Latest Fellows of the Royal Society Stories
Protein folding and how it affects disease and drug discovery will be the focus of lectures hosted Thursday, March 3, by The Verna and Marrs McLean Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.Guest speakers will include Dr. David S. Eisenberg, director of the University of California at Los Angeles Department of Energy Institute for Genomics and Proteomics, and Sir Tom Blundell, Ph.D., director of research and professor emeritus in the department...
The National Heritage Memorial Fund has saved an archive of WWII papers from the United Kingdom's most famous code-breaker, Alan Turing, in an 11th-hour bid that kept the collection of scientific papers from going to a private buyer. Turing, one of the founding fathers of modern computing and a key figure in breaking the German Enigma code, will now have his work kept in its "spiritual home," Bletchley Park, which was the center of Britain's top secret code-breaking effort during the war. The...
Dr. Bert O'Malley, chair of molecular and cellular biology at Baylor College of Medicine and the Tom Thompson Distinguished Service Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, is the 2011 recipient of the Ernst Schering Prize, which recognized his pioneering work on the actions of steroid hormones and nuclear receptors.The prize is awarded annually by the Ernst Schering Foundation, a German organization, to internationally renowned scientists for their outstanding work in biology, medicine...
SEATTLE, Jan. 25, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Evolutionary theory's co-founder ultimately rejected Darwinism on scientific grounds in favor of an understanding similar to modern intelligent design (ID). In a new biography published by Discovery Institute, Alfred Russel Wallace: A Rediscovered Life, University of Alabama science historian Michael Flannery tells how Wallace grew disenchanted with natural selection as a theory capable of explaining life's complexity. Wallace (1823-1913)...
Finite formula found for partition numbersFor centuries, some of the greatest names in math have tried to make sense of partition numbers, the basis for adding and counting. Many mathematicians added major pieces to the puzzle, but all of them fell short of a full theory to explain partitions. Instead, their work raised more questions about this fundamental area of math.On Friday, Emory mathematician Ken Ono will unveil new theories that answer these famous old questions.Ono and his research...
3,607 finches and mockingbirds housed at the California Academy of Sciences provided critical data for research about the spread of disease in Darwin's famous islandsA research team from across the United States and Ecuador has pinpointed 1898 as the year the avipoxvirus, or avian pox, hit the Galapagos Islands and started infecting its birds. This estimation is vital to understanding avian diseases that affect today's Galapagos birds. The scientists' paper on the subject, "110 Years of...
A promising boost for nano-circuitryIn the burgeoning field of nano-science there are now many ways of 'writing' molecular-scale messages on a surface, one molecule at a time. The trouble is that writing a molecule at a time takes a very long time."It is much better if the molecules can be persuaded to gather together and imprint an entire pattern simultaneously, by themselves. One such pattern is an indefinitely long line, which can then provide the basis for the ultimately thin...
Charles Darwin's theory of gradual evolution is not supported by geological history, New York University Geologist Michael Rampino concludes in an essay in the journal Historical Biology. In fact, Rampino notes that a more accurate theory of gradual evolution, positing that long periods of evolutionary stability are disrupted by catastrophic mass extinctions of life, was put forth by Scottish horticulturalist Patrick Matthew prior to Darwin's published work on the topic."Matthew...
PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 9, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Franklin Institute today named seven preeminent trailblazers in science, business and technology whose extraordinary contributions will be recognized and honored during the annual Franklin Institute Awards Ceremony and Dinner on Thursday, April 28, 2011. Six Benjamin Franklin Medals will be presented that evening, with genetic researcher Dr. George Church receiving the $250,000 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science. CBS...
2 Watson School professors find unread correspondence of Francis CrickThe story of the double helix's discovery has a few new twists. A new primary source -- a never-before-read stack of letters to and from Francis Crick, and other historical materials dating from the years 1950-76 -- has been uncovered by two professors at the Watson School of Biological Sciences at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL).The letters both confirm and extend current knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the...
Latest Fellows of the Royal Society Reference Libraries
The Zoological Journal was a scientific journal published in the early nineteenth century on a quarterly basis. It was devoted entirely to zoology (animal kingdom). It was published in London by W. Philips. It featured “Original Communications, Translations of new and interesting Papers from Foreign sources and notices of new and remarkable facts in any way connected with Zoology," according to Gentlemen’s Magazine, 1823. The journal’s editors were Thomas Bell, John George Children,...
Iguanodon, meaning “Iguana tooth,” is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur known from the Kimmeridgian age of the Late Jurassic Period to the Cenomanian age of the Late Cretaceous Period. It lived in Asia, Europe and North America. Research in the early 2000s suggests however that only one species, I. bernissartensis, is well-substantiated, and lived during the Early Cretaceous Period in Europe. It was first discovered in 1822 and described three years later by English geologist Gideon...
Antonio de Ulloa was born on January 12, 1716 in Seville. Ulloa enlisted with the Spanish Navy in 1733. In 1735, he was sent to Ecuador as a member of the French Geodesic Mission. The mission, led by Pierre Bouguer, was organized by the French Academy of Sciences to measure a degree of the meridian at the equator. He stayed in Ecuador for 9 years until 1744, during this stint; he discovered platinum with his partner, Jorge Juan. In 1745, he returned to Spain. However, while enroute to...
Alfred Lothar Wegener (November 1, 1880 "“ November 2, 1930) was a German scientist, geologist, and meteorologist. He is best known for establishing the theory of the continental drift. His 1915 theory of continental drift surmised that the continents were slowly floating around the Earth. Most of his basis was strictly circumstantial evidence, and further he was not able to exhibit a mechanism for continental drift, which resulted in an unaccepted hypothesis until the 1950s. At that...
Michel Adanson (April 7, 1727 - August 3, 1806) was a French naturalist of Scottish descent. He was born at Aix-en-Provence. His family moved to Paris in 1730. After leaving the College Sainte Barbe he was employed in the cabinets of R. A. F. Reaumur and Bernard de Jussieu, as well as in the Jardin des Plantes. Adanson left France at the end of 1748 on an exploring expedition to Senegal. He remained there for five years, collecting and describing numerous animal and plant species. He also...
