Ego and the international. The modernist circle of George Sarton

The early years of Isis are examined in the light of George Sarton’s connection with Paul Otlet (1868 –1944) and Henri Lafontaine (1854 –1943), founders in 1895 of the International Office of Bibliography and in 1907 of the Union of International Associations, both in Brussels. Otlet, known as one of the fathers of the Information Age, invented the science of information, which he called, in French, documentation. Lafontaine, a socialist senator in Belgium, won the 1913 Nobel Prize for Peace. Sarton shared Otlet and Lafontaine’s views about pacifism, internationalism, and rational bibliography; he designed Isis to fit with the modernist goal, expressed by Otlet and Lafontaine, of using information to generate new knowledge

Time-series analysis of two hydrothermal plumes at 9°50′N East Pacific Rise reveals distinct, heterogeneous bacterial populations

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2011. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of John Wiley & Sons for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geobiology 10 (2012): 178-192, doi:10.1111/j.1472-4669.2011.00315.xWe deployed sediment traps adjacent to two active hydrothermal vents at 9°50’N on the East Pacific Rise (EPR) to assess variability in bacterial community structure associated with plume particles on the time scale of weeks to months, to determine if an endemic population of plume microbes exists, and to establish ecological relationships between bacterial populations and vent chemistry. Automated rRNA intergenic spacer analysis (ARISA) indicated there are separate communities at the two different vents and temporal community variations between each vent. Correlation analysis between chemistry and microbiology indicated that shifts in the coarse particulate (>1 mm) Fe/(Fe+Mn+Al), Cu, V, Ca, Al, 232Th, and Ti as well as fine-grained particulate (<1 mm) Fe/(Fe+Mn+Al), Fe, Ca and Co are reflected in shifts in microbial populations. 16S rRNA clone libraries from each trap at three time points revealed a high percentage of Epsilonproteobacteria clones and hyperthermophilic Aquificae. There is a shift towards the end of the experiment to more Gammaproteobacteria and Alphaproteobacteria, many of whom likely participate in Fe and S cycling. The particle attached plume environment is genetically distinct from the surrounding seawater. While work to date in hydrothermal environments has focused on determining the microbial communities on hydrothermal chimneys and the basaltic lavas that form the surrounding seafloor, little comparable data exists on the plume environment that physically and chemically connects them. By employing sediment traps for a time series approach to sampling, we show that bacterial community composition on plume particles changes on time scales much shorter than previously known.This work was supported by the NSF Marine Geology and Geophysics program, the Science and Technology program, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

Regaining creativity in science: insights from conversation

The 'early modern' (Renaissance) workshop was predicated on the idea that informal, open-ended cooperation enables participants to experience difference and develop new insights, which can lead to new ways of thinking and doing. This paper presents the insights that emerged from a conversation event that brought wide-ranging voices together from different domains in science, and across the arts and industry, to consider science leadership as we look to the future in a time of interlocking crises. The core theme identified was a need to regain creativity in science; in the methods of scientific endeavours, in the way science is produced and communicated, and in how science is experienced in society. Three key challenges for re-establishing a culture of creativity in science emerged: (i) how scientists communicate what science is and what it is for, (ii) what scientists value, and (iii) how scientists create and co-create science with and for society. Furthermore, the value of open-ended and ongoing conversation between different perspectives as a means of achieving this culture was identified and demonstrated

Sobre o Estilo na História Intelectual

Style in past Ages denotes general sensibilities that guide thought and action. Attempts to show how style derives from the material circumstances of living remain inconclusive because of the difficulty in deciding which parts of culture past lie at the center of it. The advantages and the drawbacks of modelsand schemes offered by major theorists of the past several generations are used to support the proposition that philosophy is a dubious guide for practicing intellectual historians, who do best when they make their own methods from the materialthey study.O estilo no passado denotava sensibilidades gerais que guiam o pensamento e a ação. Tentativas de mostrar como o estilo deriva das circunstâncias materiais da vida permanecem inconclusivas por causa da dificuldade em decidir quais partes da cultura do passado estão no centro dele. As vantagens e desvantagens dos modelos e esquemas oferecidos pelos principais teóricos das gerações passadas são usadas para apoiar a proposição de que a filosofia é um guia duvidoso para praticantes da história intelectual, que se saem melhor quando criam seus próprios métodos a partir do material que estudam

Regaining creativity in science: insights from conversation

The 'early modern' (Renaissance) workshop was predicated on the idea that informal, open-ended cooperation enables participants to experience difference and develop new insights, which can lead to new ways of thinking and doing. This paper presents the insights that emerged from a conversation event that brought wide-ranging voices together from different domains in science, and across the arts and industry, to consider science leadership as we look to the future in a time of interlocking crises. The core theme identified was a need to regain creativity in science; in the methods of scientific endeavours, in the way science is produced and communicated, and in how science is experienced in society. Three key challenges for re-establishing a culture of creativity in science emerged: (i) how scientists communicate what science is and what it is for, (ii) what scientists value, and (iii) how scientists create and co-create science with and for society. Furthermore, the value of open-ended and ongoing conversation between different perspectives as a means of achieving this culture was identified and demonstrated

Alveoli, teeth, and tooth loss: Understanding the homology of internal mandibular structures in mysticete cetaceans

The evolution of filter feeding in baleen whales (Mysticeti) facilitated a wide range of ecological diversity and extreme gigantism. The innovation of filter feeding evolved in a shift from a mineralized upper and lower dentition in stem mysticetes to keratinous baleen plates that hang only from the roof of the mouth in extant species, which are all edentulous as adults. While all extant mysticetes are born with a mandible lacking a specialized feeding structure (i.e., baleen), the bony surface retains small foramina with elongated sulci that often merge together in what has been termed the alveolar gutter. Because mysticete embryos develop tooth buds that resorb in utero, these foramina have been interpreted as homologous to tooth alveoli in other mammals. Here, we test this homology by creating 3D models of the internal mandibular morphology from terrestrial artiodactyls and fossil and extant cetaceans, including stem cetaceans, odontocetes and mysticetes. We demonstrate that dorsal foramina on the mandible communicate with the mandibular canal via smaller canals, which we explain within the context of known mechanical models of bone resorption. We suggest that these dorsal foramina represent distinct branches of the inferior alveolar nerve (or artery), rather than alveoli homologous with those of other mammals. As a functional explanation, we propose that these branches provide sensation to the dorsal margin of the mandible to facilitate placement and occlusion of the baleen plates during filer feeding