bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Nickel on Mars: Constraints on meteoritic material at the surface
Authors: Yen A. S. , Mittlefehldt D. W. , McLennan S. M. , Gellert R. , Bell J. F. , McSween H. Y. , Ming D. W. , McCoy T. J. , Morris R. V. , Golombek M. , Economou T. , Madsen M. B. , Wdowiak T. , Clark B. C. , Jolliff B. L. , Schröder C. , Brückner J. , Zipfel J. , Squyres S. W.
Published: December 2006

Impact craters and the discovery of meteorites on Mars indicate clearly that there is meteoritic material at the Martian surface. The Alpha Particle X‐ray Spectrometers (APXS) on board the Mars Exploration Rovers measure the elemental chemistry of Martian samples, enabling an assessment of the magnitude of the meteoritic contribution. Nickel, an element that is greatly enhanced in meteoritic material relative to samples of the Martian crust, is directly detected by the APXS and is observed to be geochemically mobile at the Martian surface. Correlations between nickel and other measured elements are used to constrain the quantity of meteoritic material present in Martian soil and sedimentary rock samples. Results indicate that analyzed soils samples and certain sedimentary rocks contain an average of 1% to 3% contamination from meteoritic debris.
Quantifying colloid retention in partially saturated porous media
Authors: Zevi Yuniati , Dathe Annette , Gao Bin , Richards Brian K. , Steenhuis Tammo S.
Published: December 2006

The transport of colloid‐contaminant complexes and colloid‐sized pathogens through soil to groundwater is of concern. Visualization and quantification of pore‐scale colloid behavior will enable better description and simulation of retention mechanisms at individual surfaces, in contrast to breakthrough curves which only provide an integrated signal. We tested two procedures for quantifying colloid movement and retention as observed in pore‐scale image sequences. After initial testing with static images, three series of images of synthetic microbead suspensions passing through unsaturated sand were examined. The region procedure (implemented in ImageJ) and the Boolean procedure (implemented in KS400) yielded nearly identical results for initial test images and for total colloid‐covered areas in three image series. Because of electronic noise resulting in pixel‐level brightness fluctuations the Boolean procedure tended to underestimate attached colloid counts and conversely overestimate mobile colloid counts. The region procedure had a smaller overestimation error of attached colloids. Reliable quantification of colloid retention at pore scale can be used to improve current understanding on the transport mechanisms of colloids in unsaturated porous media. For example, attachment counts at individual air/water meniscus/solid interface were well described by Langmuir isotherms.
Studies of thermostability in Camelus bactrianus (Bactrian camel) single‐domain antibody specific for the mutant epidermal‐growth‐factor receptor expressed by Pichia
Authors: Omidfar Kobra , Rasaee Mohhamad Javad , Kashanian Soheila , Paknejad Malieheh , Bathaie Zahra
Published: December 2006

Camelids have a unique immune system capable of producing heavy‐chain antibodies lacking the light chains and CH1 (constant heavy‐chain domain 1). It has been shown that, in contrast with conventional antibody fragments, the variable domains of these heavy‐chain antibodies are functional at or after exposure to high temperatures. In the present study, the VHH (variable domain of heavy‐chain antibody) camel antibody was subcloned into vector Ppiczc and expressed in Pichia pastoris. ORB1‐83 VHH antibody recognizes the external domain of the mutant EGFR [EGF (epidermal growth factor) receptor], EGFR VIII. This tumour‐specific antigen is ligand‐independent, contains a constitutively active tyrosine kinase domain and has been shown to be present in a number of human malignancies. We report here that, although expression from P. pastoris resulted in a significantly increased level of expression of the anti‐EGFR VIII VHH antibodies compared with Escherichia coli [Omidfar, Rasaee, Modjtahedi, Forouzandeh, Taghikhani, Bakhtiari, Paknejad and Kashanian (2004) Tumor Biol. 25, 179–187; Omidfar, Rasaee, Modjtahedi, Forouzandeh, Taghikhani and Golmakany (2004) Tumor Biol. 25, 296–305], this antibody selectively bound to the EGFR VIII peptide and reacted specifically with the immunoaffinity‐purified antigen from non‐small‐cell lung cancer. Furthermore, thermal denaturation stability and CD spectra analysis of the Camelus bactrianus (Bactrian camel) VHH and heavy‐chain antibodies at different temperature proved reversibility and binding activity after heat denaturation. Our results indicate that the P. pastoris expression system may be useful for the expression of camel single domain antibody and the ability of the expressed protein to reversibly melt without aggregation, allowing it to regain binding activity after heat denaturation.
Trafficking and phosphorylation dynamics of AQP4 in histamine‐treated human gastric cells
Authors: Carmosino Monica , Procino Giuseppe , Tamma Grazia , Mannucci Roberta , Svelto Maria , Valenti Giovanna
Published: December 2006

Background information. AQP4 (aquaporin 4) internalization and a concomitant decrease in the osmotic water permeability coefficient (Pf) after histamine exposure has been reported in AQP4‐transfected gastric HGT1 cells.

