Inbreeding,eugenics, and Helen Dean King (1869–1955)

Helen Dean King’s scientific work focused on inbreeding using experimental data collected from standardized laboratory rats to elucidate problems in human heredity. The meticulous care with which she carried on her inbreeding experiments assured that her results were dependable and her theoretical explanations credible. By using her nearly homozygous rats as desired commodities, she also was granted access to venues and people otherwise unavailable to her as a woman. King’s scientific career was made possible through her life experiences. She earned a doctorate from Bryn Mawr College under Thomas Hunt Morgan and spent a productive career at the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology in Philadelphia where she had access to the experimental subjects which made her career possible. In this paper I examine King’s work on inbreeding, her participation in the debates over eugenics, her position at the Wistar Institute, her status as a woman working with mostly male scientists, and her involvement with popular science.     

Nettie Maria Stevens (1861-1912)

Nettie M. Stevens is one of the first women who contributed to genetic research. She discovered the role of sex chromosomes in sex determination during the first decade of the twentieth century. However, her discovery has rarely been recognized, and her scientific reputation was eclipsed by that of T.H. Morgan, who was credited for the establishment of modern genetics. Her name is absent from most biology and genetic texts. It is now time to recognize her valuable contribution with this short biography.     

Anna Fraentzel Celli (1878-1958)

This paper provides a short history of Anna Fraentzel Celli life, from her arrival in Italy in 1898 to her death in 1958, reviewing available documents and written testimonies. Anna Fraentzel was born in Berlin in 1878, third of four daughters from a bourgeois family; her maternal grandfather, Luigi Traube, was a very well known physician, as well as her father Oscar, and she developed an early interest in medicine that she couldn't fulfill: actually after her father's death she was forced to shorten her education, she couldn't enter the medical school, as she would have liked to, and she attended the nursing school, instead, displaying a lot of good practical sense. As a nurse in Hamburg in 1896 she met Prof. Angelo Celli, who was there on a professional visit, and who assisted the young nurse in finding a job at the city hospital. She was much younger than him, who was already a middle aged respected scientist; anyhow, even after his departure, they kept in touch and eventually fell in love. They married in 1899 and she moved to Rome to work at the S. Spirito Hospital joining a brilliant group of physicians and researchers as Tommasi-Crudeli, Marchiafava, Bignami, Bastianelli, Dionisi, Grassi, and her husband Angelo. They had long been studying the mode of transmission of the malaria infection and in 1898 they had identified the mosquito Anopheles as the vector of the malaria parasite. She got enthusiastically involved both in the scientific work and in the antimalarial campaign which Celli promoted in the Agro Romano. The strong personality of Anna Celli, her active involvement in social problems, her passionate dedication to her work, her peculiar way of being feminist, expressed fully her commitment to the struggle against malaria and illiteracy in the Agro Romano and in the Paludi Pontine at the beginning of the twentieth century. She must be credited as a major force in the creation and functioning of the Peasant Schools, as well as in the organisation of the experimental antimalarial health clinics. After her husband's death in 1914 she continued as a promoter of the antimalarial campaign, co-operating with the Red Cross and other institutions. Moreover, she edited the scientific and historical papers which Angelo Celli had collected and written during his life. She was also a prolific writer and lecturer on these issues and gained widespread appreciation both in Italy and in Germany. Toward the end of her life she retired to a nursing home in Rome where she died almost alone in 1958.     

An interview with Olivia Gude about connecting school and community arts practice

ABSTRACT

Olivia Gude has a long and distinguished career as both a public artist and an art educator. She is currently the Angela Gregory Paterakis Professor and Chair of Art Education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where she works with graduate and undergraduate students to prepare for working as artist educators in school and community settings. Her scholarly work includes a number of articles and book chapters about art education and community art. Prof. Gude has worked as a community public artist for many years and has created over 30 large-scale mural and mosaic projects, working with intergenerational groups, teens, elders, and children. I interviewed Prof. Gude at the SAIC building in downtown Chicago to discuss how her school, university, and community art engagement as well as her work with the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards, might offer suggestions for transforming arts education for the twenty-first century and provide authentic connections between school and community. Prof. Gude discusses important enduring understandings and big ideas from the new Visual Arts National Core Arts Standards, the Spiral Workshop youth art and research project she created while at University of Illinois at Chicago, and how her experience as a community artist informs her work with students in classroom settings.     

Memoirs of an amnesiac--two years with brain cancer,or the outer space of living with brain tumors.

