Celebrating the millennium – historical highlights of photosynthesis research,Part 2

This paper is an introduction to Part 2 of our celebrations of the historical highlights of photosynthesis research. Part 1 was published in October 2002 as Volume 73 of Photosynthesis Research. After a brief introduction, we recognize two giants in the field: Cornelis B. van Niel (for anoxygenic photosynthesis), and Robert Hill (for oxygenic photosynthesis). This is followed by recognition of a 1960 book by Hans Gaffron, and a multi-authored book edited by W. Ruhland and André Pirson, and inclusion in the appendix of a list of selected books. Our celebration is enhanced by the inclusion of beautiful paintings of cells by Antoinette Ryter. After introducing all the historical papers contained in this volume, we honor Louis N. M. Duysens, one of the greatest biophysicists of our time, and finally we dedicate this volume to a great scientist, humanist and peacemaker: Eugene I. Rabinowitch. [12pt] 'Annihilating all that is made To a green thought in a green shade' – Andrew Marvell (1621–1678), The Garden (1681) This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A list of personal perspectives with selected quotations,along with lists of tributes,historical notes,Nobel and Kettering awards related to photosynthesis

The history of photosynthesis research can be found in original papers and books. However, a special history is available from the prefatory chapters and the personal perspectives of various researchers who published them in several journals over the last 40 years. We have compiled a list of such perspectives published since 1964. Selection is not easy, especially of authors who were not directly engaged in photosynthesis research; some are included for their special insights related to central issues in the study of photosynthesis. Our journal, Photosynthesis Research, contains other valuable historic data in the occasional tributes, obituaries and historical notes, that have been published. Lists of these items are included. This article ends by listing the Nobel prizes related to photosynthesis and the Kettering Awards for Excellence in Photosynthesis Research. Wherever possible, a web page address is provided. The web page addresses have been taken from the article `Photosynthesis and the Web: 2001' by Larry Orr and Govindjee, available at http://www.life.uiuc.edu/govindjee/photoweb and at http://photoscience.la.asu.edu/photosyn/ photoweb/default.html. ‘When I find a bit of leisure I trifle with my papers. This is one of the lesser frailities. – Horace, Satires I, IV. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Discoveries in Oxygenic Photosynthesis (1727–2003): A Perspective

We present historic discoveries and important observations, related to oxygenic photosynthesis, from 1727 to 2003. The decision to include certain discoveries while omitting others has been difficult. We are aware that ours is an incomplete timeline. In part, this is because the function of this list is to complement, not duplicate, the listing of discoveries in the other papers in these history issues of Photosynthesis Research. In addition, no one can know everything that is in the extensive literature in the field. Furthermore, any judgement about significance presupposes a point of view. This history begins with the observation of the English clergyman Stephen Hales (1677-1761) that plants derive nourishment from the air; it includes the definitive experiments in the 1960-1965 period establishing the two-photosystem and two-light reaction scheme of oxygenic photosynthesis; and includes the near-atomic resolution of the structures of the reaction centers of these two Photosystems, I and II, obtained in 2001-2002 by a team in Berlin, Germany, coordinated by Horst Witt and Wolfgang Saenger. Readers are directed to historical papers in Govindjee and Gest [(2002a) Photosynth Res 73: 1-308], in Govindjee, J. Thomas Beatty and Howard Gest [(2003a) Photosynth Res 76: 1-462], and to other papers in this issue for a more complete picture. Several photographs are provided here. Their selection is based partly on their availability to the authors (see Figures 1-15). Readers may view other photographs in Part 1 (Volume 73, Photosynth Res, 2002), Part 2 (Volume 76, Photosynth Res, 2003) and Part 3 (Volume 80 Photosynth Res, 2004) of the history issues of Photosynthesis Research. Photographs of most of the Nobel-laureates are included in Govindjee, Thomas Beatty and John Allen, this issue. For a complementary time line of anoxygenic photosynthesis, see H. Gest and R. Blankenship (this issue).     

The prokaryote-eukaryote dichotomy: meanings and mythology.

