Russia–UK Collaboration in Paleontology: Past,Present, and Future

There is a long history of collaboration between Russia and the United Kingdom in paleontology. This began, arguably, in 1821, with the seminal work by William Fox-Strangways, who produced a geological map of the area around St Petersburg. Most famously, Roderick Murchison carried out extensive surveying and observations throughout European Russia in 1840 and 1841, and published a major monograph on geology and paleontology of European Russia in 1845. Since then, and continuing today, there have been many fruitful collaborations on Precambrian life, Paleozoic marine organisms, terrestrialization of plants and vertebrates, the Permian–Triassic mass extinction, fossil mammals, human evolution, and conservation paleobiology.     

Ideas of heredity,reproduction and eugenics in Britain, 1800–1875

In this paper I begin by arguing that there are significant intellectual and normative continuities between pre-Victorian hereditarianism and later Victorian eugenical ideologies. Notions of mental heredity and of the dangers of transmitting hereditary ‘taints’ were already serious concerns among medical practitioners and laymen in the early nineteenth century. I then show how the Victorian period witnessed an increasing tendency for these traditional concerns about hereditary transmission and the integrity of bloodlines to be projected onto the level of national health. Tracing the gradual emergence of eugenical thought, I also highlight some of the more fundamental social, political and intellectual factors that promoted this predilection for extrapolating from the individual lineage to the nation and race. In doing so I argue that fully fledged eugenical thought was always unlikely to emerge prior to the early Victorian period. However, I am also able to show that Francis Galton's 1865 eugenical proposals were far from innovative and that identifying him as the ‘father’ of the eugenics movement is highly misleading.     

A DNA ‘Barcode Blitz’: Rapid Digitization and Sequencing of a Natural History Collection

DNA barcoding protocols require the linkage of each sequence record to a voucher specimen that has, whenever possible, been authoritatively identified. Natural history collections would seem an ideal resource for barcode library construction, but they have never seen large-scale analysis because of concerns linked to DNA degradation. The present study examines the strength of this barrier, carrying out a comprehensive analysis of moth and butterfly (Lepidoptera) species in the Australian National Insect Collection. Protocols were developed that enabled tissue samples, specimen data, and images to be assembled rapidly. Using these methods, a five-person team processed 41,650 specimens representing 12,699 species in 14 weeks. Subsequent molecular analysis took about six months, reflecting the need for multiple rounds of PCR as sequence recovery was impacted by age, body size, and collection protocols. Despite these variables and the fact that specimens averaged 30.4 years old, barcode records were obtained from 86% of the species. In fact, one or more barcode compliant sequences (>487 bp) were recovered from virtually all species represented by five or more individuals, even when the youngest was 50 years old. By assembling specimen images, distributional data, and DNA barcode sequences on a web-accessible informatics platform, this study has greatly advanced accessibility to information on thousands of species. Moreover, much of the specimen data became publically accessible within days of its acquisition, while most sequence results saw release within three months. As such, this study reveals the speed with which DNA barcode workflows can mobilize biodiversity data, often providing the first web-accessible information for a species. These results further suggest that existing collections can enable the rapid development of a comprehensive DNA barcode library for the most diverse compartment of terrestrial biodiversity – insects.     

Plants and People in the Isle of Man,AD 800–1800

Summary

Aspects of the relationship between plants and people on the Isle of Man are discussed. They include the gradual felling of Man's woodlands, and the survival of pockets of the original woodland flora; plants with magical and ritual uses, especially those with calendar associations such as the ‘herbs of St John’ and plants associated with Tynwald Day and Lammas; herbs brought to Man by early Celtic monks; the secular herbal medicine tradition, particularly the activities of the Teare family of Ballawhane; and the herbal remedy revival which resulted from the influence of Methodism in the late 1770s. Details of herbs used to flavour beer are given as well as information on insular and imported dyestuffs.     