Results. In the present study we report that AQP4 internalization is followed by an increase in AQP4 phosphorylation. Histamine treatment for 30 min resulted in an approx. 10‐fold increase in AQP4 phosphorylation that was inhibited by 1 μM H89, a specific PKA (protein kinase A) inhibitor, but not by PKC (protein kinase C) and CK2 inhibitors. Moreover, measurement of PKA activity after 30 min of histamine treatment showed that PKA activity was approx. 3‐fold higher compared with basal conditions. AQP4 phosphorylation was prevented in cells treated with histamine for 30 min after pre‐incubation with PAO (phenylarsine oxide), an inhibitor of protein endocytosis. Using an endo—exocytosis assay we showed that, after histamine washed out, internalized AQP4 recycled back to the cell surface, even in cells in which de novo protein synthesis was inhibited by cycloheximide.

Conclusions. Phosphorylation experiments, combined with immunolocalization studies, indicated that AQP4 phosphorylation is mediated by PKA and occurs subsequently to its internalization in late endosomes. We suggest that phosphorylation might be a mechanism involved in retaining AQP4 in a vesicle‐recycling compartment.
Visualization of cell microtubules in their native state
Authors: Bouchet‐Marquis Cédric , Zuber Benoît , Glynn Anne‐Marie , Eltsov Mikhail , Grabenbauer Markus , Goldie Kenneth N. , Thomas Daniel , Frangakis Achilleas S. , Dubochet Jacques , Chrétien Denis
Published: December 2006

Background information. Over the past decades, cryo‐electron microscopy of vitrified specimens has yielded a detailed understanding of the tubulin and microtubule structures of samples reassembled in vitro from purified components. However, our knowledge of microtubule structure in vivo remains limited by the chemical treatments commonly used to observe cellular architecture using electron microscopy.

Results. We used cryo‐electron microscopy and cryo‐electron tomography of vitreous sections to investigate the ultrastructure of microtubules in their cellular context. Vitreous sections were obtained from organotypic slices of rat hippocampus and from Chinese‐hamster ovary cells in culture. Microtubules revealed their protofilament ultrastructure, polarity and, in the most favourable cases, molecular details comparable with those visualized in three‐dimensional reconstructions of microtubules reassembled in vitro from purified tubulin. The resolution of the tomograms was estimated to be approx. 4 nm, which enabled the detection of luminal particles of approx. 6 nm in diameter inside microtubules.

Conclusions. The present study provides a first step towards a description of microtubules, in addition to other macromolecular assemblies, in an unperturbed cellular context at the molecular level. As the resolution appears to be similar to that obtainable with plunge‐frozen samples, it should allow for the in vivo identification of larger macromolecular assemblies in vitreous sections of whole cells and tissues.
Extended time bias stress effects in polymer transistors
Authors: Street R. A. , Chabinyc M. L. , Endicott F. , Ong B.
Published: December 2006

The long term bias stress stability of poly(quaterthiophene) thin film transistors is described. Transistors are subject to repetitive pulsed gate bias stress for periods of up to five months, and the threshold voltage and mobility are monitored. The samples are unencapsulated bottom gate transistors held in either clean dry air or dry nitrogen. The threshold voltage shift increases as a power law with time for the first 1–2days, and the magnitude of the shift is a strong function of gate voltage. After a few days, threshold voltage shift stabilizes to an approximately constant value of 2–10V for gate voltages of 20–40V. When the stress is removed, the threshold voltage recovers with a time constant of 2–4days, and the recovery is the origin of the stabilization. The gate bias stress also induces a reduction in mobility of 10%–30% over about ten days, and there are further slow changes in mobility, which may be unrelated to electrical stress.
Strain-induced in-plane optical anisotropy in (001) GaAs∕AlGaAs superlattice studied by reflectance difference spectroscopy
Authors: Tang C. G. , Chen Y. H. , Ye X. L. , Wang Z. G. , Zhang W. F.
Published: December 2006

In-plane optical anisotropy (IPOA) in (001) GaAs∕AlGaAs superlattice induced by uniaxial strain has been investigated by reflectance difference spectroscopy (RDS). Uniaxial strain on the order of 10−4 was introduced by bending a strip sample with a stress apparatus. The IPOA of all interband transitions shows a linear dependence on strain. The birefringence and dichroism spectra induced by strain are obtained by RDS on the basis of a three-phase model, which is in good agreement with the reported results.
Improved morphology and charge carrier injection in pentacene field-effect transistors with thiol-treated electrodes
Authors: Bock C. , Pham D. V. , Kunze U. , Käfer D. , Witte G. , Wöll Ch.
Published: December 2006

The influence of chemical surface modifications of gold electrodes on the morphology and the electrical properties has been studied for pentacene based thin-film transistors with channel lengths of L⩽4μm. Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of various aliphatic and aromatic organothiols have been used to selectively modify the metallic source and drain electrodes and are further compared with reference samples with untreated electrodes. For all SAM-treated devices a reduced roughness of the pentacene film is observed which is accompanied by a reduction of the threshold voltage from about VT=2V for untreated transistors to −0.9V for transistors with SAM modified electrodes. Using aliphatic SAMs a poor on/off ratio of about 102 was obtained which is attributed to their low conductivity. In contrast, the on/off ratio is enhanced by four orders of magnitude if the surface is modified by an aromatic SAM. In this case a subthreshold swing as low as 0.55V/decade is achieved which corresponds to a trap density reduced by one order of magnitude compared to the reference sample.
Resonant frequencies of a rectangular cantilever beam immersed in a fluid
Authors: Van Eysden Cornelis A. , Sader John E.
Published: December 2006

