Embryologist: My Eight Decades in Developmental Biology

Book Description

This is a charming memoir of the recently deceased professor emeritus of biology at Yale University. In it, J. P. Trinkaus ("Trink") describes his upbringing, scientific education, research activities, and philosophy of his interesting life as one of America's most distinguished and beloved developmental biologists. Few scientists can match Trink's record of publication in eight decades, starting with his first research publication in 1939 and continuing until 2003 with the posthumous publication of his life story. Through all these years, Trink used his extraordinary strength of character and dedication to science to investigate the mysteries of the development of early vertebrate embryos. Along the way, through his affiliations with Yale University and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA, Trinkaus enriched the scientific and personal lives of countless friends, students, and colleagues. His scientific career extended from the classical period of experimental embryology to the modern day molecular approach to understanding problems of development.

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Joie de Vivre.......2007-07-31

My first and last time meeting Professor John Philip Trinkaus was in 1995 at the annual meeting of the Society for Developmental Biology. He was there to receive the first E. G. Conklin Medal. It was an award to "a developmental biologist who has made and is continuing to make outstanding contributions to the field."

The book editor asked Professor Trinkaus to write his life down. I think Professor Trinkaus did just that. It is a story of his love of science, his study of epiboly, his teaching philosophy, his marriages, his view on religion, his political activity (and how it affected employment), his account on anti-Semitism at Yale, and more.

His scientific lineage traced back to Georges Cuvier, and Louis Agassiz. He wanted to see a comprehensive understanding of a complex biological phenomenon by piecing molecular, cytological, and behavioral studies together. He described his fun at Wood Holes. He pointed out Ross Harrison's view on the determination concept. He explained the failure to identify the chemical nature of the organizer, his experiments on glucose that stimulated quite a lot of morphogenesis in blastoderm (but no heart), the advantage of cross-disciplinary training, and the reason for the joy of research. Personality does make a difference in science, at least it determines if you would seek someone out or not. He also explained how to choose a Ph.D. dissertation topic, the benefits of being independent, and the function of a professor in attracting students, assigning problems, providing students with independence, and setting high standards by example. He revealed the rationale for sole authorship of graduate students, and the problems of basing evaluation on the number of publications. He cautioned the understanding of pathways and epigenetic process has been ignored in the cytoplasm starting from the genes. He expressed his uneasy feeling about prizes to individual scientists because of the collectivity nature of science, and his guiding principle for serious research.

In addition to biologists, people interested in American history will find this book fascinating.

Life should be fun.......2004-05-12

Life should be fun, as well as interesting. Few scientists have the knack of optimizing this fun, for others as well as themselves. For many decades, the best parties in Woods Hole were notoriously those given by JP Trinkaus, who died this past spring just after completing this autobiography.
This man was remarkable in two main ways. One was the steadiness of his own research. In every decade from the 1930s to the 2000s, he published substantial contributions to embryology. These included the key labeling experiments that proved sorting out by dissociated cells of higher vertebrates. He also wrote the leading book on how cell movements relate to embryology, Cells Into Organs: The Forces that Shape the Embryo (Second Edition, 1984. Englewood Cliffs (NJ): Prentice Hall).
His other special talent was social. This included the courage and instant wit to puncture powerful scientific bullies. On of these, who habitually pontificated negatively after lectures by younger scientists, got what he had long deserved in this reply: "Did everyone get the question, or shall I repeat it?" Such irreverence was frequent. More often, however, his social talents were positive: a skill for stirring people up, getting them together, encouraged, enthusiastic, or sometimes exasperated. His research seminars, like his parties, were famously stimulating. During both, his guests magically became smarter and happier than usual. That warm magic comes through in this book.
There are also surprises: his mother became New York State chair of the Women's Christian Temperence Union (WCTU); he was briefly in a secret cell of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CP-USA); and he was friends with Judge Bork. Few scientific biographies have so skillfully woven actual research discoveries into the personal details of a life. Readers can learn a lot about fish embryos here, as well as how much fun it is to make discoveries. This book would be a good gift for nonscientist friends, or for a young person thinking of going into science, to show them what a research career can be like. Researchers themselves can find a lot of wisdom, such as what we really mean by criticizing research as "too descriptive," how cell sorting is related to normal development, and how to manage graduate students.
Other reasons to buy this book include Phillip Armstong's beautiful drawings of developing fish embryos, printed at the outer upper corners of each page, so one can flip through the pages and produce a time lapse. People who knew Trink will enjoy this book, and those who did not know him will find out how much they missed.
Book review by Albert K. Harris, Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill from Quarterly Review of Biology, 79(1), March 2004, reprinted with permission of The University of Chicago Press.

