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PubMedDate not supplied

The excitability of plant cells: with a special emphasis on characean internodal cells.

This review describes the basic principles of electrophysiology using the generation of an action potential in characean internodal cells as a pedagogical tool. Electrophysiology has proven to be a powerful tool in understanding animal physiology and development, yet it has been virtually neglected in the study of plant physiology and development. This review is, in essence, a written account of my personal journey over the past five years to understand the basic principles of electrophysiology so that I can apply them to the study of plant physiology and development. My formal background is in classical botany and cell biology. I have learned electrophysiology by reading many books on physics written for the lay person and by talking informally with many patient biophysicists. I have written this review for the botanist who is unfamiliar with the basics of membrane biology but would like to know that she or he can become familiar with the latest information without much effort. I also wrote it for the neurophysiologist who is proficient in membrane biology but knows little about plant biology (but may want to teach one lecture on "plant action potentials"). And lastly, I wrote this for people interested in the history of science and how the studies of electrical and chemical communication in physiology and development progressed in the botanical and zoological disciplines.

Action Potentials↗
PubMed2003

Issues of exploration: human health and wellbeing during a mission to Mars.

Today, the tools are in our hands to enable us to travel away from our home planet and become citizens of the solar system. Even now, we are seriously beginning to develop the robust infrastructure that will make the 21st century the Century of Space Travel. But this bold step must be taken with due concern for the health, safety and wellbeing of future space explorers. Our long experience with space biomedical research convinces us that, if we are to deal effectively with the medical and biomedical issues of exploration, then dramatic and bold steps are also necessary in this field. We can no longer treat the human body as if it were composed of muscles, bones, heart and brain acting independently. Instead, we must lead the effort to develop a fully integrated view of the body, with all parts connected and fully interacting in a realistic way. This paper will present the status of current (2000) plans by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute to initiate research in this area of integrative physiology and medicine. Specifically, three example projects are discussed as potential stepping stones towards the ultimate goal of producing a digital human. These projects relate to developing a functional model of the human musculoskeletal system and the heart.

Adaptation, Physiological↗
PubMed2002

Identification of characteristic oligonucleotides in the bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA sequence dataset.

MOTIVATION: The phylogenetic structure of the bacterial world has been intensively studied by comparing sequences of 16S ribosomal RNA (16S rRNA). This database of sequences is now widely used to design probes for the detection of specific bacteria or groups of bacteria one at a time. The success of such methods reflects the fact that there are local sequence segments that are highly characteristic of particular organisms or groups of organisms. It is not clear, however, the extent to which such signature sequences exist in the 16S rRNA dataset. A better understanding of the numbers and distribution of highly informative oligonucleotide sequences may facilitate the design of hybridization arrays that can characterize the phylogenetic position of an unknown organism or serve as the basis for the development of novel approaches for use in bacterial identification. RESULTS: A computer-based algorithm that characterizes the extent to which any individual oligonucleotide sequence in 16S rRNA is characteristic of any particular bacterial grouping was developed. A measure of signature quality, Q(s), was formulated and subsequently calculated for every individual oligonucleotide sequence in the size range of 5-11 nucleotides and for 15mers with reference to each cluster and subcluster in a 929 organism representative phylogenetic tree. Subsequently, the perfect signature sequences were compared to the full set of 7322 sequences to see how common false positives were. The work completed here establishes beyond any doubt that highly characteristic oligonucleotides exist in the bacterial 16S rRNA sequence dataset in large numbers. Over 16,000 15mers were identified that might be useful as signatures. Signature oligonucleotides are available for over 80% of the nodes in the representative tree.

Algorithms↗
PubMed2000

Rights and responsibilities of the psychiatric profession.

Psychiatry as a medical discipline relies on the authority of medicine that is associated with the help to a suffering and deserving individual. If this source of authority is obscured, the discipline will be blamed for serving as a social tool for controlling undesirable phenomena and practices. Psychiatry as a medical science accumulates knowledge on the relationship of biology and psychopathology. It can provide an explanation of the extent to which mental illness participates in socially undesirable behaviour and phenomena. But it cannot explain undesirable social phenomena as a mental illness of sorts, let alone offer an effective treatment for them. We should carefully guard the boundaries of psychiatry to prevent its abuse in the future.

Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice↗
PubMed1987

From Osler to Olafson. The evolution of veterinary pathology in North America.

