Unmodern Synthesis: Developmental Hierarchies and the Origin of Phenotypes

The question of whether the modern evolutionary synthesis requires an extension has recently become a topic of discussion, and a source of controversy. We suggest that this debate is, for the most part, not about the modern synthesis at all. Rather, it is about the extent to which genetic mechanisms can be regarded as the primary determinants of phenotypic characters. The modern synthesis has been associated with the idea that phenotypes are the result of gene products, while supporters of the extended synthesis have suggested that environmental factors, along with processes such as epigenetic inheritance, and niche construction play an important role in character formation. We argue that the methodology of the modern evolutionary synthesis has been enormously successful, but does not provide an accurate characterization of the origin of phenotypes. For its part, the extended synthesis has yet to be transformed into a testable theory, and accordingly, has yielded few results. We conclude by suggesting that the origin of phenotypes can only be understood by integrating findings from all levels of the organismal hierarchy. In most cases, parts and processes from a single level fail to accurately explain the presence of a given phenotypic trait.     

The digestive enzymes and acidity of the pellets regurgitated by raptors

The activity of six digestive enzymes (amylase, chitinase, trypsin, chymotrypsin, carboxypeptidase A, pepsin) was examined in the water-soluble contents of the pellets egested by ten species of raptors (kestrel, saker, lanner, goshawk, barn owl, tawny owl, little owl, long-eared owl, African great-owl and steppe eagle). All the enzymes studied were present in the pellets from these birds, except for chitinase which was not detected in the pellets of the goshawk and the steppe eagle, and amylase and carboxypeptidase absent in the material egested by the lanner. The origin of the enzymes studied was examined. Pancreatic enzymes, which are present in the pellets, arise from a reflux of intestinal fluid into the stomach. The importance of this phenomenon is discussed. The acidity of the pellets was measured. Relations existing between the type of food, characteristics of the pellet and the digestive process in raptors are analysed. The evolutionary advantage of pellet egestion is discussed.     

Is Santa Claus an evening owl?

Case studies have a long tradition in biomedical research. Here, I will analyze an important person from a chronobiological aspect, Santa Claus. Although it might be dangerous for researchers to publish analyses about Santa Claus, because, given the possibility that he may be unsatisfied with my analysis, this could lead to an embargo of parcels for my whole family. Nevertheless, some intrepid researches already diagnosed Santa Claus, ending up in some important research results. A search in Web of Science revealed only N = 224 publications about Santa Claus, which is really low. The question, I am addressing here is, whether Santa Claus is an “evening owl” or a night chronotype. In this report, I summarize the facts known about Santa Claus on the one side and about evening chronotypes on the other and sum up these results in a “vote counting” manner as pros and cons. The results are summarized in Table 1. In total, there is 12 times support for the hypothesis, 2 times against and 1 equivocal (Table 1). This result is significant (binomial test, p = 0.013). Therefore, the conclusion is “Santa Claus is an evening type”.     

Pellet forming and fragmentation in liquid culture of Streptomyces griseus

Pellets of Streptomyces griseus formed during submerged liquid culture were effectively dispersed in Tris/HCl buffer at 37 °C. However, inclusion of Tris/HCl in the culture medium did not lead to dispersed growth. In order to decrease the pellet formation in batch culture, a large inoculum of spores was required and dispersed growth was further favoured by culture at 37 °C. This method was also used to achieve dispersed culture of S. coelicolor A3(2). Autolytic enzyme activity was presumed to be responsible for fragmentation of pellets.     

论现代医院学科建设的基本思路与辩证策略

以学科建设和现代管理理论为指导，通过系统总结加强学科建设的实践经验，提出了“ 人才+设备=技术 ， 技术+学术=水平 ， 水平+市场=效益 ， 效益+和谐=发展 ”的基本思路和“一把钥匙开一把锁”的现代医院学科建设辩证策略，并对上述4个公式和1个公理的内在特点和逻辑关系进行了理论和实证研究，对指导现代医院学科建设具有参考价值。     

A dark business,full of shadows: Analogy and theology in William Harvey

In a short work called De conceptione appended to the end of his Exercitationes de generatione animalium (1651), William Harvey developed a rather strange analogy. To explain how such marvelous productions as living beings were generated from the rather inauspicious ingredients of animal reproduction, Harvey argued that conception in the womb was like conception in the brain. It was mostly rejected at the time; it now seems a ludicrous theory based upon homonymy. However, this analogy offers insight into the structure and function of analogies in early modern natural philosophy. In this essay I hope to not only describe the complex nature of Harvey’s analogy, but also offer a novel interpretation of his use of analogical reasoning, substantially revising the account offered by Guido Giglioni (1993). I discuss two points of conceptual change and negotiation in connection with Harvey’s analogy, understanding it as both a confrontation between the border of the natural and the supernatural, as well as a moment in the history of psychology. My interpretation touches upon a number of important aspects, including why the analogy was rejected, how Harvey systematically deployed analogies according to his notions of natural philosophical method, how the analogy fits into contemporary discussions of analogies in science, and finally, how the analogy must be seen in the context of changing Renaissance notions of the science of the soul, ultimately confronting the problem of how to understand final causality in Aristotelian science. In connection with the last, I conclude the essay by turning to how Harvey embeds the analogy within a natural theological cosmology.     

A modern pollen–climate calibration set based on lake sediments from the Tibetan Plateau and its application to a Late Quaternary pollen record from the Qilian Mountains

Aim Fossil pollen spectra from lake sediments on the Tibetan Plateau have been used for qualitative climate reconstruction, but no modern pollen–climate calibration set based on lake sediments is available to infer past climate quantitatively. This study aims to develop such a dataset and apply it to fossil data. Location The Tibetan Plateau, between 30 and 40° N and 87 and 103° E. Methods We collected surface sediments from 112 lakes and analysed them palynologically. The lakes span a wide range of mean annual precipitation (P_ann; 31–1022 mm), mean annual temperature (T_ann; −6.5 to 1 °C), and mean July temperature (T_July; 2.6–19.7 °C). Redundancy analysis showed that the modern pollen spectra are characteristic of their respective vegetation types and local climate. Transfer functions for P_ann, T_ann and T_July were developed with weighted averaging partial least squares. Model performance was assessed by leave-one-out cross-validation. Results The root mean square errors of prediction (RMSEP) were 104 mm (P_ann), 1.18 °C (T_ann) and 1.17 °C (T_July). The RMSEPs, when expressed as percentages of the gradient sampled, were 10.6% (P_ann), 15.7% (T_ann) and 11.9% (T_July). These low values indicate the good performance of our models. An application of the models to fossil pollen spectra covering the last c. 50 kyr yielded realistic results for Luanhaizi Lake in the Qilian Mountains on the north-eastern Tibetan Plateau (modern P_ann 480 mm; T_ann−1 °C). T_ann and P_ann values similar to present ones were reconstructed for late Marine Isotope Stage 3, with minimum values for the Last Glacial Maximum (c. 300 mm and 2 °C below present), and maximum values for the early Holocene (c. 70 mm and 0.5 °C greater than present). Main conclusions The modern pollen–climate calibration set will potentially be useful for quantitative climate reconstructions from lake-sediment pollen spectra from the Tibetan Plateau, an area of considerable climatic and biogeographical importance.