candid and perceptive.......2003-10-28

Embryologist: My Eight Decades in Developmental Biology by John Philip Trinkaus combines the passion and diligence of the researcher with a rare frankness about himself, his colleagues, and his discipline. Candid and perceptive, he brings to life crowds of people and takes us with them on a voyage of discovery into some of today's most important scientific advances.
Submitted for Dr. Trachtenberg by Dr. Kurt E. Johnson, President and Publisher, J&S Publishing Company

A literary gem.......2003-09-27

This personal memoir by the world's leading authority on morphogenetic movements in early embryonic development is a literary gem. The writing is lucid and expressive, and the author's style conveys in a clear, direct voice that will be easily grasped by lay people, the fundamental questions in the early development of animals. I was sorry when I finished reading the book because I wanted more.

Of greater importance, in my opinion, is the obvious passion Trinkaus evinced for his craft and for the animal material he worked with all of his life. This emerges not only from his careful, critical discussions of basic questions concerning cellular movements, and the reasons for the experimental approaches taken by him and his scientific colleagues, but in his descriptions recounting the excitement of discovery, starting in his late teens when he studied the genetics of pigmentation in goldfish, and continuing into his sixties, when, in a darkened laboratory at the Roscoff Biological Station in France, he discovered for the first time directed (pigment) cell movement in the developing eggs of the blenny, a small marine fish. A sentient reader can follow through the pages of this latter journey of discovery and experience the fervor that gripped this outstanding scientist on the cusp of one of the last important scientific forays of his productive life.

Trink's friends and colleagues who have not already purchased a copy of this memoir should do so, because they will have the experience of revisiting, in a delivery redolent of his characteristic bluntness and panache, the personal and professional passions that directed his life and the obvious pleasure he derived from his close personal relationships. As someone who knew and admired this exceptional scholar for fifty years, I promise you that reading this memoir will be a moving experience. Trink is gone but his remarkable spirit lives on in his memoir.

Review submitted by Kurt E. Johnson, Ph. D. on behalf of Dr. Mellon.

Trink's memoirs.......2003-06-17

How objective could YOU be if you wrote a review of something your father wrote?! Well, that is the position that we former Trink students are in as we read "Embryologist," the memoirs of J.P.Trinkaus. This chronicles his viewpoint of 70 years of developmental biology as seen while growing up on Long Island (New York), during summers at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Mass., and during academic years as Professor of Biology at Yale University.
Trink was an enthusiastic embryologist researcher, an exciting lecturer/teacher, and a stimulating mentor. For those of us who knew him, this is a wonderful opportunity to glimpse his reasoning on issues that once were central in our education. To the extent that we all witnessed them, the events, personalities, and discussions described seem quite accurate, written in an informal, reasonably raucous manner that students may find interesting and entertaining.
Although the book is directed mainly at biologists, lay readers of high school age and older, interested in biology in particular or research in general, will find rich material here, written in an easily readable style. ALL of Trink's publications are given in full bibliographic detail in one of the appendices (PubMed won't generate that printout), as is the scientific lineage of his mentors and the students he trained. The index is particularly useful to find out whether YOU are discussed somewhere in the text!
I think the book will develop a wider readership among those who never knew Trink. I get the same sense from reading this book that I always get from re-reading Sinclair Lewis's Arrowsmith. It will be an interesting book for high school students and undergraduates to read if they wonder what it's really like to be a biologist, and for graduate students and postdocs to read if they wonder what the web of departmental politics and scientific competition can be like. It also ought to be instructive to students to see the importance to one's own career of stepping up to the plate and speaking out on matters of principle, sometimes at some considerable risk to one's career. Personality DOES matter in science. Great research often gets accomplished because two individuals enjoy social interactions and discover that they also bring complementary skills for answering important questions uniquely.