Most branches of biological science in North America developed first in the United States, and later were taught and practiced in Canada. An exception was veterinary pathology, which as a discipline taught in veterinary colleges and as a field of research, developed first in Canada, and from there crossed the border to the United States. Pathology was first taught at the Montreal Veterinary College, founded in 1866 by Duncan McEachran, a graduate of the Edinburgh Veterinary College. From the outset, he formed a close association with the medical faculty of McGill University, permitting his students to attend the same classes in the basic subjects with the medical students. Eventually, the Montreal Veterinary College became formally affiliated with McGill University, as the Faculty of Comparative Medicine and Veterinary Science. The McGill veterinary faculty was forced to close for economic reasons in 1903, but it left an enduring legacy, particularly in the field of veterinary pathology. The legacy, a novel concept in the 1870's, was that pathology was the cornerstone of a veterinary education; the place where anatomy, physiology, chemistry and botany met with the clinical subjects, and gave the latter meaning. This tradition was formed at the Montreal Veterinary College by the world renowned physician William Osler, North America's leading medical teacher, whom McEachran had invited to teach at the College in 1876 in addition to his duties in the faculty of medicine. Osler had studied with Virchow in Berlin and applied his methods of autopsy technique and of scientific inquiry to his teaching of both human and veterinary pathology at McGill. Osler also undertook investigations into various diseases of domestic animals, at the request of McEachran, who doubled as Chief Veterinary Inspector for the Dominion Department of Agriculture. Osler left McGill University in 1884. Only after that year did other North American veterinary schools adopt pathology as a discipline of instruction. However, by 1884, Osler had already left his indelible imprint on the students (both medical and veterinary) he had taught in Montreal, one of whom took over the teaching of pathology in the veterinary college. Another, who followed Osler's example and also studied in Berlin with Virchow, wrote the first book in the English language on veterinary post mortem technique in 1889.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Animals↗
PubMed1982

Concepts in causality: chemically induced human urinary bladder cancer.

A significant portion of the incidence of human urinary bladder cancer can be attributed to occupational and cultural (tobacco smoking) situations associated with exposures to various arylamines, many of which represent established human carcinogens. A brief historical overview of research in bladder cancer causality indicates that the identification of causal agents and causal mechanism has been approached and rests upon information gathered at the organismal (geographical/historical), cellular, and molecular levels of biologic organization. This viewpoint speaks of a natural evolution within the biomedical sciences; a natural evolution from descriptive approaches to mechanistic approaches; and a natural evolution from more or less independent discipline-oriented approaches to hierarchically organized multidisciplinary approaches. Available information relevant to bladder cancer causality can be readily integrated into general conceptual frameworks to yield a hierarchial view of the natural history of urinary bladder cancer, a view consistent with contemporary natural systems and information theory and perhaps relevant also to other chemically induced epithelial cancers. Such frameworks are useful in appreciating the spatial and temporal boundaries and interrelationships in causality and the conceptual interrelationships within the biomedical sciences. Recent approaches in molecular epidemiology and the assessment of relative individual susceptibility to bladder cancer indicate that such frameworks are useful in forming hypotheses.

Animals↗
PubMed1990

Toward applied behavior analysis of life aloft.

This article deals with systems at multiple levels, at least from cell to organization. It also deals with learning, decision making, and other behavior at multiple levels. Technological development of a human behavioral ecosystem appropriate to space environments requires an analytic and synthetic orientation, explicitly experimental in nature, dictated by scientific and pragmatic considerations, and closely approximating procedures of established effectiveness in other areas of natural science. The conceptual basis of such an approach has its roots in environmentalism which has two main features: (1) knowledge comes from experience rather than from innate ideas, divine revelation, or other obscure sources; and (2) action is governed by consequences rather than by instinct, reason, will, beliefs, attitudes or even the currently fashionable cognitions. Without an experimentally derived data base founded upon such a functional analysis of human behavior, the overgenerality of "ecological systems" approaches render them incapable of ensuring the successful establishment of enduring space habitats. Without an experimentally derived function account of individual behavioral variability, a natural science of behavior cannot exist. And without a natural science of behavior, the social sciences will necessarily remain in their current status as disciplines of less than optimal precision or utility. Such a functional analysis of human performance should provide an operational account of behavior change in a manner similar to the way in which Darwin's approach to natural selection accounted for the evolution of phylogenetic lines (i.e., in descriptive, nonteleological terms). Similarly, as Darwin's account has subsequently been shown to be consonant with information obtained at the cellular level, so too should behavior principles ultimately prove to be in accord with an account of ontogenetic adaptation at a biochemical level. It would thus seem obvious that the most productive conceptual and methodological approaches to long-term research investments focused upon human behavior in space environments will require multidisciplinary inputs from such wide-ranging fields as molecular biology, environmental physiology, behavioral biology, architecture, sociology, and political science, among others.