The resonant frequencies of cantilever beams can depend strongly on the fluid in which they are immersed. In this article, we expand on the method of Elmer and Dreier [J. Appl. Phys. 81, 7709 (1997)] and derive explicit analytical formulas for the flexural and torsional resonant frequencies of a rectangular cantilever beam immersed in an inviscid fluid. These results are directly applicable to cantilever beams of macroscopic size, where the effects of viscosity are negligible, and are valid for arbitrary mode number. In contrast to low mode numbers, in all cases it is found that the fluid has no effect on the resonant frequencies in the limit of infinite mode number.
Finite β correction to the magnetic flux tube ellipticity of the straight field line mirror
Authors: Savenko N. , Ågren O.
Published: December 2006

A marginal minimum B mirror magnetic field has been proposed as an external plasma confining magnetic field for a single cell open magnetic mirror trap. An analytical expression for the flux tube ellipticity of this magnetic field has in a previous study been derived with a zero plasma β approximation. This mirror field, which consists of straight nonparallel field lines in the confinement region, has a particular interest since it is likely to correspond to the smallest possible ellipticity for a magnetohydrodynamic stable mirror confinement. The plasma current is in this paper taken into account to the first order in β and the influence of the plasma magnetic field on the magnetic flux surface geometry is studied.
Dust release from surfaces exposed to plasma
Authors: Flanagan T. M. , Goree J.
Published: December 2006

Micrometer-sized particles adhered to a surface can be released when exposed to plasma. In an experiment with a glass surface coated with lunar-simulant dust, it was found that particle release requires exposure to both plasma and an electron beam. The dust release rate diminishes almost exponentially in time, which is consistent with a random process. As proposed here, charges of particles adhered to the surface fluctuate. These charges experience a fluctuating electric force that occasionally overcomes the adhesive van der Waals force, causing particle release. The release rate increases with plasma density, so that plasma cleaning is feasible at high plasma densities. Applications of this cleaning include controlling particulate contamination in semiconductor manufacturing, dust mitigation in the exploration of the moon and Mars, and dusty plasmas.
Bioconvection in a stratified environment: Experiments and theory
Authors: Bearon R. N. , Grünbaum D.
Published: December 2006

Bioconvection is a fascinating phenomenon of fluid mechanics that is driven by the swimming motion of micro-organisms. Typically the velocity and spatial scale of the fluid motions are much larger than those associated with the swimming speed and size of an individual cell, resulting in rapid transport of cells and the formation of complex spatial patterns in cell concentration. Motile microalgae are ubiquitous in aquatic systems, and understanding how they are spatially distributed at a wide range of length and time scales is an important ecological task. In the natural environment, bioconvection is a little studied but potentially important mechanism influencing the vertical distribution, and therefore the growth and productivity, of motile microalgae at centimeter to meter scales. However, in order to make predictions about when and where bioconvection might occur, we need to understand how other physical factors, such as salinity stratification, will affect swimming behavior, fluid flow, and the resultant spatial distribution of cells. In this paper, we present laboratory experiments that demonstrate the importance of swimming in generating large scale, persistent spatial structure in stratified water. In the first experiment, cells in a weakly stratified fluid environment first aggregate at the surface, and then form a bioconvective plume that descends to the bottom of the tank over a distance of 20cm, equivalent to 104 cell body lengths. In the second experiment, addition of a low-salinity surface layer enables cells, initially well mixed due to bioconvection, to form a dense surface aggregation. Motivated by these experiments, we present a linear stability analysis for the onset of bioconvection in a stable linear salinity gradient. The concentration of cells is modeled by a continuous distribution and swimming is modeled as a constant upwards component combined with a diffusive component. We consider a deep chamber, where at equilibrium cells are concentrated in a thin boundary region. The ratio of chamber depth to boundary region depth is d⪢1. Using matched asymptotic analysis, we obtain the critical value of the cell Rayleigh number, Rcrit, for which the forcing due to a perturbation in cell concentration in the upper region drives flow. The effect of the salinity stratification depends on the salt Rayleigh number, Rs. If Rs1∕6=o(d), the salinity gradient suppresses the vertical extent of the perturbation to the flow and salinity to a region of nondimensional depth O(Rs−1∕6). The critical cell Rayleigh number is unaffected by the salinity gradient and is given at leading order by Rcrit=2d3δ, where δ is the ratio of horizontal to vertical cell self-diffusion. If Rs1∕6=O(d), the salinity gradient confines perturbations in the flow and salinity to the thin boundary region, and Rcrit is specified as an algebraic function of Rs. The experiments are then discussed in light of the derived theory.
Nanoimprint lithography combined with direct bonding: A possibility to construct quantum dots, wires, and planes in vertical cascade
Authors: Haisma Jan
Published: December 2006

