In the space of four years, from 1826 to 1829, the
Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal
published three anonymous articles seemingly advocating doctrines inspired by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Decades of ...scholarship have initially attributed the most outspoken of the three articles, the 1826 “Observations on the Nature and Importance of Geology,” to Robert Grant, and subsequently to Robert Jameson, thanks to a critical reassessment by James Secord (1991). More recently, scholars have also ascribed to Jameson an article published in 1829, “Of the Continuity of the Animal Kingdom by Means of Generation from the First Ages of the World to the Present Times.” A third short contribution, the 1827 “Of the Changes which Life has Experienced on the Globe” has been credited to the Franco-German Ami Boué. Research undertaken over several years has led to the identification of the three authors hiding behind the veil of anonymity. They were not the ones scholars have agreed upon, nor were they really “Lamarckians.” The discussion of the ways in which the three texts reached Edinburgh broadens our understanding of the daily working practices of contemporary periodicals and of the networks of circulation of texts at the Continental level. Finally, when considered within their proper conceptual and social context, the three articles throw light on the many ways in which, during the 1820s, European amateurs, naturalists, and journalists debated the succession of life forms throughout the history of the Earth.
The urgency to find complementary therapies to current SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, whose effectiveness is preserved over time and not compromised by the emergence of new and emerging variants, has become a ...critical health challenge. We investigate the possibility of jamming the opening of the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) of the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 with small compounds. Through in silico screening, we identified two potential candidates that would lock the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) in a closed configuration, preventing the virus from infecting the host cells. We show that two drugs already approved by the FDA, mithramycin and dihydroergotamine, can block infection using concentrations in the μM range in cell-based assays. Further STD-NMR experiments support dihydroergotamine's direct interaction with the spike protein. Overall, our results indicate that repurposing of these compounds might lead to potential clinical drug candidates for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Here, for the first time in English, is Georges Cuvier’s extraordinary “History of the Natural Sciences from Its Origin to the Present Day.” Based on a series of public lectures presented by Cuvier ...from 1829 to 1832, this third of a five-volume series, translated from the original French and heavily annotated with commentary, is a detailed chronological survey of the natural sciences spanning roughly fifty years, from the close of the seventeenth century to approximately 1750. It is truly astonishing in its detail and scope. Cuvier was fluent in many languages, English, German, Spanish, and certainly Latin, in addition to French. He was therefore well prepared to investigate and interpret firsthand the scientific literature of Europe as a whole. The work is an affirmation of Cuvier’s vast encyclopedic knowledge, his complete command of the scientific and historical literature, and his incomparable memory. This history is remarkable also for providing in one place a large set of useful references to a vast ancient literature that is not easily found anywhere else. This huge body of information provides us furthermore with unique insight into Cuvier’s concept of the natural sciences, and to the vast breadth and progress of this human endeavor. With this work, Cuvier fills an important gap in philosophical thought between the time of Carl Linnaeus and Charles Darwin.
Le présent numéro est constitué d’études de cas portant sur des institutions fondées, ou en cours de développement, durant la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, alors que l’anthropologie et ...l’ethnographie connaissaient leur âge d’or, ou bien dans le contexte d’une critique apparemment radicale de leurs présupposés, comme c’est le cas par exemple du musée ethnographique assez récent de Suita, Osaka (1974). En dépit de la variété et de la distribution glable des institutions sélectionnées (deux en Italie, une en Argentine, une au Mexique et une au Japon), plusieurs traits communs se font jour : l’histoire tout sauf linéaire des institutions en question ; la relation à l’histoire des pays où ces institutions ont fleuri avec plus ou moins de succès ; la question des réactions des membres vivants des groupes ethniques exposés ; celle, épineuse, de la réclamation des restes humains ; et la mise en cause de l’existence même d’institutions de ce type, comme l’illustrent les tentatives d’obtenir la fermeture du Musée Lombroso à Turin. Mes commentaires ne suivront pas forcément l’ordre dans lequel les différentes contributions sont présentées dans le dossier, et ils seront de longueur variable, du fait de mon manque de compétence sur de nombreux sujets abordés, en particulier ceux concernant les musées latino-américains et japonais.
The second half of the 1820s was not an easy time for Cuvier. Already in 1826 the socialite and great French novelist Stendhal recorded in his Parisian chronicles, written for a British audience, ...that Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire was becoming a formidable rival of his more famous colleague, the Sécretaire perpétuel of the Académie des sciences. At the same time, Cuvier’s role as influential member and at times President of the Council of State (the organ effectively running the country) did...
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