Historicity of Ecocriticism and Ecocritical History: An Introductory Overview

IJOHMN ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 22-52
Author(s):  
Jalal Uddin Khan
Keyword(s):  
Extended Family ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
Amazon Rainforest ◽  
Sixth Grader ◽  
Leafcutter Ants ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Science Story ◽  
Introductory Overview ◽  
Popular Magazine ◽  
Living Organisms

Overlapping and interconnected, interdisciplinary and heterogeneous, amorphous and multi-layered, and deep and broad as it is, countless topics on ecoliterature make ecocriticism a comprehensive catchall term that proposes to look at a text--be it social, cultural, political, religious, or scientific--from naturalist perspectives and moves us from “the community of literature to the larger biospheric community which […] we belong to even as we are destroying it” (William Rueckert). As I was in the middle of writing and researching for this article, I was struck by a piece of nature writing by an eleven year old sixth grader born to his (South Asian and American) mixed parents, both affiliated with Johns Hopkins and already proud to belong to the extended family of a Nobel Laureate in Physics. The young boy, Rizwan Thorne-Lyman, wrote, as his science story project, an incredibly beautiful essay, “A Day in the Life of the Amazon Rainforest.” Reading about the rainforest was one of his interests, I was told. In describing the day-long activities of birds and animals among the tall trees and small plants, the 2 pp.-long narrative actually captures the eternally continuing natural cycle of the Amazon. The budding naturalist’s neat classification of the wild life into producers (leafy fruit and flowering plants and trees), consumers (caimans/crocodiles, leafcutter ants, capuchin monkey), predators (macaws, harpy eagles, jaguars, green anaconda), decomposers (worms, fungi and bacteria), parasites (phorid flies) and scavengers (millipedes) was found to be unforgettably impressive. Also the organization of the essay into the Amazon’s mutually benefitting and organically functioning flora and fauna during the day--sunrise, midday, and sunset--was unmistakably striking. I congratulated him as an aspiring environmentalist specializing in rain forest. I encouraged him that he should try to get his essay published in a popular magazine like Reader’s Digest (published did he get in no time indeed![i]) and that he should also read about (and visit) Borneo in Southeast Asia, home to other great biodiverse rainforests of the world. I called him “soft names” as a future Greenpeace and Environmental Protection leader and theorist, a soon-to-be close friend of Al Gore’s. The promising boy’s understanding, however short, of the Amazon ecology and ecosystem and the biological phenomena of its living organisms was really amazing. His essay reminded me of other famous nature writings, especially those by Fiona Macleod (see below), that are the pleasure of those interested in the ecocriticism of the literature of place--dooryards, backyards, outdoors, open fields, parks and farms, fields and pastures, and different kinds of other wildernesses.   [i] https://stonesoup.com/post/a-day-in-the-life-in-the-amazon-rainforest/

I Compute, Therefore I Am

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subrata Dasgupta
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
Feedback Systems ◽  
Rabindranath Tagore ◽  
No Man's Land ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
The Times ◽  
Fellow Scientist

The 1940s witnessed the appearance of a handful of scientists who, defying the specialism characteristic of most of 20th-century science, strode easily across borders erected to protect disciplinary territories. They were people who, had they been familiar with the poetry of the Nobel laureate Indian poet–philosopher Rabindranath Tagore (1861– 1941), would have shared his vision of a “heaven of freedom”: . . .Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls. . . . Norbert Wiener (1894–1964), logician, mathematician, and prodigy, who was awarded a PhD by Harvard at age 17, certainly yearned for this heaven of freedom in the realm of science as the war-weary first half of the 20th century came to an end. He would write that he and his fellow scientist and collaborator Arturo Rosenbluth (1900–1970) had long shared a belief that, although during the past two centuries scientific investigations became increasingly specialized, the most “fruitful” arenas lay in the “no-man’s land” between the established fields of science. There were scientific fields, Wiener remarked, that had been studied from different sides, each bestowing its own name to the field, each ignorant of what others had discovered, thus creating work that was “triplicated or quadruplicated” because of mutual ignorance or incomprehension. Wiener, no respecter of “narrow domestic walls” would inhabit such “boundary regions” between mathematics, engineering, biology, and sociology, and create cybernetics, a science devoted to the study of feedback systems common to living organisms, machines, and social systems. Here was a science that straddled the no-man’s land between the traditionally separate domains of the natural and the artificial. Wiener’s invention of cybernetics after the end of World War II was a marker of a certain spirit of the times when, in the manner in which Wiener expressed his yearning, scientists began to create serious links between nature and artifact. It is inevitable that this no-man’s land between the natural and the artificial should be part of this story.