Book Description

The main impetus for climate change is the elevated concentration of CO ₂ in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide and air pollutants arise largely from the same industrial sources and are diffused throughout the world, so that air pollution is also part of global change. The impacts on plants have complex interrelationships and lead to changes in land cover and atmospheric and soil environments. Plant metabolism of CO ₂ and air pollutants and gas fluxes in plant ecosystems influence global gas cycles as well. This book includes current topics on plant metabolism of air pollutants and elevated CO ₂, responses of whole plants and plant ecosystems, genetics and molecular biology for functioning improvement, experimental ecosystems and climate change research, global carbon-cycle monitoring in plant ecosystems, and other important issues. The authors, conducting research in Europe, the United States, Australia, and East Asia, present a wealth of information on their work in the field.

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Ocean Biogeochemistry

Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3540423982

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Oceans account for 50% of the anthropogenic CO ₂ released into the atmosphere. During the past 15 years an international programme, the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS), has been studying the ocean carbon cycle to quantify and model the biological and physical processes whereby CO ₂ is pumped from the ocean's surface to the depths of the ocean, where it can remain for hundreds of years. This project is one of the largest multi-disciplinary studies of the oceans ever carried out and this book synthesises the results. It covers all aspects of the topic ranging from air-sea exchange with CO ₂, the role of physical mixing, the uptake of CO ₂by marine algae, the fluxes of carbon and nitrogen through the marine food chain to the subsequent export of carbon to the depths of the ocean. Special emphasis is laid on predicting future climatic change.

Gas Trees and Car Turds: Kids' Guide to the Roots of Climate Change

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Gas Trees and Car Turds: Kids' Guide to the Roots of Climate Change
Kirk Johnson
Manufacturer: Fulcrum Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 155591666X

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Global warming is a complicated problem. Gas Trees and Car Turds is a fun, fast read about the carbon cycle: trees are made of air and water, electricity is made from coal that is made from trees, gasoline is made from plankton, and all of these things are related to each other and to our climate through carbon dioxide. This colorfully illustrated book makes carbon dioxide, an invisible odorless gas responsible for global warming and plant growth, into something that can be imagined and understood by children.

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Global Carbon Cycle and Climate Change
Kirill Ya. Kondratyev , Vladimir F. Krapivin , Costas A. Varotsos , and Costas Varotsos
Manufacturer: Springer
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ASIN: 3540008098

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Professor Kondratyev and his team consider the concept of global warming due to the greenhouse effect and put forward a new approach to the problem of assessing the impact of anthropogenic processes. Considering data on both sources and sinks for atmospheric carbon and various conceptual schemes of the global carbon dioxide cycle, they suggest a new approach to studies of the problem of the greenhouse effect. They assess the role of different types of soil and vegetation in the assimilation of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and discuss models of the atmosphere ocean gas exchange and its role in the carbon dioxide cycle, paying special attention to the role of the Arctic Basin. The authors also consider models of other global atmospheric cycles for a range of atmospheric constituents, and conclude by drawing together a range of scenarios on modelling the global carbon cycle.

Global Climate Change and Response of Carbon Cycle in the Equatorial Pacific and Indian Oceans and Adjacent Landmasses, Volume 73 (Elsevier Oceanography Series) (Elsevier Oceanography Series)

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Global Climate Change and Response of Carbon Cycle in the Equatorial Pacific and Indian Oceans and Adjacent Landmasses, Volume 73 (Elsevier Oceanography Series) (Elsevier Oceanography Series)

Manufacturer: Elsevier Science
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ASIN: 0444529489

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To understand the global warming mechanism, global mapping of primary production was carried out under the GCMAPS program. The program was concerned with marine and terrestrial environmental changes, which affect carbon cycle on the regional and global scales. On the regional scale, warm phase of ENSO (El Niño / Southern Oscillation) has been shown to affect economic activities in many countries. The keyword for understanding mechanism of global warming is primary productivity. The earth observation satellites (EOS) like the ADEOS of Japan, and the SeaWiFS, Sea Star and Terra of the U.S.A. provided much required data for modeling and verification of primary production estimates on both land and ocean.