Relatively cheap nanoimprint technology, direct bonding, and modern semiconductor technologies create possibilities to constitute single quantum elements: dots, wires, and planes (wells and boxes). These functional elementary specialities can be made up in vertical cascade by subsequent direct bonding. This letter presents three examples of these possibilities. Herein the dots and wires, situated in depth, may finally fulfill a source/memory interplay function while the (quantum) plane may play a detecting/transmitting role. In this sense they might represent a digital elementary cell and that of the smallest achievable level as to a functional (not per se technological) limit of Moore’s law.
Adhesion and elasticity in nanoscale indentation
Authors: Sirghi L. , Rossi F.
Published: December 2006

The present work proposes an extension of Oliver-Pharr analysis [J. Mater. Res. 7, 1564 (1992)] of unloading force-displacement data obtained in nanoscale indentation experiments to account for contact adhesion. The loading force is considered a sum of the contact elastic and adhesion forces. During the unloading, both forces suffer variations. For conical geometry, the unloading force-displacement curve is described by a sum of a quadratic term (accounting for the elastic force) and a linear term (accounting for adhesive force). Results of atomic force microscopy indentation experiments performed with sharpened silicon tips on poly(dimethylsiloxane) agreed well with the prediction of the proposed theoretical model.
Electric control of room temperature ferromagnetism in a Pb(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3∕La0.85Ba0.15MnO3 field-effect transistor
Authors: Kanki Teruo , Tanaka Hidekazu , Kawai Tomoji
Published: December 2006

Spintronics, which takes advantage of both spin and charge degrees of freedom, is a promising key technique relevant to future applications of information and data storage. Ferromagnetic transition metal oxides, including perovskite manganites, represent the most promising materials for use as devices controlling magnetic states by an electric field at high temperature with high efficiency. This is because these materials possess a strong intrinsic relationship between charge and magnetism, showing ferromagnetism above room temperature by adjustment of carrier filling, in addition, particular magnetoelectric properties such as a colossal magnetoresistance phenomenon. Nevertheless, the device operation such a field control of magnetism has not been verified so far in manganites. It is essential to determine whether the magnetism of manganites can be controlled via carriers modulated by an electric field in these applications. Here the authors report on the direct demonstration of a simultaneous change in the magnetic and electric-transport properties in a ferromagnetic oxide field-effect transistor. A working temperature above 293K was achieved. This result should facilitate the use of spintronic devices in strongly correlated 3d-electron systems working at practical temperatures.
Effect of layer stacking and p-type doping on the performance of InAs∕InP quantum-dash-in-a-well lasers emitting at 1.55μm
Authors: Moreau G. , Azouigui S. , Cong D.-Y. , Merghem K. , Martinez A. , Patriarche G. , Ramdane A. , Lelarge F. , Rousseau B. , Dagens B. , Poingt F. , Accard A. , Pommereau F.
Published: December 2006

The authors report the growth of 6-, 9-, and 12-layer InAs∕InP quantum-dash-in-a-well (DWELL) laser structures using gas source molecular beam epitaxy. Broad area laser performance has been investigated as a function of number of layers. The highest modal gain at 48cm−1 is achieved for an optimized nine-DWELL layer structure. The effect of layer stacking and p-type doping on the characteristic temperature is also reported. Nine-DWELL layer single mode ridge waveguide lasers showed high slope efficiency (0.2W∕A per facet) and output power (Pout=20mW), close to those of conventional quantum well devices.
The phase-locked mean impulse response of a turbulent channel flow
Authors: Luchini Paolo , Quadrio Maurizio , Zuccher Simone
Published: December 2006

We describe the first DNS-based measurement of the complete mean response of a turbulent channel flow to small external disturbances. Space-time impulsive perturbations are applied at one channel wall, and the linear response describes their mean effect on the flow field as a function of spatial and temporal separations. The turbulent response is shown to differ from the response of a laminar flow with the turbulent mean velocity profile as the base flow.
A revision of the Tasmanian endemic freshwater crayfish genus Parastacoides (Crustacea : Decapoda : Parastacidae)
Authors: Hansen Brita , Richardson Alastair M. M.
Published: December 2006

The freshwater crayfish genus Parastacoides Clark, 1936 was last reviewed by Sumner (1978). In that review Sumner synonymised several species, reducing the genus to one species, consisting of three subspecies. However, subsequent collections of specimens from previously unsurveyed areas, as well as field studies on habitat partitioning by the subspecies, cast doubt on the taxonomic status that Sumner proposed. Molecular studies suggesting the presence of several genetically distinct populations provided the stimulus for this review. A complete revision of the genus has led to the recognition of two new genera and 14 new species. Keys, descriptions, diagnoses, synonymies and distribution maps of the genera and species are provided. During the course of this study it was discovered that the type specimen attributed to the genus Parastacoides is a specimen of the genus Geocharax Clark, 1936. The name Parastacoides is a junior synonym of Geocharax, and new names for the genera previously described as Parastacoides have been raised.
Allozyme and morphometric variability in the dogwhelk, Nucella heyseana (Gastropoda:Muricidae) from Russian and Japanese waters: evidence for a single species under different names
Authors: Kartavtsev Yuri P. , Zaslavskaya Nadezda I. , Svinyna Olga V. , Kijima Akihiro
Published: December 2006

