Un siècle de paléoichtyologie dans les Annales de Paléontologie

Palaeoichthyology underwent a considerable development in France in the 1960's, although it had long been considered there as a marginal aspect of vertebrate palaeontology. Nevertheless, the articles published in the Annales de Paléontologie over the past century foreshadow this development since the 1920's. Notably, they show the historical importance of the discovery of the Early Triassic fishes from Madagascar in the search for the phylogenetic and evolutionary patterns of actinopterygians. Later on, they illustrate the need to expand French palaeoichtyological research to early Palaeozoic taxa, in the framework of major international research programs.     

La paléoanthropologie dans les Annales de Paléontologie sous l'impulsion de Marcellin Boule et Jean Piveteau

Because they considered the living world as a unique system, Marcellin Boule and his student, Jean Piveteau, gave an important place in the Annales de Paléontologie to articles dealing with paleoanthropology. With studies about the Man from La Chapelle-aux-Saints by Boule, 1911, Boule, 1912, Boule, 1913) or the skeleton from Regourdou by Piveteau, 1963, Piveteau, 1964, Piveteau, 1966) the Annales de Paléontologie published contributions which are still considered as major articles for knowledge about Neandertals.     

Les Annales de Paléontologie et les Dinosaures

During one century, the “Annales de Paléontologie” have published some articles on the Middle jurassic Dinosaurs from Madagascar, France and Argentina. The review has furnished to their readers' informations on Dinosaurs, which were less known, that the classic faunas from the Upper Jurassic or Upper Cretaceous faunas from North America and Asia. The centenary of the “Annales” give the opportunity to have a look on the discoveries of the past under the light of our modern knowledge.     

Paléohistologie et paléobiochimie des vertébrés dans les Annales de Paléontologie

With the exception of one paper published in 1929, works in vertebrate paleohistology start to be published in the journal in 1968 and are published ever since. Similarly, the first paper in vertebrate paleobiochemistry is published in the journal in 1987 and the field is regularly covered ever since. The relatively late publication of paleohistological researches in the journal is all the more surprizing because there are evidences now that several laboratories at the Paris Museum heavily invested in paleohistology already in the 1870–1890th and gathered extensive collections of thin sections, but very few publications followed. The scientific and contextual causes of the late development of the paleohistological publications in the journal are briefly analyzed. It appears that its history is a fairly faithful reflection of several changing scientific and historical constraints which framed not only french paleontology (and notably the “Paris school”) but french biology as well during the XXth century.     

Corrélations entre l'évolution morphologique des membres inférieurs et la récupération fonctionnelle de sujets hémiplégiques

ObjectiveThe aim is to quantify the help provided by recent morphological indicators for hemiplegics patients, after a cerebral vascular accident, during functional rehabilitation. The correlations between functional recovery and the morphological evolution of the muscles and the segments of the lower limb are studied using a MRI system.Material and methodTen adult subjects suffering from vascular hemiplegia have been studied at the ELAN rehabilitation center in Wattrelos. Bobath rehabilitation technique was used to treat patients. Muscular and external volumes of the lower limbs segments, obtained through medical imagery, as well as functional tests (Functional Independence Measure (FIM), Bourges's score and indices of motricity of the pathological limb), were assessed when patients were admitted in and as they left from the rehabilitation centre. Spearman's rho coefficient was used in this study.ResultsThis non-parametric test was considered significant when P < 0.05. It demonstrated a relationship between the evolution of thigh's external and muscular volumes and changes in Bourges's score in seated position (r_s = 0.730 and r_s = 0.764, respectively). It also showed a relationship between pathologic knee motricity index and pathologic leg segment volume evolution (r_s = 0.675).Discussion–conclusionStatistical analysis demonstrated that pathologic thigh volume changes is beneficial to balance during seating as no volume evolution seems to influence balance during standing.     

La contribution des micropaléontologues aux Annales de Paléontologie entre 1906 et 2006

The strong involvement of microfossils in applied research, especially in hydrocarbon exploration, has led micropaleontology to a significant progress from the beginning of 1920; micropaleontologists have since rapidly acquired their own publication vehicles or have published in broad Earth Science journals. These are the main reasons invoked to explain why a low number of micropaleontology articles are found nowadays in the Annales de Paléontologie. Only 19 micropaleontology papers were published between 1906 and 2006, though some of them are relevant; they will be analysed herein. Four papers make up the foundations and the references to the acritarch, dinoflagellate and coccolithophorid systematic. One article, dealing with ecologic and paleoecologic implications, questions the use of the rose Bengal staining technique described by Walton in determining living specimens of foraminifers.     