Dynamics of membrane processes

1968 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Katchalsky ◽  
R. Spangler
Keyword(s):  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Membrane Processes ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Intrinsic Contradiction

I. I. In his illuminating book onThe Nature of Thermodynamics, Bridgeman (1941) points out an intrinsic contradiction between the concepts of physical and biological evolution. In his words: ‘The view that the universe is running down into a condition where its entropy and the amount of disorder are as great as possible has had a profound effect on the views of many biologists on the nature of biological phenomena. It springs to the eye, however, that the tendency of living organisms is to organize their surroundings—that is to “produce” order where formerly there was disorder. Life then appears in some way to oppose the otherwise universal drive to disorder. Does it mean that living organisms do, or may violate the second law of thermodynamics?…’

Vitalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Bechtel ◽  
Robert C. Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Modern Science ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Movement Perception ◽  
The Third ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Living Things ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Mechanical Devices ◽  
Élan Vital ◽  
Mechanistic View

Vitalists hold that living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things. In its simplest form, vitalism holds that living entities contain some fluid, or a distinctive ‘spirit’. In more sophisticated forms, the vital spirit becomes a substance infusing bodies and giving life to them; or vitalism becomes the view that there is a distinctive organization among living things. Vitalist positions can be traced back to antiquity. Aristotle’s explanations of biological phenomena are sometimes thought of as vitalistic, though this is problematic. In the third century bc, the Greek anatomist Galen held that vital spirits are necessary for life. Vitalism is best understood, however, in the context of the emergence of modern science during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Mechanistic explanations of natural phenomena were extended to biological systems by Descartes and his successors. Descartes maintained that animals, and the human body, are ‘automata’, mechanical devices differing from artificial devices only in their degree of complexity. Vitalism developed as a contrast to this mechanistic view. Over the next three centuries, numerous figures opposed the extension of Cartesian mechanism to biology, arguing that matter could not explain movement, perception, development or life. Vitalism has fallen out of favour, though it had advocates even into the twentieth century. The most notable is Hans Driesch (1867–1941), an eminent embryologist, who explained the life of an organism in terms of the presence of an entelechy, a substantial entity controlling organic processes. Likewise, the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1874–1948) posited an élan vital to overcome the resistance of inert matter in the formation of living bodies.

Biology and Materials? Part I

MRS Bulletin ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 24-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Alper
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Basis ◽  
Materials Science ◽  
Vital Force ◽  
The Past ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Living Things ◽  
The Common ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Science Departments ◽  
First Time

Poets and philosophers have, through the ages, viewed organisms as the embodiment of the mysterious “Vital Force,” a unique non-earthly element required for the functioning of life processes.Biologists have seen, in living organisms, an adaptive, self-reproducing, evolving collection of molecules acting solely according to the laws of chemistry and physics.Historians speak of the iron or bronze ages and, more recently of the plastics (polymers) and the silicon ages. Materials science departments speak of metals, alloys, ceramics, and perhaps polymers—but not of genes.The “common man” has, it must be admitted, seen living organisms as a source of useful and important materials—wood for building; cotton, silk, and other fibers for textiles; horn, shell, and bone for tools and weapons; fats for lubricants; fur for clothingBut, in fact, few of us now think of materials when we think of living things. Neither do we think of DNA, protein, and carbohydrates when we think of materials.No, biologists have not been blackballed by materials scientists, chemists, and physicists. Until recently, they neither understood the processes by which life produces its materials nor even conceived of manipulating those processes to tailor the properties of the materials to our needs. Only within the past few years has the “biological revolution” expanded our understanding of the molecular basis for biological phenomena and our ability to control them. It is only now, for the first time, that one can point to a legitimate field of science based on mimicking, adapting, and controlling biological systems with the goal of producing novel materials with important, unique, and useful properties.