A complicated issue of very variable shell morphology in dogwhelks has led to a detailed discussion and set of complex analyses based on the methods of biochemical genetics, molecular genetics, and morphometrics. In this investigation, 29 allozyme loci and five morphometric shell characters were analysed for six samples of Nucella heyseana (Dunker, 1882) from Sakhalin Island, Primorye (Russia) and Onagawa Bay (Japan). An unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean dendrogram was constructed using genetic distances for the six populations of N. heyseana sampled, and when combined with an earlier study of N. freycinetti Deshayes, 1841, indicated that two separate species are present. However, the population genetic analysis in combination with multivariate analysis of variance, discriminant and factor analyses for morphometric traits lead us to conclude that all six samples taken from Russian and Japanese waters belong to a single species. The taxon, known in Japanese and Korean literature as N. freycinetti, is actually N. heyseana and N. freycinetti is the appropriate name for another species discovered earlier. For N. heyseana Nei’s minimal unbiased genetic distances were examined at three hierarchical levels: (1) within Onagawa Bay (Pacific coast of Honshu), Dm = 0.0059 ± 0.0056; (2) within the group of populations in Peter the Great Bay (Japan Sea, Russia), Dm = 0.0083 ± 0.0067 (Kartavtsev et al., 2000), and (3) within the whole area investigated in the north-western Pacific, Dm = 0.1550 ± 0.0209. Allele frequency heterogeneity and hierarchical variability showed that each bay contains a genetically distinct population of this species.
Nitric oxide synthase generates nitric oxide locally to regulate compartmentalized protein S-nitrosylation and protein trafficking
Authors: Iwakiri Yasuko , Satoh Ayano , Chatterjee Suvro , Toomre Derek K. , Chalouni Cecile M. , Fulton David , Groszmann Roberto J. , Shah Vijay H. , Sessa William C.
Published: December 2006

Nitric oxide (NO) is a highly diffusible and short-lived physiological messenger. Despite its diffusible nature, NO modifies thiol groups of specific cysteine residues in target proteins and alters protein function via S-nitrosylation. Although intracellular S-nitrosylation is a specific posttranslational modification, the defined localization of an NO source (nitric oxide synthase, NOS) with protein S-nitrosylation has never been directly demonstrated. Endothelial NOS (eNOS) is localized mainly on the Golgi apparatus and in plasma membrane caveolae. Here, we show by using eNOS targeted to either the Golgi or the nucleus that S-nitrosylation is concentrated at the primary site of eNOS localization. Furthermore, localization of eNOS on the Golgi enhances overall Golgi protein S-nitrosylation, the specific S-nitrosylation of
N
-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor and reduces the speed of protein transport from the endoplasmic reticulum to the plasma membrane in a reversible manner. These data indicate that local NOS action generates organelle-specific protein S-nitrosylation reactions that can regulate intracellular transport processes.
Impairments in frontal cortical γ synchrony and cognitive control in schizophrenia
Authors: Cho R. Y. , Konecky R. O. , Carter C. S.
Published: December 2006

A critical component of cognitive impairments in schizophrenia can be characterized as a disturbance in cognitive control, or the ability to guide and adjust cognitive processes and behavior flexibly in accordance with one's intentions and goals. Cognitive control impairments in schizophrenia are consistently linked to specific disturbances in prefrontal cortical functioning, but the underlying neurophysiologic mechanisms are not yet well characterized. Synchronous γ-band oscillations have been associated with a wide range of perceptual and cognitive processes, raising the possibility that they may also help entrain prefrontal cortical circuits in the service of cognitive control processes. In the present study, we measured induced γ-band activity during a task that reliably engages cognitive control processes in association with prefrontal cortical activations in imaging studies. We found that higher cognitive control demands were associated with increases in induced γ-band activity in the prefrontal areas of healthy subjects but that control-related modulation of prefrontal γ-band activity was absent in schizophrenia subjects. Disturbances in γ-band activity in patients correlated with illness symptoms, and γ-band activity correlated positively with performance in control subjects but not in schizophrenia patients. Our findings may provide a link between previously reported postmortem abnormalities in thalamofrontocortical circuitry and alterations in prefrontal activity observed in functional neuroimaging studies. They also suggest that deficits in frontal cortical γ-band synchrony may contribute to the cognitive control impairments in schizophrenia.
Frederick Soddy, 1877-1956
Authors: Fleck Alexander
Published: December 2006

Frederick Soddy was a complex personality and if we are to arrive at any degree of understanding of its aspects, I believe we have to give more than usual place to the background of his early life. It has been my conception of his life that there was really four chapters in it— To 1900—his formative years, From 1900 to 1911—Montreal and the disintegration theory, From 1912 to 1918—Glasgow and isotopes, Onwards from 1919—Oxford and his social outlook. His Formative Years Soddy’s father was a relatively successful corn merchant who was 55 years old when Frederick was born, the seventh and last child. His father retained the inherited family tradition of deep religious feeling, consistently and regularly shown by public worship. Soddy’s grandfather had aspirations to be a missionary to the South Sea Islanders and had sailed for the Antipodes only to be captured by a French privateer in the year 1798. Calvinistic sermons, to which he was compelled to listen, made a deep impression on Soddy’s memories of his boyhood. These sermons were always extreme in their views and practically always contained dire threats of what might follow any tendency to leanings towards the Catholic Faith. Soddy disagreed with those views very deeply, but for understanding him it should be remembered that he was brought up in this family tradition stemming from his grandfather’s time and in his own case, from his childhood. An ‘evangel’ of some sort was a usual and not a rare guest in the household. And so in the approach he was liable to make to things in general, I have regarded his basic method of going hard at an idea without regard to the finer feelings of others, as being to a considerable extent derived from the atmosphere of family Galvinistic outlook to which he was accustomed in his early years. Truth as it was conceived was the essential thing. The method of its presentation, even at the expense of other people’s feelings, was unimportant.
Heinrich Ernst Karl Jordan, 1861-1959
Authors: Riley N. D.
Published: December 2006

