Light-Induced Heat Conversion of Gold Nanorods as a Local Temperature Probe for Chemical Species Transformation in Aqueous Solution

Numerous heat-dependent chemical reactions are involved in organismal life, and temperature is an important factor that determines whether such reactions progress. To date, ultrasound and thermotherapy techniques have been established in high-end medical treatments and are proposed to monitor temperature changes on a nanoscale of localized areas such as single cells and to induce material synthesis due to local energy conversion. In this study, a nanoprobe that can measure the local temperature on the nanoscale is designed and developed using gold nanoparticles and thermo-sensitive fluorescent materials. To support this concept, a polymer capable of controlling the physical properties of gold nanorods (AuNRs) is manufactured using light-heat conversion synthesis.

Species Transformation Through Reconstruction: Reconstruction Through Active Reaction of Organisms

Comparative biological morphology, incorporating the study of active reaction, is contrasted with genetics as the study of passive mutation. Geneticists investigate anatomical characters, never anatomical constructions, which are capable of reorganization when the biological-morphological equilibrium of the organism has been disturbed. The anatomy of Opisthocomus cristatus and Stringops habroptilus demonstrate that three successive disturbances in the bio-morphological equilibrium are reacted to purposively by anatomical reconstruction. These reactions are no accidental mutations, but are anatomical reactions, related to, and affecting, the organism as a whole. In sharp contrast to such anatomical reaction, resulting, during phylogeny, in reorganization, are the “technics” [i.e., mechanistic bases] of individual development. The hereditary process is, like every physiological or embryological process, a fixed mechanism, which remains constant until an active reaction leads to reconstruction and at the same time an appropriate change of the mechanisms. The remolding of species is therefore no passive, “technical” process, but a creative act of the organisms themselves. [Original English abstract; not translated.]

Revisiting Hans Böker’s "Species Transformation Through Reconstruction: Reconstruction Through Active Reaction of Organisms" (1935)

Against the common historiographic narratives of evolutionary biology, the first decades of the 20th century were theoretically far richer than usually assumed. This especially refers to the hitherto neglected role that early theoretical biologists played in introducing visionary research perspectives and concepts before the institutionalization of the Modern Synthesis. Here, we present one of these scholars, the German theoretical biologist and ecomorphologist Hans Böker (1886–1939), by reviewing his 1935 paper “Artumwandlung durch Umkonstruktion, Umkonstruktion durch aktives Reagieren der Organismen” ("Species Transformation Through Reconstruction: Reconstruction Through Active Reaction of Organisms"), published in the inaugural volume of the journal Acta Biotheoretica. While largely forgotten today, this work represents a melting pot of ideas that adumbrate some of today’s most lively debated empirical and conceptual topics in evolutionary biology: the active role of organisms as actors of their own evolution, environmental induction and phenotypic plasticity, genetic assimilation, as well as developmental bias. We discuss Böker’s views on how species change through (what he calls) "Umkonstruktion," and how such reconstruction is exerted through active reactions of organisms to environmental perturbations. In addition, we outline the aims and wider context of his "biological comparative anatomy," including Boker’s reprehensible political affiliation with the Nazi Party. Finally, we highlight some of the historical reasons for why Böker’s views did not have a larger impact in evolutionary biology, but we also recount some of the direct and indirect legacies of his approach in research areas such as ecomorphology and (Eco)EvoDevo. Böker’s paper is available as supplementary material in the online version of this article, as part of the journal's "Classics in Biological Theory" collection; the first translation of the paper into English, by Alexander Böhm and Jan Baedke, is also being published in this volume.

Creation, Evolution, and “The New Cosmic Philosophy”: William Todd Martin's Critique of Herbert Spencer

This article explores the religious response of one neglected writer to the evolutionary philosophy of Herbert Spencer. William Todd Martin was a minister of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and in 1887 published The Evolution Hypothesis: A Criticism of the New Cosmic Philosophy. The work demonstrates the essentially contested nature of “evolution” and “creation” by showing how a self-confessed creationist could affirm an evolutionary understanding of the natural world and species transformation. Martin's approach reflected a transatlantic Presbyterian worldview that saw the harmony of science and religion on the basis of Calvinism, Baconianism and Scottish Common Sense philosophy. Martin's critique is also relevant to issues that continue to animate philosophers of science and religion, including the connections between mind and matter, morality and consciousness in a Darwinian framework, and the relationship between subjective conscious experience and evolutionary physicalism. Martin was able to anticipate these debates because his critique was essentially philosophical and theological rather than biological and biblicist.