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Forensic palynology: why do it and how it works.

Forensic palynology has been a law enforcement tool for over 50 years. Forensic palynology is the application of pollen and spores in solving legal issues, either civil or criminal. Pollen and spores can be obtained from an extremely wide range of items, including bodies. Pollen and spores provide clues as to the source of the items and the characteristics of the environments from which the material on them is sourced. Their usefulness lies in a combination of their abundance, dispersal mechanisms, resistance to mechanical and chemical destruction, microscopic size, and morphology. Their often complex morphology allows identification to an individual parent plant taxon that can be related to a specific ecological habitat or a specific scene. Pollen and spore assemblages characterise different environments and scenes and can easily be picked up and transported away from scenes of interest without providing any visual clue to a suspect as to what has occurred. With so many publications and high-profile cases involving forensic palynology and environmental analysis now receiving publicity, the future of this branch of forensic science is assured. Furthermore, with the development of multi-disciplinary approaches to environmental analyses of crime scenes, far more detailed information is now available to law enforcement agencies, enabling them to determine with greater accuracy what may have happened during the commission of criminal activities.

Botany↗

Micropropagation of Dendrobium nobile from shoot tip sections.

Successful shoot regeneration of Dendrobium nobile was achieved using thin shoot tip sections and triacontanol (TRIA) for the first time. Protocorm-like bodies (PLBs) or proliferating shoot buds were observed when thin shoot tip sections were cultured on the basal medium of Mitra et at. (Indian J. Exp. Biol. 14 (1976) 350) supplemented with 4.0 microg L(-1) TRIA. The highest percentage of explants (93%) produced PLBs or proliferating shoot buds (21) at 4.0 microg L(-1) TRIA-supplemented basal medium. All the newly formed PLBs or proliferating shoot buds survived and ultimately produced healthy shoots with 2-3 leaves. Shoots produced roots when cultured on basal medium supplemented with 2.0 microg L(-1) TRIA. The well-rooted shoots were transferred to pots containing charcoal chips, coconut husk and broken tiles (2:2:1), and a 92% survival rate was achieved. This work reveals that TRIA can be used as an effective growth regulator in the micropropagation and conservation of D. nobile.

Botany↗

Draughtsmen, botanists and nature: constructing eighteenth-century botanical illustrations.

At first glance botanical illustrations of the eighteenth century might be interpreted as being naturalistic portraits of living plants. A more detailed investigation, however, reveals that the pictures were meant to communicate typical features of plant species in the way of a model. To this end, botanists of the period gave botanical draughtsmen specialist training; copying earlier examples and standardised motives from drawing books was a common part of this training. The practice of copying elements of previously published drawings and integrating them into new pictures was also widespread. However, only carefully selected elements were taken over, and even these were improved in terms of their correctness and appropriateness to the new context. This procedure was a strategy that eighteenth-century botanists used so that they would present an illustration that met their own requirements more satisfactorily than existing depictions. From this perspective, botanical illustrations can serve as historical sources on the working practices of eighteenth-century botanists and draughtsmen, which are usually not mentioned in textual sources.

Audiovisual Aids↗

Naturalising purpose: from comparative anatomy to the 'adventure of reason'.

Kant's analysis of the concept of natural purpose in the Critique of judgment captured several features of organisms that he argued warranted making them the objects of a special field of study, in need of a special regulative teleological principle. By showing that organisms have to be conceived as self-organizing wholes, epigenetically built according to the idea of a whole that we must presuppose, Kant accounted for three features of organisms conflated in the biological sciences of the period: adaptation, functionality and conservation of forms. Kant's unitary concept of natural purpose was subsequently split in two directions: first by Cuvier's comparative anatomy, that would draw on the idea of adaptative functions as a regulative principle for understanding in reconstituting and classifying organisms; and then by Goethe's and Geoffroy's morphology, a science of the general transformations of living forms. However, such general transformations in nature, objects of an alleged 'archaeology of nature', were thought impossible by Kant in section paragraph 80 of the Critique of judgment. Goethe made this 'adventure of reason' possible by changing the sense of 'explanation': scientific explanation was shifted from the investigation of the mechanical processes of generation of individual organisms to the unveiling of some ideal transformations of types instantiated by those organisms.

Anatomy, Comparative↗

Johannes Reinke (1839-1931) and his "Dominanten" theory--an early concept of gene regulation and morphogenesis.

Johannes Reinke (1839-1931) was one of the most eminent and influential botanists, politician, philosopher and "anti-Haeckelist" of the 19th century. Educated in the mid 19th century he had faced revolutionary changes in the scientific understanding of the origin and evolution of life. Working mainly at the phenotypic level, Reinke was interested in the basic mechanisms and the guiding idea behind all processes which coordinated gene regulation and morphogenesis. What drove Reinke in his search of regulatory mechanisms for evolutionary patterns and processes was his religious belief. For the origin of the very first life, Reinke believed in creation but once life was established, evolution followed natural laws. This led to his early concept of "Dominanten" entities, which regulate gene transcription and morphogenesis, anticipating the ideas of Goldschmidt and v. Uexküll.

Animals↗

Indian publishing: enduring the boom.

There has been a boom in the publication of Indian plant science research in recent years, defying national trends in other sciences and outperforming the international trends in plant science publications. This boom augurs well for India considering the importance of agriculture to her economy and the crucial need for science-based solutions to break the yield barriers. However, sustaining it requires tackling the problems of funding, infrastructure, manpower and other policy issues.

Agriculture↗

Plant metabolomics: towards biological function and mechanism.

Metabolite profiling is a fast growing technology and is useful for phenotyping and diagnostic analyses of plants. It is also rapidly becoming a key tool in functional annotation of genes and in the comprehensive understanding of the cellular response to biological conditions. Metabolomics approaches have recently been used to assess the natural variance in metabolite content between individual plants, an approach with great potential for the improvement of the compositional quality of crops. Here, we assess the contribution of metabolite profiling to these areas.

Botany↗

Physician-poets.

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Botany↗