Alexandra Dane Dor-Ner ("Ali" to friends) was a photographer, writer, and a producer of programs on child development. In February 1989, at the age of 41, she was diagnosed with malignant brain cancer. During the following months she underwent brain surgery, radiation, and implant radiation. Throughout her treatment, she continued to work on a novel and write stores and literary criticism. A volunteer in hospitals before her illness, she now became very active in a support group of brain tumor patients and often served as a first resource and contact for others diagnosed with brain cancer. All was very accomplished; her award-winning photographs have been exhibited in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, and her articles and pictures were published in books, periodicals, and newspapers around the world. A native of Boston, Ali lived for 17 years in Israel, where she joined a group of photographers documenting disappearing neighborhoods in Jerusalem. She was awarded first prize in the "Israel Through the Camera''s Eye" competition in 1977. She also taught English and photography in Israeli high schools. Ali traveled extensively on photographic assignments. Early in their 22-year marriage, she and her husband circumnavigated the globe on a freighter, producing a documentary film of the voyage. "Memoirs of an Amnesiac" was written while Ali was a student at the Warren Wilson College Writers'' Program in North Carolina; she intended to explore the compensatory aspects of her disease. In February 1991, within days of completing the piece, Ali had a third brain operation to remove a regrowth of cancerous tumor cells, as well as necrotic tissue. Two days later, she was again operated on to remove blood clots resulting from the previous surgery. For the next 12 weeks she fought to regain her ability to walk, talk, and write. In May, she underwent a fifth operation to relieve pressure in the brain. She was still in the hospital when she learned, to her great pleasure, that she would be awarded a master of fine arts degree from Warren Wilson College. She died on June 19, 1991.     

Raissa L. Berg's contributions to the study of phenotypic integration,with a professional biographical sketch

Raissa L. Berg had a remarkable career in many respects and an impact on the study of phenotypic integration that continues to increase over 50 years after the publication of her seminal paper in that area. She was born and lived most of her life in Russia, with most of her research focused on measuring spontaneous mutation rates in Drosophila. She was forced to abandon this work during the height of Lysenko''s power in Russia, so she turned temporarily to the study of correlation patterns in plants; ironically, this work has had a more enduring impact than her main body of research. She showed that floral and vegetative traits become decoupled into separate correlation ‘pleiades’ in plants with specialized pollinators, but floral and vegetative traits remain correlated in plants that have less specialized pollination. Unfortunately, her plant work is often mis-cited as providing evidence for increased correlations among floral traits due to selection by pollinators for functional integration, a point she never made and one that is not supported by her data. Still, many studies of correlation pleiades have been conducted in plants, with the results mostly supporting Berg''s hypothesis, although more studies on species with generalized pollination are needed.     

Agnes Fay Morgan and early nutrition discoveries in California.

Agnes Fay Morgan (1884-1968) and several other California pioneers in nutrition contributed much to the early increase in basic knowledge of nutrition and foods. Dr. Morgan became a member of the faculty in the division of Nutrition at the University of California at Berkeley in 1915. Her academic retirement was in 1954, but she remained active and productive even to the time of her death in 1968. The hallmark of her career was the high standards she established both in training home economists and nutrition investigators and in gaining widespread public recognition of the importance of good nutrition. Also,, she was imaginative and productive in significant research. Such work was directed to the nutrients of California foods and the effects on food values resulting from heat processing and storage. Other major early nutrition scientists in California included Ruth Okey, H. M. Evans, H. S. Olcott, S. Lepkovsky, H. J. Almquist, T. H. Jukes, and E. L. R. Stokstad. Their contributions included major accomplishments in the discovery and/or characterization of vitamin E, vitamin B6, pantothenic acid, and vitamin K.     

Anya Hurlbert and Matt Ridley. [interview

Matt Ridley, the science writer, is married to Anya Hurlbert, reader in visual neuroscience at the University of Newcastle. She studied physics at Princeton University as an undergraduate, then went to Cambridge University as a Marshall Scholar, where she took a Part III diploma in theoretical physics and an MA in physiology. She returned to the States to do the HST MD-PhD program at Harvard-MIT, studying with Tomaso Poggio for her PhD. Matt trained as a zoologist at Oxford, and after completing his PhD on the mating habits of the pheasant, turned to journalism. They met when, as science editor for The Economist, Matt interviewed Anya, and they married while he was the magazine's Washington correspondent. They moved to England, she to Oxford for postdoctoral research, he to become American editor of The Economist. After writing as a columnist for the Daily Telegraph and other papers, Matt turned to writing books: his titles include The Red Queen, The Origins of Virtue, Genome and Nature via Nurture. They now live in rural Northumberland with their two children.     

COMMENTARY: SCIENCE SCANDAL OR ETHICS SCANDAL? OLIVIERI REDUX

Dr. Nancy Olivieri has become an icon of research integrity for her insistence on publishing adverse data about a drug she was investigating. She has been celebrated world-wide as a hero of biomedical ethics for her bravery in disclosing potential dangers to research subjects, in the face of both drug company threats and coercive pressures from her hospital and university. Like so many other 'whistle-blowers' however, she now faces both personal vilification and disturbing accusations of scientific error. The case against Olivieri is assessed and found to be baseless.     

