Vitalism, Holism, and Metaphorical Dynamics of Hans Spemann's "Organizer" in the Interwar Period.

This paper aims to provide a fresh historical perspective on the debates on vitalism and holism in Germany by analyzing the work of the zoologist Hans Spemann (1869-1941) in the interwar period. Following up previous historical studies, it takes the controversial question about Spemann's affinity to vitalistic approaches as a starting point. The focus is on Spemann's holistic research style, and on the shifting meanings of Spemann's concept of an organizer.

Development and Heredity in the Interwar Period: Hans Spemann and Fritz Baltzer on Organizers and Merogones.

This article explores the collaborative research of the Nobel laureate Hans Spemann (1869-1941) and the Swiss zoologist Fritz Baltzer (1884-1974) on problems at the intersection of development and heredity and raises more general questions concerning science and politics in Germany in the interwar period. It argues that Spemann and Baltzer's collaborative work made a significant contribution to the then ongoing debates about the relation between developmental physiology and hereditary studies, although Spemann distanced himself from Drosophila genetics because of his anti-reductionist position. The article analyzes how Spemann framed the issues of heredity in terms of an epigenetic principle in the context of his work on the "organizer," and it explores the experimental dynamics of research on newt merogones carried out by Baltzer in a methodological development of Spemann's constriction experiments.

Fast MPI reconstruction with non-smooth priors by stochastic optimization and data-driven splitting.

Magnetic particle images are currently most often reconstructed using classical Tikhonov regularization (i.e. anregularization term) combined with Kaczmarz method.

PGC-1α in aging and lifelong exercise training-mediated regulation of UPR in mouse liver.

Aging is associated with changes in several metabolic pathways affecting liver function including the adaptive unfolded protein response (UPR). On the other hand, exercise training has been shown to exert beneficial effects on metabolism in the liver and exercise training has been reported to affect hepatic UPR. PGC-1α is a transcriptional coactivator involved in exercise training-induced adaptations in skeletal muscle and liver.

Edge Preserving and Noise Reducing Reconstruction for Magnetic Particle Imaging.

Magnetic particle imaging (MPI) is an emerging medical imaging modality which is based on the non-linear response of magnetic nanoparticles to an applied magnetic field. It is an important feature of MPI that even fast dynamic processes can be captured for 3D volumes. The high temporal resolution in turn leads to large amounts of data which have to be handled efficiently.

Modelling the spatial distribution of Fasciola hepatica in dairy cattle in Europe.

A harmonized sampling approach in combination with spatial modelling is required to update current knowledge of fasciolosis in dairy cattle in Europe. Within the scope of the EU project GLOWORM, samples from 3,359 randomly selected farms in 849 municipalities in Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Poland and Sweden were collected and their infection status assessed using an indirect bulk tank milk (BTM) enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Dairy farms were considered exposed when the optical density ratio (ODR) exceeded the 0.

Effect of lifelong resveratrol supplementation and exercise training on skeletal muscle oxidative capacity in aging mice; impact of PGC-1α.

Background: The present study tested the hypothesis that lifelong resveratrol (RSV) supplementation counteracts an age-associated decrease in skeletal muscle oxidative capacity through peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator (PGC)-1α and that RSV combined with lifelong exercise training (EX) exerts additive effects through PGC-1α in mice.

Methods: 3 month old PGC-1α whole body knockout (KO) and wild type (WT) littermate mice were placed in cages with or without running wheel and fed either standard chow or standard chow with RSV supplementation (4 g/kg food) for 12 months. Young (3 months of age), sedentary mice on standard chow served as young controls.

Role of PGC-1α in exercise training- and resveratrol-induced prevention of age-associated inflammation.

Background/aim: Age-related metabolic diseases are often associated with low-grade inflammation. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of the transcriptional co-activator PGC-1α in the potential beneficial effects of exercise training and/or resveratrol in the prevention of age-associated low-grade inflammation. To address this, a long-term voluntary exercise training and resveratrol supplementation study was conducted.

Hybrid times: theses on the temporalities of cloning.

In this paper, I focus on Hans-Jörg Rheinberger's notion of "historiality", which provides a specific epistemology of time that abandons ideas of 'origin', 'influence or of history as a continuous and cumulative development. It is used here to frame a brief historical analysis of the coexistence and interference of different concepts of cloning and related views on temporalities of the organisms as well as shifting temporal concepts in popular debates about the risks of life sciences in the 1970s.

[Temporal layers of the clone. Remarks on a conceptual history].

This paper aims at a history of the clone concept in 20th-century life science and culture. The first part of the paper is concerned with conceptual history approaches. Here, the idea of 'Zeitschichten' by Reinhart Koselleck is discussed and its implications for the history of science are explored.

[The two (and more) cultures of the "clone". Utopia and fiction in post-war discourses of life sciences].

Since the late 1950s, "two cultures" has become a catch phrase for describing a deep divide between science and literature. When Charles P. Snow, who initiated this discussion, introduced the notion of "two cultures" in a lecture at the University in Cambridge in 1959, he referred to an incompatibility of scientific and literary worldviews in Western Societies.