Inhibition de l'adhérence de Porphyromonas gingivalis sur la surface de titane greffé de poly(styrène sulfonate de sodium)

Dental implant-associated infections as peri-implantitis represent one of the major causes of osteointegration failures of oral implants. Adhesion of Porphyromonas gingivalis, one of the bacterial strains mainly involved in such infections, is tightly dependent on the topographical and/or physico-chemical properties of the implant surfaces. As a matter of fact, we showed that the grafting of one bioactive polymer such as poly(sodium styrene sulfonate) onto titanium implant surfaces allowed a sensitive decrease of Staphylococcus aureus adhesion (> 40%). The aim of the study consists in evaluating the adhesion of P. gingivalis onto titanium surfaces grafted with poly(sodium stryrene sulfonate) in order to elaborate implants exhibiting appropriate inhibiting properties towards the adhesion of periodontal pathogens. The grafting of poly(sodium stryrene sulfonate) onto titanium surfaces is carried out in two steps: chemical oxydation of titanium to initiate radical species then grafting of poly(sodium stryrene sulfonate) by radical polymerization. Chemical characterization of the surfaces is achieved by Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Bacterial adhesion was studied on grafted and non grafted (control) titanium surfaces, preadsorbed or not by plasmatic proteins. Protein adsorption as well as bacteria adhesion is followed by fluorescence spectroscopy by using proteins or bacteria previously labelled with fluorescence probes; the quantification of adsorption and bacteria adhesion are performed by image analysis. Results showed that protein adsorption is more important (~3 times) and that P. gingivalis adhesion is strongly inhibited (~73%) onto poly(sodium styrene sulfonate) grafted surfaces when compared to titanium control. Moreover, the inhibition of bacterial adhesion on grafted surfaces preadsorbed with plasma proteins is comparable to that observed on grafted surfaces preadsorbed with fibronectin. In conclusion, the obtained results evidenced that the grafting of titanium surface by poly(sodium styrene sulfonate) led to significant inhibition of P. gingivalis adhesion and that this inhibitory activity involved adsorbed proteins. Poly(sodium styrene sulfonate) grafted titanium surfaces present a high interest for the elaboration of oral implants in various clinical dental applications.     

Les Mollusques Céphalopodes dans les Annales de Paléontologie

About more than forty papers on cephalopods have been published in the ninety one issues of the “Annales” during one century. Most are monographs contributing to enlarge our knowledge on the biodiversity of these Molluscs which play an important part in the fossil record. Jurassic and Cretaceous ammonites are well illustrated; Palaeozoic and Triassic ones, Orthoceratoidea, Nautiloidea and Dibranchiata are seldom studied. As successive issues are published, hypothesis concerning palaeontological and geological applications are proposed by authors: systematics, phylogeny, biostratigraphy, palaeoecology, palaeobiogeography. However, these ones cannot be argued every time because of incomplete knowledge or adapted concepts. Several years or decades later, these hypothesis, reconsidered in a different context and other scientific publications, are the starting point of new ideas, at once developed and then accepted. From this point of view and by their contents, the “Annales” have answered to there vocation of publishing data, carried on year by year and enriched with the discoveries of each new palaeontologists generation.     

Reconstitution d'un « paysage de l'époque houillère » revue à la lumière des découvertes récentes sur les cuticules végétales fossiles

To date, plants with a climbing or scrambling growth habit are widely represented in equatorial forest ecosystems, with a warm and humid climate, with a variety of different species. Although it has been speculated repeatedly that several Late Carboniferous seed ferns applied the same growth strategies as modern vines and /or lianas, only few examples have been substantiated in sufficient details. Most Paleozoic seed ferns are reconstructed as free-growing erect trees. However, these last years, new discoveries about the growth habits of fossil plants have been highlighted on the basis of cuticular material. In this way, different types of climbing organs of seed ferns, reported on pteridosperm cuticles collected from the Stephanian basin of the Blanzy-Montceau (central France), have revolutionized the stereotype of “free-growing erect trees” that we had about these plants. These discoveries demonstrate the potential of cuticular analysis for the reconstruction of growth habits of fossil plants. Moreover they exemplify that climbing and scrambling became common life strategies among Late Carboniferous seed ferns. The increasing proportion of climbing seed ferns in the Stephanian, interpreted as an expression of changing structures of Late Paleozoic coal swamp forests, lead to modify the “classical” reconstructions of the Late Carboniferous landscapes.     