Karl Jordan, affectionately known for very many years by those most closely in touch with him as ‘K. J.’, was born the youngest of seven children of farming stock in the small village of Almstedt near Hildesheim in Hanover on 7 December 1861. As a child he had to help on the farm, yet found time to indulge a lively interest in the wild life of his surroundings. At the age of five he lost his father, and but for the generosity of an uncle who enabled him to attend the Hildesheim High School, his massive contributions to the study of entomology might never have been forthcoming. In 1882 he entered the University of Göttingen and four years later took his degree in botany and zoology, passing
Summa cum Laude
. Two years later, after securing a teaching diploma and putting in a year’s military service (not without hardship), he was appointed a master at Münden Grammar School. Here he remained five years and here it was that he became known to two men whose acquaintance was to shape his whole future career. One was A. Metzger, Professor of Zoology at the Academy of Forestry, the other Count Berlepsch, an enthusiastic amateur ornithologist. In 1891 he married Minna Briinig with whom he had fallen deeply in love whilst both were still in their teens. It proved a profoundly satisfying marriage, broken only by her death in 1925. Although he quite rapidly acquired a British, indeed an international outlook, she remained to the end German, yet stoically bore the distresses this caused during the 1914-1918 world war.
Thomas Renton Elliott, 1877-1961
Authors: Dale Henry Hallett
Published: December 2006

T. R. Elliott, born in 1877, was elected to the Fellowship of The Royal Society in 1913, before he was 36 years old; and his election, thus rather early in his career, was certainly made in recognition of the quite unusual distinction and brilliant promise of the experimental researches in physiology, which he had carried out at Cambridge by 1906, and of which he had published the results, with his conclusions, in several remarkable papers, between 1904 and 1907. College and University post-graduate studentships had enabled him thus to stay in Cambridge for the five years following his graduation in 1901, and there to concentrate his activities and interests on these experimental studies. And then, in 1906, at the age of 29, he left Cambridge to enter as a student at University College Hospital, London, with the immediate purpose of completing his clinical curriculum and his qualifying graduation in medicine. Among those who had followed and admired the progress of what he had already then achieved, there were probably many to whom it would have seemed natural to expect that the years of clinical study and qualification would prove for him, as they had done for others, to be an interlude, the experience gained in which would strengthen his equipment and his claim for advancement in an academic career, most obviously perhaps in physiology, but, in any case, in one or another of the experimental disciplines which had by then already become recognized as contributory to the scientific background of medicine.
Leonard James Spencer, 1870-1959
Authors: Tilley Cecil Edgar
Published: December 2006

Leonard James Spencer, formerly Keeper of Minerals at the British Museum (Natural History) from 1927 to 1935, died in London on 14 April 1959, at the advanced age of 88. He was fourth in a line of distinguished Keepers of Minerals in the British Museum, his predecessors being Story-Maskelyne, appointed first Keeper in 1857, Sir Lazarus Fletcher and G. T. Prior. All three were Fellows of the Royal Society to which Spencer was elected in 1925. He was born at Worcester on 7 July 1870, the eldest of eight children of James Spencer, schoolmaster, and Elizabeth Bonser, and was educated at Bradford Technical College (1883-1886) where his father was for many years headmaster of the day-school department. With a Royal Exhibition Spencer proceeded to the Royal College of Science for Ireland in Dublin (1886-1889) where he gained first-class honours in chemistry in 1889. Later he entered Cambridge University as a scholar of Sidney Sussex College. Here he studied geology, mineralogy and chemistry, gaining a first class in both parts of the Natural Sciences Tripos and was awarded the Harkness Scholarship for Geology (1893). Funds were very short for Spencer at College and he lived quietly and kept very much to himself. Already at Cambridge he was abstracting papers for H.M. Patent Office (Abridgments of specifications of Philosophical Instruments for the period 1855-1892), and so embarked, perhaps from necessity, on a work that was later to become a labour of love. It was fortunate for mineralogy that just at the end of his Cambridge course there happened to be one of the infrequent vacancies in the scientific staff of the Mineral Department of the British Museum, and for this post Spencer was the successful candidate.
Reginald George Stapledon, 1882-1960
Authors: Russell Edward John
Published: December 2006