A “Migrant Friendly Hospital” Initiative in Geneva,Switzerland: Evaluation of the Effects on Staff Knowledge and Practices

Background

International migration poses important challenges to European health care systems. The development of “migrant friendly hospitals” has been identified as a priority in both Europe and Switzerland.

Methods

A multi-pronged initiative was developed at Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) to improve staff knowledge and use of existing “migrant friendly” resources. A self-administered questionnaire was sent pre and post-intervention to random samples of 4 major professional groups with direct patient contact at the HUG. The questionnaire assessed staff knowledge, attitudes and reported practices regarding the care of migrant patients.

Results

Overall response rate was 51% (N = 1460) in 2010 but only 19% (N = 761) in 2013 owing to an institutionally imposed change in survey method. Despite these difficulties, and after adjusting for sample differences, we found that respondents in 2013 were significantly more likely to have received training in how to organize an appointment with an interpreter, how to work with an interpreter and about health and social services available for migrant patients. Respondents were also significantly more likely to have used several Migrant Friendly structures at the HUG. Use of, preference for and perceived skill at working with professional interpreters all improved, and respondents were both more likely to be encouraged by their supervisors to use professional interpreters, and less likely to be encouraged to look for alternative solutions for communicating with non francophone patients. Finally, 2013 respondents encountered fewer difficulties caring for migrant patients, although lack of time and language barriers continued to be the most important sources of difficulty.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that an institution-wide information campaign may contribute to increased awareness and use of migrant friendly resources by clinical staff. Hospital commitment and financing, along with inter-departmental participation in all activities were important in creating and maintaining project visibility, and in contributing to a migrant friendly institutional culture.     

A Sanctuary for Science: The Hastings Natural History Reservation and the Origins of the University of California’s Natural Reserve System

In 1937 Joseph Grinnell founded the University of California's (U.C.) first biological field station, the Hastings Natural History Reservation. Hastings became a center for field biology on the West Coast, and by 1960 it was serving as a model for the creation of additional U.C. reserves. Today, the U.C. Natural Reserve System (NRS) is the largest and most diverse network of university-based biological field stations in the world, with 36 sites covering more than 135,000 acres. This essay examines the founding of the Hastings Reservation, and asks how it managed to grow and develop, in the 1940s and 1950s, during a time of declining support for natural history research. It shows how faculty and staff courted the support of key institutional allies, presented themselves as the guardians of a venerable tradition in nature study, and emphasized the station's capacity to document ecological change and inform environmental policy and management. In the years since, Hastings and other U.C. reserves have played crucial roles in California environmental politics. Biological field stations in the post-war era deserve more attention not only from historians of biology, but also from environmental historians and other scholars interested in the role of science in society.     

CRISPR–Cas9: A History of Its Discovery and Ethical Considerations of Its Use in Genome Editing

Biochemistry (Moscow) - The development of a method for genome editing based on CRISPR–Cas9 technology was awarded The Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020, less than a decade after the discovery...     

Modernizing Natural History: Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology in Transition

Throughout the twentieth century calls to modernize natural history motivated a range of responses. It was unclear how research in natural history museums would participate in the significant technological and conceptual changes that were occurring in the life sciences. By the 1960s, the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, was among the few university-based natural history museums that were able to maintain their specimen collections and support active research. The MVZ therefore provides a window to the modernization of natural history. This paper concentrates on the directorial transitions that occurred at the MVZ between 1965 and 1971. During this period, the MVZ had four directors: Alden H. Miller (Director 1940–1965), an ornithologist; Aldo Starker Leopold (Acting Director 1965–1966), a conservationist and wildlife biologist; Oliver P. Pearson (Director 1966–1971), a physiologist and mammalogist; and David B. Wake (Director 1971–1998), a morphologist, developmental biologist, and herpetologist. The paper explores how a diversity of overlapping modernization strategies, including hiring new faculty, building infrastructure to study live animals, establishing new kinds of collections, and building modern laboratories combined to maintain collections at the MVZ’s core. The paper examines the tensions between the different modernization strategies to inform an analysis of how and why some changes were institutionalized while others were short-lived. By exploring the modernization of collections-based research, this paper emphasizes the importance of collections in the transformation of the life sciences.     

Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History’s “Travels in the Great Tree of Life”

The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History developed a 1,000-square-foot exhibition to help the general public understand the concept of phylogenetic relationships and their depiction on scientific Trees, or cladograms. In addition, exhibition planners hoped visitors would understand that research on the Tree of Life is a massive, complex undertaking requiring powerful computers and that Tree research has many potential practical applications. Museum exhibits designed to convey scientific information must use “stealth” to accomplish their cognitive goals: Unlike students in formal science education classes, visitors are not obliged to learn—they do not learn because they must pass a final examination. Informal educators must engage visitors’ interest so that they willingly take in new information and perhaps even learn new skills, change attitudes, and behaviors. “Travels in the Great Tree of Life” succeeded in engaging visitors who came away with awareness and understanding of scientific Trees, the immensity of the construct, and to a lesser extent, potential practical applications.     

Biocomplexity in Coupled Natural–Human Systems: A Multidimensional Framework

As defined by Ascher, biocomplexity results from a “multiplicity of interconnected relationships and levels.” However, no integrative framework yet exists to facilitate the application of this concept to coupled human–natural systems. Indeed, the term “biocomplexity” is still used primarily as a creative and provocative metaphor. To help advance its utility, we present a framework that focuses on linkages among different disciplines that are often used in studies of coupled human–natural systems, including the ecological, physical, and socioeconomic sciences. The framework consists of three dimensions of complexity: spatial, organizational, and temporal. Spatial complexity increases as the focus changes from the type and number of the elements of spatial heterogeneity to an explicit configuration of the elements. Similarly, organizational complexity increases as the focus shifts from unconnected units to connectivity among functional units. Finally, temporal complexity increases as the current state of a system comes to rely more and more on past states, and therefore to reflect echoes, legacies, and evolving indirect effects of those states. This three-dimensional, conceptual volume of biocomplexity enables connections between models that derive from different disciplines to be drawn at an appropriate level of complexity for integration.     

HIV Treatment as Prevention: Models, Data, and Questions��Towards Evidence-Based Decision-Making

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) for those infected with HIV can prevent onward transmission of infection, but biological efficacy alone is not enough to guide policy decisions about the role of ART in reducing HIV incidence. Epidemiology, economics, demography, statistics, biology, and mathematical modelling will be central in framing key decisions in the optimal use of ART. PLoS Medicine, with the HIV Modelling Consortium, has commissioned a set of articles that examine different aspects of HIV treatment as prevention with a forward-looking research agenda. Interlocking themes across these articles are discussed in this introduction. We hope that this article, and others in the collection, will provide a foundation upon which greater collaborations between disciplines will be formed, and will afford deeper insights into the key factors involved, to help strengthen the support for evidence-based decision-making in HIV prevention.     

The timing of sexual maturation among boys and girls in eastern Poland, 1980–2000: A rural–urban comparison

The aim of this study was to determine secular changes in the sexual maturation of children and adolescents from Eastern regions of Poland between 1980 and 2000, with special attention paid to rural–urban differences. Our sample comprised 34,055 girls and 28,100 boys from 9 to 18 years of age. The age at which each gender reached each stage of sexual maturation was examined, along with menarcheal age in girls. An increase in the rate of sexual maturation was observed over the 20-year period of this study. Menarcheal age in girls decreased by 0.59 years. The length of sexual maturation decreased: from 6.58 years to 3.85 years in girls and from 5.84 years to 3.65 years in boys. A significantly faster rate of sexual maturation was observed between 1990 and 2000. Over the entire 20-year period, adolescents living in rural settings experienced a slower rate of sexual maturation than did their urban peers.