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A Guinea Pig’s
History of Biology
More information about the plants and animals who
taught us the facts of life |
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Each of the book's chapters deals with a different organism: click on its name to find links to further information.
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Equus quagga and Lord Morton’s mare
The picture shows Lord Morton's Quagga, by Jacques Laurent Agasse (Courtesy of the Royal College of Surgeons).
- The Quagga Project (This project, started in 1987, is an attempt by a group of dedicated people in South Africa to bring back an animal from extinction and reintroduce it into reserves in its former habitat).
- Aristotle's Biology: excellent article from the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (you may need to be using a university-based computer to get access to this).
- Aristotle's History of Animals, online.
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Passiflora gracilis: Inside Darwin’s greenhouse
The picture shows a passionflower (Passiflora caerulea) growing in Darwin's old greenhouse at Down House (photo by Jim Endersby).
Science:
Background:
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Homo sapiens: Francis Galton’s fairground attraction
The picture shows Galton's anthropometric laboratory (photo courtesy of the Galton Collection, UCL).
Science:
- The Galton collection at University College London (contains images of some of the instruments he used at the Anthropometric Laboratory).
- The Galton website contains copies of many of his important publications.
Background:
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Hieracium auricula: What Mendel did next
The picture is from Johann Sturm's Deutschlands Flora in Abbildungen (1796).
- MendelWeb (an educational resource for teachers and students interested in the origins of classical genetics).
- Foundations of Classical Genetics (a collection of scholarly sources, including Mendel's papers and correspondence, relating to all aspects of the history of genetics).
- Mendel Museum (online exhibition about Mendel and his life)
- Robert Olby ‘Mendel, Mendelism and Genetics’ (1997): fascinating essay on Mendel and his influence.
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Oenothera lamarckiana: Hugo de Vries led up the
primrose path
Image of Oenothera (courtesy of Peter van Tienderen, University of Amsterdam)
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Drosophila melanogaster: Bananas, bottles and Bolsheviks
Science:
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Cavia porcellus: Mathematical guinea pigs
The picture on the left is of Sewall Wright holding two guinea pigs (courtesy William Provine/American Philosophical Society).
Science:
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Bacteriophage: The virus that revealed DNA
The image on the left shows a single bacterium under attack by phage (the tiny white dots); the one on the right shows a close-up of a single phage (courtesy
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory: where the phage course was taught, Barbara McClintock worked – as did so many of the other organisms and people in this book. The site includes excellent historical and scientific educational materials.
- The Bacteriophage Ecology Group: major resource for phage researchers, which includes links to many other resources.
- The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1969, awarded to Delbruck, Hershey and Luria. The Nobel Prize organisation has extensive biographical material on the three men, and on all the other Nobel Prize winners.
- The Life and Legacy of Paul de Kruif by Robin Marantz Henig.
- Salvador Luria: biographical details and pictures from the US National Library of Medicine.
- ‘Interview with Max Delbrück’ (Archives, California Institute Of Technology, 1978).
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Zea mays: Incorrigible corn
Science:
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Arabidopsis thaliana: A fruit fly for the botanists
Image of Arabidopsis courtesy of Chris Somerville.
- The Arabidopsis Information Resource: the major site for all scientific resources concerning Arabidopsis, including many links to other resources.
- Breaking the Code: Sequencing the Arabidopsis Genome: a video from the National Science Foundation that describes the Arabidopsis Genome Project.
- Arabidopsis: why does the US National Science Foundation fund work on this plant?
- For more information about the Arabidopsis researchers interviewed in the book, see their webpages:
- Caroline Dean (John Innes Institute)
- Ian Furner (Cambridge University)
- Maarten Koornneef (Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research)
- Elliot Meyerowitz (California Institute of Technology)
- Chris Somerville (Stanford University)
- An interview with Elliot Meyerowitz: about why one of his Arabidopsis papers has become so widely cited.
- GARNet: UK-based Arabidopsis genomic resources.
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Danio rerio: Seeing through zebrafish
Zebrafish (Danio rerio) image courtesy of Ian Woods and Will Talbot.
- Zfin: the major internet resource for Zebrafish researchers.
- For more information about the Zebrafish researchers interviewed in the book, see their webpages:
- Facts about zebrafish from the University of Oregon, including a tribute to George Streisinger.
- George Streisinger obituary from the National Academy of Sciences.
- Glofish: one of the more surprising uses of genetic modification – pet fish that glow in the dark!
- Why the Fish? an excellent article by Giles Newton on why zebrafish are important to the Human Genome Project (the site also includes articles on the mouse and the frog)
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OncoMouse ®: Engineering organisms
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Miscellaneous
These are a few of the other websites that I came across in my research that you may find interesting.
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