure long-distance dispersal, often to areas beyond that which was subject to fire. These would include vegetated areas, where the large seeds could lodge in safe sites and produce seedlings that are able to survive under the shade of established plants. © 2005 The Linnean Society of London, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society , 2005, 149 , 433–449.     

T. R. R. Stebbing:A bibliography with biographic notes

T. R. R. Stebbing (1835–1926), a specialist on the systematics of amphipod Crustacea, was raised in London in a literary family and studied classics, law and history at Oxford. After his ordination as a priest in 1859 he was a schoolmaster, then, after he married, a private tutor at Torquay. About 1863 he read Darwin's Origin of species and was convinced by it; by 1868 he had become a naturalist and systematist. In 1877 he moved to Tunbridge Wells where he spent the rest of his life studying Crustacea, active in scientific societies, and writing essays and reviews.
Stebbing's Darwinism was not particularly original, though he marshalled some good examples from the invertebrates to indicate the importance of variation within and between species. He regarded natural selection as a directing force by which God's plan for organisms was being worked out, and credited it with the origin of language, morality and religion. In taxonomic practice, Stebbing advocated priority of names, simple rules of transliteration and gender, and publication of new names only in a few easily-accessible journals. After the publication of the Regies internationales de la nomenclature zoologique in 1905 his writings on taxonomic practice were confined to minor issues.
A bibliography of Stebbing's 242 publications concerned with carcinology, Darwinism, nomenclature and miscellaneous subjects has been compiled.     

Apertural constrictions in some oncocerid cephalopods

Stridsberg, Sven 1981 12 15: Apertural constrictions in some oncocerid cephalopods. Lethaia , Vol. 14, pp. 269–276. Oslo. ISSN 0024–1164.
In some oncocerid cephalopods the shape of the aperture, siphuncle and the general outline of the shell have long served as generic characters. The aperture is mostly elaborated into a certain number of sinuses which take their final shape only in the adult. Therefore, knowledge of the relative age of the animal is required. The last chamber may serve as an indicator of age. A last chamber smaller than the second last indicates a mature specimen. This is because continued growth would have caused the death of the animal as the buoyancy turned negative. Moreover, it is of great importance to study the growth lines along the peristome to observe whether growth has ceased or not. Growth variations have been compared with growth stages. Furthermore, a constricted or contracted aperture can only be determined on specimens with the shell still preserved. Functional parallels are drawn between the Aprychopsis operculum and the restricted aperture. * Cephalopoda, Oncorerida. aperture, ontogeny, growth lines, functional morphologv , Aptychopsis. Silurian, Gotland .     

Killing, letting die and moral perception: a reply to Grant Gillett

A number of philosophers in recent times have employed arguments to show that there is no morally relevant difference between killing a patient and allowing that patient to die in those circumstances where the outcome is virtually identical and where death is preventable, at least for a significant time. From his perspective as both a philosopher and a clinician, Grant Gillett has rejected such general and abstract arguments in the light of the intuitions and moral perceptions available to clinicians and those who care for the terminally ill. I argue that his strategy fails, is massively question-begging, and that his appeal to the notion of 'moral particularism', far from being an alternative to cogent philosophical argument, actually supports the very position he has attempted to discredit.     

The ethics of euthanasia: advocates' perspectives

The Netherlands is currently the only country in the world in which euthanasia is legally permissible. More specifically, Dutch law (briefly explained) allows that a doctor terminates the life of a patient of hers on his voluntary, well-considered and sustained request, if he is suffering unbearably and hopelessly. The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the Dutch debate on the moral permissibility of euthanasia so as to clarify and strengthen the various views that can be advanced in support of euthanasia. On the one view, The Pure Autonomy View (TPAV), the justification of euthanasia rests solely on the principle of respect for autonomy. That is, the reason for performing and permitting euthanasia is the patient's voluntary, well-considered and sustained, in one word: autonomous, request for euthanasia. On the alternative view, The Joint View (TJV), the principle of respect for autonomy and the principle of beneficence morally justify euthanasia together . That is, euthanasia is ethical if and partly because, since the patient is suffering unbearably and hopelessly, euthanasia is in his interest. According to this paper, there is no easy argument for one of these views rather than the other. Instead, as yet both TPAV and TJV seem inherently problematic. TPAV is unable to give a doctor a reason for performing euthanasia that appeals to her in her capacity as a doctor, such as relief of suffering. And TJV begs the question – for example, if a state were to legalize euthanasia on grounds of TJV, it would force the view upon its citizens that it may be in a person's interest to die.     

What Bateson had in Mind About ‘Mind’?

G. Bateson believed that the scientific school of the future would be ‘ecology of mind’. The first aim of this paper is to understand what he meant by ‘mind’, and the other is to understand how this concept emerged in his thought, i.e., how its meaning would become more flexible throughout his life and work. Furthermore, we will approach the epistemological implications of ecology of mind for scientific education in the West. Bateson’s concept of mind emerged when he became aware (in 1926) of his own way of thinking, i.e., of his immense abductive capacity. This led him to search for patterns of similarity and difference between organisms (like in homology). Later, he identified this thought process as being abstract and formal, relating not just facts but also ideas. Afterwards, Bateson developed criteria for us to consider a system as being mental, with special emphasis on living and cybernetic systems.     

Herbert Tabor (1918–1920): obituary.

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

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