Reginald George Stapledon, born 22 September 1882, at Lakenham, Northam, near Bideford, came of a long line of North Devon landowners and farmers; a family tradition linked them with Walter de Stapeldon (1261-1326), Bishop of Exeter and founder of Exeter College, Oxford. His grandfather, James Stapledon, of Bideford, had, however, like many other men of Devon, broken away from the land and became a master mariner; his father, William (1829-1902), did likewise, sailing his own barque from Appledore and included among other enterprises much gun running to South America. The log survives of an adventurous voyage in 1852 to Australia where most of the crew deserted to take part in the gold rush. He was capable and forceful, vehement in condemning the bad conditions under which shipowners expected their captains and crews to sail, very observant and with an almost poetic appreciation of nature—traits which reappeared markedly in young George. Shortly after the Suez Canal was opened in 1869 he set up a shipping agency in Suez and Port Said; it prospered and brought him wealth, the friendship of de Lesseps, and the confidence of the Canal community. All this necessitated long absences from home, and when finally he returned he was smitten by a stroke which kept him bed-ridden for some years before he died in 1902. Perhaps for these reasons he seems to have little direct influence on George’s development. The outstanding influence of George’s childhood was his mother, Mary, daughter of William Clibbett, the last builder of wooden ships in Appledore; a man of pronounced literary tastes and strong character who obstinately refused to abandon wood for iron or to turn off his workpeople—and he died penniless, but owing nothing.
Clement Richard Attlee, First Earl Attlee, 1883-1967
Authors: Bridges Edward Ettingdean
Published: December 2006

Introductory A biographical Memoir in this series which deals with the life of a distinguished statesman presents certain difficulties. These are specially acute in the case of one who sat in the House of Commons for 33 years and then for another 12 years in the Lords: who was Prime Minister for 6 years, and leader of the Opposition for over 8 years. Any attempt to describe all the events in which he played an important part would involve a potted political history of this country over 40 years. It is clearly impossible to attempt anything so comprehensive. The right course is surely to select the events in Attlee’s lifetime, the tasks he undertook, or the offices which he held, which were of special significance in shaping his career, or in bringing to the surface his own special interests and aptitudes, and his services to the country. The selection of what should be included may seem presumptuous in one who never met Lord Attlee before 1940. But the autobiography published in 1954, under the title
As it happened
provides a clear and frank account of his early life, and of how his interests developed. The early part of this Memoir is very largely based on material drawn from this book.
William Ogilvy Kermack, 1898-1970
Authors: Davidson James Norman
Published: December 2006

William Ogilvy Kermack was born on 26 April 1898, in Kirriemuir, Angus Scotland, the only child of William Kermack, postman, and Helen Ogilvy. His ancestors were country folk who hailed from the neighbourhood of Kirriemuir, a small country town of some three thousand inhabitants nestling in the foothills of the Grampians. Sir James Barrie, also a native of the town, has described it vividly in his novels under the name of 'Thrums'. Kermack's mother died in 1904 and his upbringing fell largely on his father’s sister. At the age of five he was sent to the local school, Webster's Seminary which provided an excellent primary and secondary education typical of the rural Scotland of the period. Of his schooling he wrote: ‘Mathematical instruction was given chiefly by the headmaster, Thomas Pullar whose thoroughness I learnt to appreciate. He took me as tar as co-ordinate geometry and geometrical conic sections as well as elementary dynamics, hydrostatics, etc Physics and chemistry were taught by Pullar and others including G. K. Sutherland afterwards, I believe, of Southampton University College who was most inspiring in his teaching of what would now be called general science, and a somewhat eccentric Mr Tinto who failed to keep good discipline but introduced me to non-Euclidian geometry about 1913 by lending me a small book calledTheories of parallelismwhich I read with great interest. The chief and most lasting influence amongst teachers, however was Mr C. H. Moore who combined a gift for teaching with a fine intellect, a broad tolerance and an idealistic outlook on life and affairs. Through his teaching of English, he encouraged us to think and introduced us to a wide range of ideas, artistic, ethical, political and social.'
Ernest Marsden, 1889-1970
Authors: Fleming Charles Alexander
Published: December 2006

Ernest Marsden was born on 19 February 1889 at Rishton near Blackburn in Lancashire. He traced his ancestry to the Marsdens and Holdens, the oldest families in Darwen, Lancashire (Shaw 1889). His grandfather, Fish Holden, great-great-grandson of Timothy Holden (
ca
. 1684 to
ca
. 1774, nicknamed ‘Owd Timothy o’ th’ Looms), married Esther Place, moving to Rishton. In 1885, their daughter Phoebe, Ernest’s mother, married Thomas Marsden (
b
. Blackburn, 1864,
d
. 1925). Thomas Marsden was originally a cotton cloth weaver, but later a household draper and hardware dealer at 68-70 Hermitage Street, Rishton, and he was also choirmaster at Rishton Congregational Chapel. Ernest was the second of a family of four sons (Robert, Ernest, Harold and Sydney) and a daughter, Hilda (Mrs Walter Fish, Blackburn), the youngest.
Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, 1888-1970
Authors: Bhagavantam S.
Published: December 2006

Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was born at Trichinopoly in South India on the 7 November 1888. Raman’s parents, Chandrasekhara Iyer and Parvati Ammal, lived at that time in what was then called the province of Madras, a part of India now known as the Tamil Nadu. The family, for many generations, had been pursuing the profession of agriculture and were of moderate means. Family traditions in those days were such that if anyone attempted to break off from them, it would have been regarded as a bold step. Raman’s father did take such a bold step when for the first time in the family, he took to teaching in the local English High School. This bold step was followed by another when Mr Chandrasekhara Iyer decided to accept the post of lecturer in physics and mathematics at the Mrs A. V. N. College, Vizagapatam; Raman was then four years old. Vizagapatam, now known as Visakhapatnam, is a sea-port town on the east coast of India and situated in the State of Andhra Pradesh. Thus, the parents and with them the four-year-old son moved to Vizagapatam. The next ten years of Raman’s life were spent at Vizagapatam, where he studied for eight years in the High School and two years in the College. He passed the Intermediate examination in 1902, enabling himself to join for a university degree course. In January 1903, he moved to Madras and joined the Presidency College. He passed his B.A. degree examination in 1904, winning the first place and a Gold Medal in physics. He passed the M.A. degree examination in 1907, again obtaining a first division and record marks.
Alexander Robertson, 1896-1970
Authors: Haworth Robert Downs , Whalley A. E.
Published: December 2006

Alexander Robertson was born on 12 February 1896 on the sixty-acre farm at Charlesfield, Auchterless (on the Hatton Estate) Aberdeenshire. He was the son of Andrew Robertson, farmer and Jane (née Cantlay). Robertson was one of three children, his twin sisters predeceasing him. His schoolboy education was first at Auchterless School where he was accorded the distinction of Dux and subsequently at Turriff Higher Grade School which he left with the distinction of Dux in 1914. Robertson originally intended to enter farming like his father but his mother persuaded him to further his education and he entered the University of Aberdeen in 1914. Like most Scottish students of the time he took an M.A. degree course, but the subjects he studied were unusual in that there was a preponderance of science. Botany, chemistry, geology, Latin, mathematics, physics, political economy and zoology were all presented at elementary level and in 1915-1916 he was placed first in the chemistry class, already adumbrating his later ability. In March 1916 he enlisted in the Special Brigade, Royal Engineers, and was concerned with gas warfare until commissioned in the 2nd Seaforth Highlanders in March 1917. He served at home and in France and after being badly gassed on the Western Front was discharged from the forces in 1918 with the rank of Lieutenant. He then reactivated his studies at Aberdeen after a break of almost three years and obtained his M.A. from that University in 1919. As Robertson had already completed a substantial proportion of his Arts course before going into the Services he was refused an ex-serviceman’s grant but he was awarded a Scholarship (£150 per annum for three years) from the Lord Kitchener National Memorial Fund with the aid of which he proceeded to study for a degree in Science at the University of Glasgow where G. G. Henderson was Head of the Chemistry Department.
Frederick Charles Bawden, 1908-1972
Authors: Pirie Norman Wingate
Published: December 2006

Love for the countryside and people of Devon was an extremely important aspect of Fred Bawden’s life. As he put it (1952a): ‘I come from Devonshire, where we are too modest to claim to grow the best crops of anything; we would be satisfied with the self-evident fact that we produce the best cream and cider, and, of course, the best men.’ Not much information is readily available on his ancestry. A member of the family, it is thought, designed and marketed a novel type of plough, but the family seems not otherwise to have been directly connected with farming. Fred’s paternal grandfather was a boot-maker, his maternal grandfather a stonemason. Fred’s parents, George Bawden and Ellen Balment, lived in North Tawton (Devon) when, on 18 August 1908, he was born; he had an elder brother and sister. George Bawden was Relieving Officer and Registrar of Births and Deaths in North Tawton, but three years later moved to Okehampton to be master of the Poor Law Institution—commonly called the Workhouse. It had a large garden in which George Bawden took a keen interest; he awakened a similar interest in Fred. Potatoes were an important crop in the Institution garden, and their health was an important topic of conversation in the locality. On the principle of ‘imprinting’, this may in part explain Fred’s lifelong attachment to the crop. He records that even as a boy he ‘began to appreciate the many problems involved in growing healthy plants’. Fred’s mother was matron of the Institution and the children were thus made aware of the problems of human old age, sickness and poverty at an age when most of us are shielded from these things; this probably contributed to his lifelong, unsentimental, concern for the welfare of the ‘underdog’, and to his critical approach to political institutions. Marjorie Elizabeth Cudmore was a school-fellow in Okehampton and, like Fred, studied botany at Cambridge. They married on 6 September 1934 and had two sons. The notes deposited with the Royal Society in 1949 were withdrawn a few years ago; on these family matters, the notes remaining are uninformative.
Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark, 1895-1971
Authors: Zuckerman Solly
Published: December 2006

Wilfrid Le Gros Clark was the leading figure of British anatomy for all of thirty years. He was born on 5 June 1895, the youngest of the three sons of the Reverend Travers Clark of Hemel Hempstead who, being a well-ordered man early decreed the careers which his three sons were to follow. All achieved great distinction, but only the youngest fulfilled the paternal pattern. As Wilfrid tells in the autobiography which he published in 1968 under the titleChant of pleasant exploration, he was to follow the footsteps of his maternal and paternal grandfathers, both of whom had served with great distinction on the consultant staff of St Thomas’s Hospital. Accordingly, after matriculating from Blundell’s School in Dorset at the age of 16, he was sent in 1912 to bt Thomas’s Hospital Medical School. While he was still a student the First World War broke out. He qualified M.R.C.S. in 1916 and then joined tie R.A.M.C., with which he served in France from the beginning of 1918.