Behavior↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Seventy years of the Department of Cytology and Histology, Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University].

Histology, which is inseparable from cytology as a scientific discipline, has been taught at the University of Moscow for more than 130 years. In the second half of the XIX century, this discipline made a revolutionary impact on physiology and medicine in European science. The first Department (Chair) of Histology and Embryology was established at the Moscow Imperial University in 1869 at the Faculty of Medicine under Prof. A.I. Babukhin, the famous founder of Russian histology. Several outstanding scientists, such as I.F. Ognev, A.G. Gurvich, B.I. Lavrent'ev, and others, graduated from that Department.

Cell Biology↗
PubMed2007

[Sex education in practice and science in Germany].

Sex education in Germany has a history full of conflict and ideological change between emancipatory, reforming, and repressive tendencies. As a science, sex education has only recently gained independence from its mother disciplines theology, medicine, psychology, and sociology and at the same time has taken a critically constructive position towards sexual science. Its topics range from dissemination of knowledge about biological processes and contraception to relationship concerns, sexual orientation, gender issues, sexual transgression, moral, and ethical questions. Sexual socialization happens nearly everywhere. Sexual education takes place mainly in families, elementary education, and school, but increasingly also in all other areas of education, social work, and health service. Its clientèle are no longer exclusively children and adolescents but increasingly adults of every age group. Subjects such as AIDS, sexual abuse, and teenage pregnancy have contributed to governmental funding of projects and training in sex education. Thus, sex education still reaches from mere protection from dangers to fostering or maintaining psychological health.

Germany↗
PubMed1992

Veterinary public health: perspectives at the threshold of the 21st century.

Veterinary public health (VPH) is a term officially used by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to provide a conceptual framework and programmatic structure for those public health activities which involve the application of knowledge, expertise and resources in veterinary medicine towards the protection and improvement of human health. It serves as the "linkage" between agriculture and public health. The principles on which VPH is based are deeply rooted in the biological, physical and social sciences, and are widely shared in agriculture, medicine and the environmental sciences. It involves not only veterinarians but also professionals from a host of other disciplines. VPH is dynamic in its scope and functions, and future perspectives are defined by the changing policy and priorities of the health and agriculture sectors. VPH continuously explores the horizons of public health needs for new opportunities in which veterinary medicine has a comparative advantage. The control and eradication of zoonoses and food protection remain the prominent functions of VPH. In the region of the Americas, VPH forms one of the central approaches in the strategic orientation and programme priorities of the health sector, having three strategic foci: the elimination of urban rabies, the eradication of foot and mouth disease, and food protection. The programme of technical cooperation covers the following components: zoonoses, foot and mouth disease, food protection, biomedical models, education and training in veterinary public health, and the development of veterinary public health services.

Animals↗
PubMed1986

Education and the new technologies in reproduction.

Since 1978 technologies applied to human reproductive biology have resulted in totally new ways of making families. Traditionally education has presented science as a value-free body of absolute knowledge, neatly divided into discrete disciplines. This has resulted in a fragmented approach to the teaching of human reproduction. Many students are leaving school today confused and ignorant about contraception and their own fertility. How will education deal with new methods of controlling and promoting human fertility and family planning? Should the curriculum include: the scientific details of the technologies; the nature and known causes of infertility; the recent legislation designed to limit these technologies; the implications for the family as the fundamental social unit? If so, where in the curriculum, and taught by whom? This paper critically examines these possibilities with particular focus on the confused role of genetics in defining parents and families, both in the literature and in recent Victorian legislation designed to regulate new reproductive technologies. A more precise definition of the concept of 'mother' which acknowledges all three components, genetic, birth and social is suggested for inclusion in a broader curriculum about human reproduction, preferably within science education.

Australia↗
PubMed2000

100 years of virology: from vitalism via molecular biology to genetic engineering.