Chronobiology Principles and Methods of Studying Biological Rhythms

Cephalalgia ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 3 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 14-20
Author(s):  
Franca Carandente
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Biological Rhythms ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Automatic Monitoring ◽  
Biological Variables ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Il Y A ◽  
Nello Studio ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Overt Disease

In studying many diseases we meet with periodic phenomena. The appearance of some symptoms and the relevant remissions often have a cyclic pattern. The temporal structure of living organisms is at the root of these phenomena: the correct intermodulation, in terms of time, of the biological variables, realizes the conditions of well being. If the harmony between the biological rhythms is disturbed for some reason, the subjects find themselves in the state of proneness to disease or of overt disease. To evaluate this different situation it is necessary to follow the biological phenomena during the time and estimate, with correct statistical methods, the periodicity, the relevant parameters and the ratios. So research has to be completed with a sufficient number of measurements of pertinent variables and of the variables to be utilized as marker rhythms. For this purpose, autorhythmometry and automatic monitoring can help greatly. Evaluation of the parameters and ratios between the biological rhythms pertinent to the studied disease and marker rhythms constitute the ground on which the discussion and conclusions of the research have to be founded. En étudiant beaucoup de pathologies on rencontre des phénomènes périodiques. L'apparition de certains symptômes et les rémissions relatives ont souvent un charactère cyclique. A’ la base de ces phénomènes il y a la structure temporelle des organismes vivants: la correcte intermodulation des rythmes biologiques entre eux, réalise la condition de bien-être. Lorsque l'harmonie entre ces rythmes est troublée pour n'importe quelle raison, on se trouve dans les conditions de la prédisposition à la maladie ou bien à la maladie déclarée. Pour évaluer ces situations différentes il est nécessaire de suivre les phénomènes biologiques dans le temps et de choisir les méthodes statistiques les plus appropriées pour examiner la périodicité, les paramètres s'y afférant et les rapports. Les recherches doivent donc se baser sur un nombre suffisant de mesures des variables pertinentes et des variables à utiliser comme des rythmes guide. L'emploi de l'autorythmométrie et de la rythmométrie automatique peut être d'une grande utilité. L'évaluation des paramètres et des rapports des rythmes biologiques concernant la pathologie étudiée et des rythmes guide représent le matériel sur lequel baser la discussion et les conclusions de la recherche. Nello studio di molte forme patologiche ci si imbatte in fenomeni periodici. La comparsa di talune sintomatologie e le relative remissioni hanno sovente carattere ciclico. Alla base di questi fenomeni è la struttura temporale degli organismi viventi: la corretta intermodulazione, in termini temporali, delle variabili biologiche tra loro, realizza la condizione di benessere. Quando l'armonia tra i ritmi biologici viene turbata, per qualsiasi ragione, ci si trova nelle condizioni di predisposizione alla malattia od alla malattia conclamata. Per valutare queste diverse situazioni è necessario seguire nel tempo i fenomeni biologici e valutarne con le corrette metodiche statistiche la periodicità, i relativi parametri ed i rapporti. Le ricerche in tal senso devono essere corredate da un sufficiente numero di misurazioni delle variabili interessate e di variabili da utilizzare come ritmi marker. L'utilizzo di autoritmometria e di ritmometria automatica possono essere di grande aiuto. La valutazione dei parametri e dei rapporti dei ritmi biologici pertinenti la patologia studiata e dei ritmi guida costituisce il materiale su cui fondare la discussione e le conclusioni della ricerca.

scholarly journals Drosophila Models Rediscovered with Super-Resolution Microscopy

Cells ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 1924
Author(s):  
Szilárd Szikora ◽  
Péter Görög ◽  
Csaba Kozma ◽  
József Mihály
Keyword(s):  
Classical Model ◽  
Super Resolution ◽  
Model Systems ◽  
Model Organisms ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Drosophila Model ◽  
Resolution Imaging ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Super Resolution Microscopy ◽  
Immense Potential

With the advent of super-resolution microscopy, we gained a powerful toolbox to bridge the gap between the cellular- and molecular-level analysis of living organisms. Although nanoscopy is broadly applicable, classical model organisms, such as fruit flies, worms and mice, remained the leading subjects because combining the strength of sophisticated genetics, biochemistry and electrophysiology with the unparalleled resolution provided by super-resolution imaging appears as one of the most efficient approaches to understanding the basic cell biological questions and the molecular complexity of life. Here, we summarize the major nanoscopic techniques and illustrate how these approaches were used in Drosophila model systems to revisit a series of well-known cell biological phenomena. These investigations clearly demonstrate that instead of simply achieving an improvement in image quality, nanoscopy goes far beyond with its immense potential to discover novel structural and mechanistic aspects. With the examples of synaptic active zones, centrosomes and sarcomeres, we will explain the instrumental role of super-resolution imaging pioneered in Drosophila in understanding fundamental subcellular constituents.