Nutrition proteomics and biomarker discovery

Baukje de Roos is a principal investigator at the University of Aberdeen, Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health. She investigates mechanisms through which dietary fats and fatty acids, and also polyphenols, affect parameters involved in the development of heart disease in vivo. This is achieved not only by measuring their effect on conventional risk markers for heart disease but also by assessing their effect on new markers that are being developed through proteomic and mass spectrometry methods. She obtained her PhD in Human Nutrition at Wageningen University, The Netherlands, in January 2000, after which she was appointed as a post-doctoral research fellow at the Department of Vascular Biochemistry, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline. In June 2001 she joined the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen. She is currently working for the University of Aberdeen, where her research is funded by the Scottish Government Rural and Environment Research and Analysis Directorate (RERAD). She is an active member of the European Nutrigenomics Organisation (NuGO), an EU-funded Network of Excellence, which merges the nutrigenomics activities of its 23 partners across Europe.     

Observation and visualization: reflections on the relationship between science, visual arts, and the evolution of the scientific image

The connections between biological sciences, art and printed images are of great interest to the author. She reflects on the historical relevance of visual representations for science. She argues that the connection between art and science seems to have diminished during the twentieth century. However, this connection is currently growing stronger again through digital media and new imaging methods. Scientific illustrations have fuelled art, while visual modeling tools have assisted scientific research. As a print media artist, she explores the relationship between art and science in her studio practice and will present this historical connection with examples related to evolution, microbiology and her own work. Art and science share a common source, which leads to scrutiny and enquiry. Science sets out to reveal and explain our reality, whereas art comments and makes connections that don’t need to be tested by rigorous protocols. Art and science should each be evaluated on their own merit. Allowing room for both in the quest to understand our world will lead to an enriched experience.     

Profiles of Pioneer Women Scientists: Katherine Esau

“Profiles of Pioneer Women Scientists: Katherine Esau” tells the story of a noted botanist, plant anatomist, and electron microscopist who was born in the Russian Ukraine (in 1898), forced to flee the Bolshevik Revolution with her family—her father a mayor of Ekaterinoslav under the Czar—to Germany, where she received a bachelor’s degree in agriculture, education she put to good use in America. Beginning in a sugarbeet field in Salinas, California, she progressed through the doctoral degree at the University of California at Davis (UC Davis) and there began her exceptional research on plant anatomy and plant viral diseases. Her textbookPlant Anatomy became known among college students as “Aunt Kitty’s Bible,” and all of her textbooks have gone into second, and some to third, editions. Transferring to the University of California at Santa Barbara (with its new Chancellor, V. I. Cheadle) only two years before retirement, she blossomed anew, producing some of her best work there and obtaining National Science Foundation support for a new electron microscope and other research funds through her 89th year. Katherine Esau started accruing awards and honors at a relatively early age (Faculty Research Lecturer at age 50, election to the National Academy of Sciences at 59) and has never stopped (the President’s Medal of Science at age 91, a UC Santa Barbara building named for her at age 93). It has been her good fortune to live to enjoy these honors. The short autobiography of her father, a truly enterprising engineer, is included here, as are the recollections of Celeste Turner Wright. Celeste, who arrived at UC Davis the same year as Katherine Esau, became an acclaimed poet, and chaired the English Department for many years. She has added a lively reminiscence of the days she and Katherine spent at UC Davis. The introduction to the book by one of Esau’s former graduate students, Ray Franklin Evert, himself a renowned plant pathologist, provides a heartfelt tribute to his greatly admired professor.     

Self-directed EMG training for the control of pain and spasticity in paraplegia: A case study

A 25-year-old paraplegic woman was able to gain control of her debilitating leg and bladder spasms and abdominal pain using self-directed EMG biofeedback. The case is significant in that she previously had only cursory exposure to biofeedback as an undergraduate student and received only minimal support and direction from an instructor. She proceeded through daily home practice using a borrowed EMG unit and audiotapes from Lester Fehmi'sOpen Focus series. Records were kept of the frequency and intensity of her pain and spasms, as well as the frequency and procedures of her home practice. She also maintained a record of specific psychosocial events in her life, which, over time, showed a strong, consistent pattern of influence on the recurrence and severity of her symptoms. The woman's physician declared her medical progress remarkable and encouraged her biofeedback work. At 2-year follow-up, she remains virtually symptom- and medication-free. Her successful biofeedback training program provides support for the value of client-directed biofeedback in selected cases.     