The identification of the causative agent of tobacco mosaic disease as a novel pathogen by the Dutch microbiologist Beijerinck is now acknowledged as being the foundation of virology as a discipline distinct from bacteriology. However, as this was contrary to the prevailing theories of the time, it took many years for virology to become firmly established as a separate discipline. The history of virology illustrates how accepted concepts in science evolve by trial and error and the need for a balanced approach when manipulating natural systems.

Genetic Engineering↗
PubMed2002

The coming space science programme in animal cell/tissue research.

Between the genotypical potentials and given phenotypical expressions, cell behaviour is hypothesised largely depending on local distributed control mechanisms resulting from delicate mass flux balances involving biochemical (including cytokine, endocrine and paracrine factors) and mechanical signalling pathways. Better knowledge and exogenous control of these mechanisms is a major objective of our ESA programme in biotechnology through the integrated use of natural sciences and engineering sciences. The control of cell potency and differentiation and of cell regulation mechanisms (including apoptosis and migration triggering events) will have a huge impact on regenerative medicine (tissue engineering), and will also improve our understanding of phenomena important in immune diseases, the ageing process, and cancer. A summary is given of current research projects which have in common the understanding of the cell-environment relationship or the development of analytical and processing methods in the discipline of animal cell technology.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Gene targeting methods for studying nuclear transport factors in mice.

Genetically engineered mice have been widely used to study gene function in a variety of life-science disciplines. However, the use of animal models in the field of nucleocytoplasmic transport has been limited, mainly because disruption of individual transport factors is expected to deregulate basic biological processes so severely that the embryo dies at an early stage in development. Early studies in which transport factors were knocked out in mice have confirmed this notion. Recent work has shown that hypomorphic alleles are very useful for studying essential genes at the organismal level. In combination with wild-type and knockout alleles, hypomorphic alleles can be used to generate a series of mice in which the expression of a protein is gradually reduced from normal to zero. Within this series, there is often an allelic combination that yields liveborn mice that develop overt phenotypes as they age, and that can be used to study the physiological relevance of the protein. In this article, we present an efficient method for generating an allelic series of mice. It involves the use of a multi-purpose gene-targeting vector that produces a hypomorphic allele that can also be converted into conditional and knockout alleles within the mouse. This method saves time and provides flexibility in terms of choosing the most appropriate model for studying components of the nucleocytoplasmic machinery at the organismal level.

Active Transport, Cell Nucleus↗
PubMed2003

[Frames of reference for interdisciplinary management in human sciences].

The reference framework for those disciplines that deal with the functions of the nervous system has a very simple basic structure: It becomes clear when, based on the matrix with the four central questions of biological research (causation, ontogeny, adaptation, phylogeny), one asks and at the same time takes the reference levels (e.g. cell, organ, individual, group) at which the questions are aimed into account (the questions and planes in bold are also the subject of the humanities). This "bio-psycho-social" orientation framework is the basis for the development of an interdisciplinary consensus: It is the starting point for a systematic order for those disciplines, and also the basis for a consistent networking and structuring of their results.

Animals↗
PubMed1996

Monoglycerides in membrane systems.

Monoglycerides are used abundantly in food systems, ingested and produced in vivo, and recognized as significant mediators in many biochemical processes, yet their function in various membrane systems is only understood at a hypothetical level. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the effects of monoglycerides in membrane systems from three diverse disciplines: nutrition, food science, and membrane biochemistry. An analysis of the data ranging from feeding studies to physical chemistry is given, detailing the role of these common molecules in biological membranes.

Chylomicrons↗
PubMed2026

Ross River virus transmission, infection, and disease: two and a half decades of research progress-an updated cross-disciplinary review.

SUMMARYRoss River virus (RRV) causes the most mosquito-borne disease notifications in Australia and a considerable burden of non-fatal, yet frequently prolonged rheumatic illness across the Australia-Pacific region, reflected in thousands of notifications each year and notable economic and quality-of-life losses. Research on RRV spans multiple disciplines, encompassing viral genomics, immunopathology, transmission ecology, epidemiology, entomology, and environmental science. This review synthesizes two decades of cross-disciplinary investigations to present an integrated perspective on the biological, clinical, ecological, and environmental dimensions of RRV infection. By consolidating findings from diverse fields, the review enhances understanding of the complex factors influencing RRV transmission and disease outcomes throughout its endemic range.

Humans↗