The knowledge gained during the GCMAPS program has been documented in this book. Interpretation of the data suggests that global warming, which causes temperature and sea level rise, and changes in climate and ecosystems, is likely to have the largest influence on mankind. The first half of this book discuss changes in marine environments. Physical and chemical oceanographic properties of the equatorial Pacific and Indian Oceans are presented. Changes in partial pressure of carbon dioxide, flux and composition of settling particles and biological communities in the surface ocean have also been discussed. In addition to this, over hundred years of environmental records based upon coral skeletons are presented. Estimations of primary production and its utilization in validating satellite imagery data were conducted in the western North Pacific. Primary productivity estimates based upon the validated satellite imagery are presented on the global scale. Climate change modeling of primary production in global oceans is also presented.

The latter half of this book deals with changes in terrestrial environments. Primary productivity estimates for different types of ecosystems (e.g., forest, grassland) are presented together with soil carbon dynamics. Also, biomass and productivity estimation and environmental monitoring based upon remote sensing techniques are presented with a model analysis of the relationship between climate perturbations and carbon budget anomalies in global terrestrial ecosystems. This book elucidates integrated aspects of the global carbon cycle involving marine and terrestrial environments.

* Discusses a current understanding of the biogeochemical processes on land and ocean
* Provides global mapping of primary production based on satellite imagery data and modeling
* Presents the latest interpretations of relationships between carbon cycle and climatic change

Celestial climate driver: a perspective from four billion years of the carbon cycle.: An article from: Geoscience Canada

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Celestial climate driver: a perspective from four billion years of the carbon cycle.: An article from: Geoscience Canada
Jan Veizer
Manufacturer: Geological Association of Canada
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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This digital document is an article from Geoscience Canada, published by Geological Association of Canada on March 1, 2005. The length of the article is 10946 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Celestial climate driver: a perspective from four billion years of the carbon cycle.
Author: Jan Veizer
Publication: Geoscience Canada (Refereed)
Date: March 1, 2005
Publisher: Geological Association of Canada
Volume: 32 Issue: 1 Page: 13(16)

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The cycle of climate change.(OpEd): An article from: Bulletin (Northwest Public Power Association)

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The cycle of climate change.(OpEd): An article from: Bulletin (Northwest Public Power Association)
Terry Holzer
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
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Binding: Digital

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This digital document is an article from Bulletin (Northwest Public Power Association), published by Thomson Gale on July 1, 2007. The length of the article is 842 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The cycle of climate change.(OpEd)
Author: Terry Holzer
Publication: Bulletin (Northwest Public Power Association) (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 61 Issue: 7 Page: 17(1)

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Late Quaternary changes in Amazonian ecosystems and their implications for global carbon cycling [An article from: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology]

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Late Quaternary changes in Amazonian ecosystems and their implications for global carbon cycling [An article from: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology]
F.E. Mayle , and D.J. Beerling
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000RR4V5G