Conceptions de la dégénérescence dans la psychiatrie italienne du XIXème siècle

The worddegeneration became widely used in medical communities in European countries in the second half of the nineteenth century. In France this term was first applied to mental pathology by the alienist Bénédict-Augustin Morel, whose theory was subsequently widely debated and as a result the term rapidly acquired different meanings. The authors explores the circulation of the word from France to Italy and what influence it had there after Morel’s death. The article is mainly based on the works of advocates of the medicalization of criminality and on E. Morselli and A. Tamburini’s pioneering articles on degeneration in the 1870’s. The Italian psychiatric community presented different interpretations of degeneration but it appears that the evolutionist perspective received more support. The author then deals with the question of the transmission and of the circulation of ideas and discusses the difference between the history of a word and of the history of a concept.     

Ami Boué (1794–1881), géoscientifique du XIXe siècle

Born on 16 March 1794 in Hamburg as a son of a Huguenot family whose members made big fortune as ship-owners, Ami Boué took his doctor’s degree in medicine in 1817 at the University of Edinburgh. During the following years, he completed his knowledge in the field of natural sciences, especially in Geoscience. In 1830, after having founded, with other scientists, among whom Constant Prévost and Gérard-Paul Deshayes, the Geological Society of France, in which Boué became the first president, he left Paris in 1835 and settled in Vienna. In 1836, 1837 and 1838 he crossed the Balkans. In his masterpiece La Turquie d’Europe (Paris, 1840, four volumes), he published the results of this research. In his study, Ami Boué intended to join the Austrian empire with Turkey by railways. Anyway, Boué’s works concerning the Balkans were fundamental for the future generations of Austrian geoscientists.     

Assemblages et chaînages de fichiers cartes dans un système automatisé: Une application en paléontologie

enThe storage of taxonomical, stratigraphical, geographicaland bibliographical data, some being coded, about ammonites from Upper Jurassic has begun since 1972 and constituts three files with punch-cards: types, citations and synonymies. The disappearing of punch-cards leads to the making of a system with software allowing the combination and the chaining of files. The combination allows the gathering of data from different files and the chaining, thanks to decoding files the translation in clear of coded data.Simplicity in the procedures, swiftness in the execution and printing in clear are the principal advantages of the use of the software Texto.     

Les reconstructions phylogénétiques dans les Annales de Paléontologie (1906-1950). Comparaison avec d'autres revues françaises

A systematic examination of the three major French periodicals which published the majority of paleontological papers in the first part of the 20th century shows that phylogenetic conjectures were rare, in contrast with other countries in the same period. The three journals are compared from the point of view of the number and the nature of the figures that represented phylogenies. The evolution of these figures is also considered. We show that the Annales de paléontologie shared the same attitude as the other journals: a general tendency towards increased methodological cautiousness is observed, with special regards to stratigraphic standards. The results of the inquiry are interpreted in the light of the professional structure of French palaeontology in the first half of the 20th Century.     

Le bassin lacustre miocène de Bes-Konak (anatolie-turquie): Géologie et introduction a la paléontologie des vertébrés

The tertiary lacustrine and marshy facies ofBes-Konak (Ankara-district) has provided a rich fauna of Vertebrates preserved as molds and casts in Diatomites and volcano-sedimentary beds.In this assemblage are: Cyprinid fishes (Leuciscus(P.) etiliusRückert Ulkümen) with among them a new species of Barbus, some Amphibians both Urodela (mature Triturinae) and Anura (larval forms of Pelobates sp. and mature Rana sp.), a Turtle (Chelydridae-Chelydropsis sp.) a Snake (Colubroïde-Colubridae or Viperidae) and Birds (among them a new species of cormorant).According to the others various data resulting from palaebotanical, palynological and structural investigations, this fauna is clearly suggestive of a lower or middle Miocene deposit. It supports readily the climatic features (local sub-tropical microclimate inside a regional hot-temperate context) as invertebrates, macro and microflora and sedimentology had already shown.Once more, it points out the peculiar trophic type of the limnic area of Bes-Konak and its evolution to a well-marked eutrophic condition.