Drawing on documents both published and archival, this paper explains how the prokaryote-eukaryote dichotomy of the 1960s was constructed, the purposes it served, and what it implied in terms of classification and phylogeny. In doing so, I first show how the concept was attributed to Edouard Chatton and the context in which he introduced the terms. Following, I examine the context in which the terms were reintroduced into biology in 1962 by Roger Stanier and C. B. van Niel. I study the discourse over the subsequent decade to understand how the organizational dichotomy took on the form of a natural classification as the kingdom Monera or superkingdom Procaryotae. Stanier and van Niel admitted that, in regard to constructing a natural classification of bacteria, structural characteristics were no more useful than physiological properties. They repeatedly denied that bacterial phylogenetics was possible. I thus examine the great historical irony that the "prokaryote," in both its organizational and phylogenetic senses, was defined (negatively) on the basis of structure. Finally, we see how phylogenetic research based on 16S rRNA led by Carl Woese and his collaborators confronted the prokaryote concept while moving microbiology to the center of evolutionary biology.     

Resonance light scattering technique for the determination of proteins with Congo red and Triton X‐100. Xia Wu,Shuna Sun,Changying Guo,Jinghe Yang,Changxia Sun,Chengrong Zhou and Tao Wu. Luminescence Vol. 21 No. 1, 2006, pages 56–61.

The original article to which this Erratum refers was published in Luminescence Vol. 21 No. 1, 2006, pages 56–61.     

Review of Transient Receptor Potential Channels

Transient Receptor Potential Channels; Islam, Md. Shahidul (Ed.); Series: Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, Vol. 704; 1095 pages; Hardcover; Publisher: Springer; 1st Edition (2011, XXIII); ISBN: 978-94-007-0264-6     

Fifty-Year Old and Still Ticking.... An Interview with Emile Zuckerkandl on the 50th Anniversary of the Molecular Clock

In 1962, a young post-doctoral fellow and a prominent Nobel Prize winner, Emile Zuckerkandl and Linus Pauling, published a seminal paper that described the relationship between the average number of aminoacid replacements and divergence time, known as the molecular clock (Zuckerkandl and Pauling 1962). Fifty years after the original publication, I was fortunate enough to interview Emile Zuckerkandl. We shared thoughts on his life and the historical events that led to the discovery of the molecular clock.     

A List of Photosynthesis Conferences and of Edited Books in Photosynthesis

This paper is a general appendix to the three parts of 'Celebrating the millennium - historical highlights of photosynthesis research' (Photosynthesis Research, Vols~73(2002), 76(2003), 80(2004)). The major part of this paper includes a comprehensive list of most of the edited volumes on research in the area of photosynthesis. However, I begin this paper by describing selected conferences, related to photosynthesis, held in USA, during 1935-1965, followed by the 1963 International Colloquim held in Gif-sur-Yvette, France (René Wurmser (1890-1993), President); and the 2nd Western European Congress (1965), held in the Netherlands, under the leadership of Jan B. Thomas (1907-1991), both these European conferences being the precursors of the first International Congress on Photosynthesis (1968), organized by Helmut Metzner (1925-1999) at Freudenstadt, Germany. A list of the subsequent international photosynthesis congresses is available in Govindjee and David Krogmann (this issue).     

An adaptable multithreaded prefetching technique for client‐server object bases

Given the existence of powerful multiprocessor client workstations in many client-server object database applications, the performance bottleneck is the delay in transferring pages from the server to the client. We present a prefetching technique that can avoid this delay, especially where the client application requests pages from several database servers. This technique has been added to the EXODUS storage manager. Part of the novelty of this approach lies in the way that multithreading on the client workstation is exploited, in particular for activities such as prefetching and flushing dirty pages to the server. Using our own complex object benchmark, we analyze the performance of the prefetching technique with multiple clients and multiple servers. The technique is also tested under a variety of client host workload levels. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

In one era and out the other

A guided tour through much of photosynthesis research as I saw it, 1936–2001, is presented here. For earlier perspectives, see Myers 1974 (Plant Physiol 54: 420–426) and 1996 (Photosynth Res 50: 195–208). This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Review of Cognitive Therapy and Dreams.