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This digital document is a journal article from Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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The current role of Amazonia in the terrestrial carbon budget is the focus of intensive scientific interest, in large part due to its potential to accelerate global warming. However, its role in mediating CO"2 changes over millennial time-scales since the last glacial maximum (LGM) has generally been overlooked and is the subject of speculation. Recent advances in our understanding of the Late Quaternary history of Amazonian ecosystems offers an opportunity to make more informed inferences about Late Quaternary changes in the magnitude of Amazon carbon storage than has hitherto been possible. Therefore, in this paper, we reconstruct changes in the magnitude of Amazon carbon storage over the last 21,000 years (since the LGM) by reference to recently published palaeohydrological and palaeoecological data and compare these data with results from simulations using a process-based terrestrial ecosystem model for the Mid-Holocene and the LGM. Building on these results further, we interpret changes in tropical forest biomass in the context of Late Quaternary polar ice-core records of atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide concentrations. Palaeo-data and model simulations show that Amazonia was predominantly forested at the LGM, although there is evidence for savanna expansion near the margins of the Basin and southern Amazonia may have been covered by deciduous/semi-deciduous dry forests rather than evergreen rain forests. We estimate Amazon C storage at the LGM to be only 135 Gt C (50% smaller than today), but find that its proportion of the entire terrestrial carbon store was almost twice that of today. The model shows that between the LGM and the Mid-Holocene there is a significant increase in evergreen broad-leaf forests at the expense of deciduous forests and a 67% increase in total Amazon C storage, attributable to rising temperatures and atmospheric CO"2 levels. Although our results indicate that the Amazon Basin was dominated by rain forests throughout the Holocene, rain forest cover expanded in the Late Holocene (at the expense of savannas) and total Amazon carbon storage is simulated to have risen by 22% between the Mid-Holocene (225 Gt C) and the present day (Pre-Industrial) (225 Gt C). Comparison of these Amazon carbon fluxes with palaeo-data from other parts of the world suggests that, contrary to previous hypotheses, the terrestrial biosphere acted as a net carbon sink throughout the Holocene, and that the observed CO"2 rise from 260 to 285 ppmv between 8 and 1 ka BP (revealed by the Antarctic Taylor Dome ice-core record) may have been driven by release of carbon from the oceans rather than land.

Modeling the interannual variability and trends in gross and net primary productivity of tropical forests from 1982 to 1999 [An article from: Global and Planetary Change]

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Modeling the interannual variability and trends in gross and net primary productivity of tropical forests from 1982 to 1999 [An article from: Global and Planetary Change]
K. Ichii , H. Hashimoto , R. Nemani , and M. White
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000RR6HA8

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This digital document is a journal article from Global and Planetary Change, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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The role of tropical ecosystems in global carbon cycling is uncertain, at least partially due to an incomplete understanding of climatic forcings of carbon fluxes. To reduce this uncertainty, we simulated and analyzed 1982-1999 Amazonian, African, and Asian carbon fluxes using the Biome-BGC prognostic carbon cycle model driven by National Centers for Environmental Prediction reanalysis daily climate data. We first characterized the individual contribution of temperature, precipitation, radiation, and vapor pressure deficit to interannual variations in carbon fluxes and then calculated trends in gross primary productivity (GPP) and net primary productivity (NPP). In tropical ecosystems, variations in solar radiation and, to a lesser extent, temperature and precipitation, explained most interannual variation in GPP. On the other hand, temperature followed by solar radiation primarily determined variation in NPP. Tropical GPP gradually increased in response to increasing atmospheric CO"2. Confirming earlier studies, changes in solar radiation played a dominant role in CO"2 uptake over the Amazon relative to other tropical regions. Model results showed negligible impacts from variations and trends in precipitation or vapor pressure deficits on CO"2 uptake.

Power laws governing hydrology and carbon dynamics in northern peatlands [An article from: Global and Planetary Change]

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Power laws governing hydrology and carbon dynamics in northern peatlands [An article from: Global and Planetary Change]
Z. Yu
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Global and Planetary Change, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Environmental and biological variables fluctuate over different time scales. On the basis of power spectral analysis of 14 time series at four sites from northern peatlands (fens and raised bogs), the temporal variability of physical environment (temperatures, water tables) and biological variables (CO"2 flux) shows power-law behaviour, with a scaling exponent ranging from about 0.5 to 1.5. The scaling exponents of air temperatures change from 1.5 at high frequency to 0.5 at low frequency, with a break point at diurnal period. Comparison with similar analysis of temperature data from climate stations suggests that the atmosphere above peatlands has more active heat exchange with waterlogged peatlands than with upland terrestrial ecosystems. Water tables from different peatlands show almost identical power spectra, with a scaling exponent of 1.0 over all time scales. CO"2 exchange has more complex spectral structure, with two break points at daily and monthly periods. This spectral structure suggests scale-dependent influence of climatic and hydrological fluctuations on CO"2 fluxes. CO"2 flux responds to air temperature with a distinct diurnal spectral peak. These results indicate that time scales are important in discussing hydrology and carbon dynamics in peatlands, and that scaling up of short-term experimental results may be inadvisable. Further statistical analysis on drained and harvested peatlands would provide insights into understanding shift in peatland dynamics due to human disturbance.

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