Encounters between Life and Language: Codes, Books, Machines and Cybernetics

2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-332
Author(s):  
Brigitte Nerlich
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Molecular Biology ◽  
Dynamic Systems ◽  
Morse Code ◽  
New Science ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
History Of ◽  
Living Organisms

The histories of genetics and cybernetics overlapped in the mid-twentieth century. Both fields deal with dynamic systems, such as living organisms or machines that move, change and respond to the environment. It might therefore be expected that the metaphors used to research and communicate biological, genetic or genomic phenomena might take inspiration from cybernetics. Molecular biology was indeed inspired by cybernetics, but, surprisingly, the most popular metaphors used for research and communication were rooted in older fields of human endeavour, such as the Morse code, printing and machines. Such metaphors tended to foreground static and product aspects of biological phenomena, rather than dynamic and process ones. This made it difficult to talk widely about complexity, flexibility and dynamics, all aspects of biology (and cybernetics) that were well-known and well-studied. Modern-day biologists have noted this discrepancy between their research and the language used to talk about it, and are now calling for a new language, inspired amongst others by cybernetics, a language that, it is hoped, might capture the dynamic aspects of biology which some of the older metaphors tended to hide. In this article I survey (some of) the history of metaphors from the 1940s to 2019, focusing on the metaphors of the code (and information), the book and the machine. I attempt to show that cybernetics, although influencing the emergence of molecular biology, failed to inspire popular metaphors. Will modern biologists, taking inspiration from cybernetics to create not only a new science but also a new language, be more successful in this enterprise?

scholarly journals Preface

2007 ◽  
Vol 79 (12) ◽  
pp. vi ◽  
Author(s):  
Torbjörn Norin ◽  
Upendra Pandit
Keyword(s):  
Active Role ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
Task Group ◽  
Genomic Research ◽  
Specific Chemical ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Molecular Events ◽  
Important Note ◽  
The Impact

The relationship between chemistry and biology is succinctly embodied in the often-cited statement "cells obey the laws of chemistry". In this context, it is also relevant to reflect on the opening lines of the famous paper by Watson and Crick: "We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid [DNA]. This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest" [Nature, April 25, 737 (1953)]. The elucidation of the structure of DNA and the understanding of its implications in the fundamental processes of life have laid the foundation for the transformation of biology into a truly molecular science. An important note of caution on the interaction between chemistry and biology has been wisely expressed by Arthur Kornberg (Nobel laureate in medicine 1959) "...chemistry and biology are two distinctive cultures and the rift between them is serious, generally unappreciated, and counterproductive" [Biochemistry26, 6888 (1987)]. Fortunately, continued developments have resulted in building highly significant bridges between chemistry and biology. Thus, the impact of genomic research has led to further erosion of the boundaries between chemistry and biology.Disciplines in science evolve over time, and new terms emerge which more adequately cover the evolutionary changes that take place in the disciplinary landscape. Today, there is an acknowledged recognition of a multidisciplinary area in which biological phenomena and biological processes are being defined in terms of detailed structural and mechanistic molecular events - this area represents the integration of chemistry and biology. The increasing role of molecular-level chemistry in biology has led to definitions such as biological chemistry or biomolecular chemistry.IUPAC is alert to new developments in all areas in which the role of chemistry is implicated. In an earlier initiative, the scope of activities of two of the IUPAC Divisions of basic chemistry (viz. organic and physical chemistry) was expanded to include the activities directed at understanding the chemical basis of biological phenomena. Furthermore, an interdivisional committee on biomolecular chemistry was established. Deliberations within this committee have resulted in the development of the IUPAC project 2005-042-1-300 on "Chemistry for Biology". The focus of this project was to organize a Symposium-in-Print that would illustrate the fundamental role of chemistry in a wide variety of biological topics. The project has been initiated by the Division of Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry and is actively supported by a number of IUPAC Divisions and standing committees. These groups have assigned representatives to the task group of the project in order to have an input into the project from their specific chemical background. Some of the task group members have contributed papers to the present Symposium-in-Print.It should be pointed out that the present Symposium-in-Print complements the contributions from several recent IUPAC-sponsored conferences such as the combined International Conference on Biodiversity (ICOB-5) and International Symposium on the Chemistry of Natural Products (ISCNP-25) in Kyoto, Japan, 2006, and the 9th Eurasia Conference on Chemical Sciences, Antalya, Turkey, 2006. Proceedings of these symposia are published in Pure and Applied Chemistry (PAC). Taken together, these contributions constitute a broad spectrum of illustrations demonstrating the role and the fundamental implications of chemistry for biology.It is a sad duty to report that Prof. Alastair I. Scott, one of the contributors to the Symposium-in-Print, passed away on 18 April 2007. Prof. Scott was Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Director, Center of Biological NMR, Texas A and M University. He was internationally held in high esteem as a scientist who built bridges between chemistry and biology with his work. Within IUPAC's Division of Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry, he played an active role in enthusiastically promoting the awareness of the relevance of chemistry for biology. Ian, as he was known to many of us, will be missed by all those who knew him. This issue of PAC is dedicated to his memory.Torbjörn NorinTask Group ChairmanUpendra PanditTask Group Member