In this article I review the book, "Cognitive Therapy and Dreams" (see record 2004-00029-000). I came across this book as I was recently searching psychological abstracts for dreams and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and for hypnosis and CBT. Of the 9 references I found on dreams and CBT, all were in one issue of the Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy: An International Quarterly (Vol. 16, No. 1). I read a good number of the hypnosis-CBT articles and books, and all were written to integrate CBT into the field of hypnosis. Conversely, the dream articles integrating dream work and CBT were written by a range of people, some with a primary interest in dreams, but some with a more central interest in cognitive therapy. Apparently, a few cognitive-behavioral therapists and researchers have taken some interest in dream work, whereas the hypnosis interest in CBT continues mostly outside the domain of CBT. The collection of the nine articles published in the journal was an impressive enough accomplishment that eight articles of this collection plus four additional articles are now published in this book. The fact that these articles are now in a book may encourage researchers to perform the necessary therapy outcome research to validate the integration of dream work and CBT. The book adds significantly to the journal by drawing a distinction between objectivist approaches (Part II) and constructivist approaches (Part III), a distinction that unifies the articles in this book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anténor Firmin: Haitian Pioneer of Anthropology

Anténor Firmin published De I'Égalité des Races Humaines in 1885 in Paris as a response both to Arthur de Gobineau's racist tome L'lnégalité des Races (1853-55) and to the racialist anthropology of the nineteenth century. This pioneering work of anthropology has been translated for the first time into English by Assclin Charles as The Equality of the Human Races (Firmin [1885]2000). In 662 pages of the original text, Firmin systematically critiqued the anthropometry and craniometry that dominated the anthropology of his day, while he envisioned a broad, synthetic discipline that would follow once this narrow approach to the study of man was abandoned. He challenged virtually every extant racial myth and laid a basis for the understanding of human variation as adaptation to climate and environment. Contrary to the polygenist doctrines of the infertility of interracial matings, Firmin extolled the value of racial mixture, especially in the vigorous New World hybrid populations. He developed a critical view of racial classifications and of race that foreshadowed much later social constructions of race. In the book he also articulated early Pan-Africanist ideas as well as an analytical framework for what would become postcolonial studies.
The Equality of the Human Races is a text that lies historically at the foundations of the birth of the discipline of anthropology, yet it is unknown to the field. It is a pioneering work in critical anthropology that awaits recognition 115 years after it was first published. [Anténor Firmin, history of racism, antiracism, historical texts, Haitian anthropologist, critical anthropology, nineteenth-century pioneer]     

INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE

The following Applications were published on 30 June 1998 in Vol. 55, Part 2 of the Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature . Comment or advice on any of these Applications is invited for publication in the Bulletin and should be sent to the Executive Secretary (ICZN), c/o The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK (e-mail: iczn@nhm.ac.uk )     

Book reviews

Book reviews in this article. Encyclopaedia of Plant Physiology, New Series, Vol. 12, Part C, Physiological Plant Ecology III. Responses to the Chemical and Biological Environment Edited by O. L. Lange, P. S. Nobel, C. B. Osmond and H. Ziegler The Ethics of Environmental Concern Robin Attfield The Evolutionary Biology of Colonizing Species P. A. Parsons Ecological Genetics D. J. Merrell Phytotelmata: Terrestrial Plants as Hosts for Aquatic Insect Communities Edited by J. H. Frank and L. P. Lounibos Lake Chad — Ecology and Productivity of a Shallow Tropical Ecosystem. Monographiae Biologicae 53 Edited by J. P. Carmouze, J. R. Durand and C. Lévèque, Dr. W. Junk Guidelines for the Management of Large Mammals in African Conservation Areas Edited by A. A. Ferrar     

Doubling the CO2 Concentration Enhanced the Activity of Carbohydrate-Metabolism Enzymes,Source Carbohydrate Production,Photoassimilate Transport,and Sink Strength for Opuntia ficus-indica