Le développement du cerveau et les patterns de conduites typiques pendant l’adolescence (1re partie)

It is generally agreed that adolescence is a period of significant transition in the developmental process, but the scope and importance of adolescence-associated changes in the brain are not so well known. Linda Spear describes these changes in this work, here presented in two articles in order to facilitate comprehension. Linda Spear is a developmental psycho-biologist, with a strong interest in biological and behavioural changes that occur in animals during adolescence. She heads the department of Psychology at the State University of New York in Binghamton, where her areas of research are behavioural neuroscience and psycho-pharmacology. Many years of research, plus the many contacts she has made in other disciplines, have enabled her to propose an evolutionary, integrative approach to brain development during adolescence. In the first part of this work, she considers an evolutionary approach to some of the behaviour patterns typical of adolescence, which has been retained in some species. She then details adolescence-related brain changes. In the second part of this article, changes in forebrain are described. To conclude, Linda Spear links adolescence-associated neural transformations withnormal and atypical adolescent behaviors.     

50 years ago The cautious recognition of the protein nature of some hormones

Professor Dorothea Raacke, Boston University, is well known for her research on protein hormones and on protein synthesis, starting at the University of California, Berkeley. She pioneered in studies of the function of ribosomes. More recently she has written extensively in the history of biology, and the lives of biologists.     

Healing the body, healing the self: the interrelationship of sickness, health, and faith in the lives of St. Lawrence Island Yupik residents

For about 15 years, Carol Jolles has been traveling to St. Lawrence Island, Alaska to study the role faith plays in the lives of Sivuqaq (Gambell) residents. From the outset, she was aware of the strong presence of two Christian faith traditions in the community. She was present when people “spoke in tongues” (entered a spiritual state, sometimes identified as an altered state of consciousness), and she was aware that people relied on prayer, often uttered in a spiritually inspired context, to ease the pain of daily life and to find the strength to do difficult tasks. Many months passed, however, before she realized that many people relied on faith to heal. From the perspective of her long-term working relationships and friendships with community members, Jolles takes a fresh look at some of the situations from her early work where faith and healing were intertwined. She also looks at more recent examples to place faith-based healing in a more general context. In the process, she focuses on a few special individuals to highlight the components of faith and healing associated with illness and mental distress.     

Self-directed EMG training for the control of pain and spasticity in paraplegia: a case study

A 25-year-old paraplegic woman was able to gain control of her debilitating leg and bladder spasms and abdominal pain using self-directed EMG biofeedback. The case is significant in that she previously had only cursory exposure to biofeedback as an undergraduate student and received only minimal support and direction from an instructor. She proceeded through daily home practice using a borrowed EMG unit and audiotapes from Lester Fehmi's Open Focus series. Records were kept of the frequency and intensity of her pain and spasms, as well as the frequency and procedures of her home practice. She also maintained a record of specific psychosocial events in her life, which, over time, showed a strong, consistent pattern of influence on the recurrence and severity of her symptoms. The woman's physician declared her medical progress remarkable and encouraged her biofeedback work. At 2-year follow-up, she remains virtually symptom- and medication-free. Her successful biofeedback training program provides support for the value of client-directed biofeedback in selected cases.     

Reemergence of the bedbug Cimex lectularius in Seoul, Korea

A healthy 30-yr-old woman carrying an insect that had been caught in her living room visited the International Clinic at Severance Hospital, Seoul, in December 2007. The insect she brought was identified to be a nymph of a bedbug, Cimex lectularius, and her skin rashes looked typical bedbug''s bites. Her apartment was investigated, and a dead body of a bedbug, cast skins, and hatched eggs were found in her rooms and neighbors'' rooms in the same building. She was living in that apartment in Seoul for 9 months since she had moved from New Jersey, USA. We assume that the bedbugs were introduced from abroad, since there had been no report on bedbugs in Seoul for more than 2 decades at least. This is a report of a reemergence of the common bedbug, C. lectularius in Seoul, Korea.     

Measuring driver impairments: sleepiness, distraction, and workload

Snow was falling heavily when Sarah was driving on a slippery road to her cousin's country cottage. It was dark outside, and the visibility was poor. She had planned to arrive before sunset, but the rental service had made a mistake, and it took hours before she got her rental car at the airport. It was past midnight now, and after a long day of traveling, Sarah was starting to get sleepy. Fortunately, there were only 15 km to go, but her eyelids were starting to feel heavy. To stay awake, she put her favorite CD on, turned up the volume, and started to sing along. This seemed to help a little-good-only 10 km to go. This was when Sarah's phone started ringing, and she awkwardly tried to find the mute button for the car stereo while answering the phone. As she looked up again, she barely caught a glimpse of the red brake lights of the car in front of her as she smashed into it.