scholarly journals Soil Biology in the Ecuadorian Amazon

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thony Huera-Lucero
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Soil Fauna ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Amazon Rainforest ◽  
Soil Biology ◽  
Small Producer ◽  
Ecuadorian Amazon ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Livestock Systems

For many decades the Ecuadorian Amazon has been used as source of resources for cities both at national and international level. These facts had important consequences and environmental impacts, affecting from the smallest living organisms of the soil to the indigenous communities and peoples that inhabit the Amazon rainforest, as well as the flora and fauna biodiversity. With the change in land use, the Amazonian territory has been progressively affected and it is gradually decreasing, leaving behind poor soils.  Production conditions result modified by the implementation of large monocultures and livestock systems, a situation that directly affects soil and soil fauna. For this reason, we considered interesting to study, understand and compare the behavior of building organisms in natural and intervened areas, through sampling, inventories and laboratory analysis with the aim of developing and implementing production systems (chakras, agroforestry or silvopastoral systems), which benefit both the small producer and the ecosystem and life that inhabits it. Since there are no easily available compiled papers regarding the "Soil Biology in the Ecuadorian Amazon" in this work we collect information that allows us to offer a framework on the topics of changes in land use, typology of Amazonian soils and its main inhabitats organisms. All these date let to be considered as evidences of the degree of the health/disturbance of the corresponding soils.

scholarly journals Bio-Mediated Synthesis of Quantum Dots for Fluorescent Biosensing and Bio-Imaging Applications

2021 ◽  
pp. 185-223
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Dots ◽  
Energy Transfer ◽  
Photophysical Properties ◽  
Resonance Energy Transfer ◽  
Resonance Energy ◽  
Tissue Imaging ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Bio Imaging ◽  
Living Organisms

Quantum dots (QDs) have received great attention for development of novel fluorescent nanoprobe with tunable colors towards the near-infrared (NIR) region because of their unique optical and electronic properties such as luminescence characteristics, wide range, continuous absorption spectra and narrow emission spectra with high light stability. Quantum dots are promising materials for biosensing and single molecular bio-imaging application due to their excellent photophysical properties such as strong brightness and resistance to photobleaching. However, the use of quantum dots in biomedical applications is limited due to their toxicity. Recently, the development of novel and safe alternative method, the biomediated greener approach is one of the best aspects for synthesis of quantum dots. In this Chapter, biomediated synthesis of quantum dots by living organisms and biomimetic systems were highlighted. Quantum dots based fluorescent probes utilizing resonance energy transfer (RET), especially Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET), bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) and chemiluminescence resonance energy transfer (CRET) to probe biological phenomena were discussed. In addition, quantum dot nanocomposites are promising ultrasensitive bioimaging probe for in vivo multicolor, multimodal, multiplex and NIR deep tissue imaging. Finally, this chapter provides a conclusion with future perspectives of this field.

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