After exposure to a doubled CO2 concentration of 750 [mu]mol mol-1 air for about 3 months glucose and starch in the chlorenchyma of basal cladodes of Opuntia ficus-indica increased 175 and 57%, respectively, compared with the current CO2 concentration of 370 [mu]mol mol-1, but sucrose content was virtually unaffected. Doubling the CO2 concentration increased the nocturnal malate production in basal cladodes by 75%, inorganic phosphate (Pi) by 32%, soluble starch synthase activity by 30%, and sucrose-Pi synthase activity by 146%, but did not affect the activity of hexokinase. Doubling CO2 accelerated phloem transport of sucrose out of the basal cladodes, resulting in a 73% higher dry weight for the daughter cladodes. Doubling CO2 increased the glucose content in 14-d-old daughter cladodes by 167%, increased nocturnal malate production by 22%, decreased total amino acid content by 61%, and increased soluble starch synthase activity by 30% and sucrose synthase activity by 62%. No downward acclimation of photosynthesis during long-term exposure to elevated CO2 concentrations occurs for O. ficus-indica (M. Cui, P.M. Miller, P.S. Nobel [1993] Plant Physiol 103: 519-524; P.S. Nobel, A.A. Israel [1994] J Exp Bot 45: 295-303), consistent with its higher source capacity and sink strength than under current CO2. These changes apparently do not result in Pi limitation of photosynthesis or suppression of genes governing photosynthesis for this perennial Crassulacean acid metabolism species, as occur for some annual crops.     

Energy problems in life evolution

Evolutionary aspects of bioenergetics are considered. These include the origin of the first organisms, UV-protection and the beginnings of anoxygenic photosynthesis, the electron donor problem of life and the appearance of oxygenic photosynthesis, oxygen danger and strategies of defense, and the role of oxygen in programmed cell death.Translated from Biokhimiya, Vol. 70, No. 2, 2005, pp. 302–307.Original Russian Text Copyright © 2005 by Samuilov.This revised version was published online in April 2005 with corrections to the post codes.     

Effect of some environmental factors on cyanophage AS-1 development in Anacystis nidulans

The development cycle of the cyanophage AS-1 was studied in the host blue-green alga, Anacystis nidulans, under conditions that impair photosynthesis and under various light/dark regimes. Under standard conditions of incubation the 16-h development cycle consisted of a 5-h eclipse period and an 8-h latent period. Burst size was decreased by dark incubation to 2% of that observed in the light. An inhibitor of photosystem II, 3-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1,1-dimethyl urea (DCMU), reduced the burst size to 27% of that of the uninhibited control, whereas cyanophage production was completely abolished by carbonyl-cyanide m-chlorophenyl hydrazone (CCCP), an inhibitor of photosynthetic electron transport. Dark incubation of infected cells decreased the latent period by 1–2 h and the eclipse period by 1 h, once the cultures were illuminated. This suggests that adsorption took place in the dark. Intracellular growth curves indicated that light is necessary for viral development. Infected cells must be illuminated at least 13 h to produce a complete burst at the same rate as the continuously illuminated control. Low light intensities retarded the development cycle, and at lowest light intensities no phage yield was obtained. AS-1 is highly dependent on host cell photophosphorylation for its development.List of Abbreviations CCCP Carbonyl-cyanide m-chlorophenyl hydrazone - DCMU 3-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1,1-dimethyl urea - m.o.i. multiplicity of infection - O.D. optical density - PFU plaque-forming unit Dedicated to Prof. Roger Y. Stanier on the occasion of his 60th birthday     

INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE

The following Applications were published on 26 March 1997 in Vol. 54, Part 1 of the Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. Comment or advice on any of these Applications is invited for publication in the Bulletin and should be sent to the Executive Secretary (ICZN), c/o The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, U.K.     

Alfred Nobel--his life and work

December 2001 marks 100 years since the first Nobel prizes were awarded. But who was Alfred Nobel, and how and why were the prizes that bear his name established?     

Book Reviews

VITAMINS Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and New York. 1988 ISBN 0–89925–273–7 (US) 1001 pages + Literature Supplement and Subject Index (1058 pages incl.); DM 380.-; approx US $225.-

MEDICAL, BIOCHEMICAL AND CHEMICAL ASPECTS OF FREE RADICALS Edited by O. Hayaishi, E. Niki, M. Kondo and T. Yoshikawa Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam, New York, 1989 ISBN 0–444–87482–8, Volume 1, 766 pages, Volume 2, continuing up to 1536 pages, and a subject and author index, 1559 pages inclusive

PHARMACOLOGY OF MICRONUTRIENTS NESTOR W. FLODIN Current Topics in Nutrition and Disease, Vol.20, Alan R. Liss, Inc., New York ISBN 0–8451–1619–3: 342 pages, $69.50