PHYSIOLOGYNEWS winter 2005 | number 61 Meetings UCL Images of Oxford Bristol revisited Also featuring: Physiology in space Richard Naftalin’s ‘desert island’ selection Cutting through the melatonin hype Reflections of a ex-Chair Letter from Russia What turned us on to physiology Winter books special A publication of The Physiological Society OXFORD FOCUSED MEETING Ion channels, genes and regulation in smooth muscle 5-7 September 2005 More photos and a report from the Oxford Focused Meeting appear on p. 5 (photos by Prem Kumar and Roger Thomas) PHYSIOLOGYNEWS Editorial 3 Movement neuroscience at UCL Philip Harrison 4 Ion channels, genes and regulation in smooth The Society’s dog. ‘Rudolf Magnus gave muscle David Beech, Anant Parekh, Phil Aaronson 5 me to Charles Sherrington, who gave me ‘Stan-power’ 7 to Henry Dale, who gave me to the Judy Harris Physiological Society in October 1942’ Bristol revisited Austin Elliott 8 My 10 key papers 10 My top 10 papers on biological salt, water and sugar transport Published quarterly by the Physiological Society Richard Naftalin Contributions and Queries Executive Editor A week in the life of... 14 Linda Rimmer A short month in the life of the Vice Chair Ian McGrath The Physiological Society Publications Office P.O. Box 502 What turned me on to physiology? Thelma Lovick, 15 Cambridge CB1 0AL UK Bill Winlow, Austin Elliott Tel: +44 (0)1223 400180 Letter from...Russia Evgeny Nikolsky, Ellya Bukharaeva 17 Fax: +44 (0)1223 246858 Email: [email protected] The Society web server: http://www.physoc.org Physiology in the extreme 19 The case for microgravity research Marco Narici, Michael Rennie Magazine Editorial Board Features Editor Austin Elliott (University of Manchester) Melatonin, sleep and the biological clock Josephine Arendt 22 Members Short-term plasticity has a long synaptic history Yuji Ikegaya 24 Lesley Anson (Nature) Intestinal adaptation to fasting: to live at any price 26 Laura Blackburn (University of Cambridge) Caroline Habold Munir Hussain (University of Liverpool) The tongue does not the taste system make Suzanne Sollars 28 John Lee (Rotherham General Hospital) Integrity and vulnerability of skeletal muscle innervation in 30 Thelma Lovick (University of Birmingham) ageing mammals Robert Guerring, Osvaldo Delbono Bill Winlow (Prime Medica, Knutsford) Interplay between neutrophils and skeletal muscle after 32 exercise. What’s going on? Francis Pizza, Jennifer Peterson, © 2005 The Physiological Society Joel Baas, Timothy Koh ISSN 1476-7996 Glucocorticoid regulation of blood brain barrier permeability 34 Carola Förster The Society permits the single copying of Glycolysis has many ways to regulate cardiac function 36 individual articles for private study or research. For Lothar Blatter, Jens Kockskämper, Aleksey Zima copying or reproduction for any other purpose, Hepcidin, body iron and infection Ted Debnam, Kaila Srai 38 written permission must be sought from the The effects of spike activity on measures of neural encoding 40 Physiological Society ([email protected]). Randall Powers, Adrienne Fairhall, Marc Binder Opinions expressed in articles and letters submitted Letters to the Editor 42 by, or commissioned from, Members, Affiliates or outside bodies are not necessarily those of the Noticeboard 43 Physiological Society. Reports The Physiological Society is registered in England Muscle Contraction Special Interest Group Joseph Bruton 29 as a company limited by guarantee: No 323575. 42 Registered office: PO Box 11319, London WC1X British Neuroscience Association symposium Zafar Bashir 8WQ A postcard from Argentina Laura Vanagas 49 Registered Charity: No 211585. The Society’s journals Printed by The Lavenham Press Ltd Reflections of an ex-Chair Stewart Sage 44 The Journal of Physiology 46 Experimental Physiology 47 Society News News from the Annual General Meeting 50 Cover photo The Lister Institute Research Prizes 2006 41 Biosciences Federation Building on success Mike Withnall 50 Unbelievable! 51 See Physiology in the extreme. The case for microgravity Obituaries research. By Marco Narici and Silvio Weidmann Denis Noble 52 Michael Rennie, p. 19 David McKie Kerslake Ken Collins, John Ernsting 53 Winter Book Special 55 PHYSIOLOGYNEWS Action points Guidelines for contributors In this issue Grants These guidelines are intended to assist This end-of-year Physiology News is For full information on Members’ authors in writing their contributions and to the largest we have ever produced – and Affiliates’ Grants, Intercalated reduce the subsequent editing process. The 56 pages, up by four pages from our BSc Bursaries, Network Interaction Editorial Group of Physiology News tries to standard 52. 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Please contact either the Executive Editor or a member of the Editorial Group of Physiology News (see contents page for details). Physiology News Online Physiology News is now available on the Society’s web site: http://www.physoc.org. Viva trauma. Unbelievable! by Mark Cain, p. 51 EDITORIAL PN 3 kinds of behaviour, while clearly Perhaps part of the danger lies in the Currency fraud or just substandard, should be distinguished from perceived need nowadays to produce data inventing or grossly manipulating data – that is uniformly clear, with everything sharp practise? true scientific fraud – which he likens to fitting nicely together and no loose ends, Reading the scientific journals, and even ‘counterfeiting the currency of science’. even when papers contain multiple sometimes the mainstream press, it seems Most of the headline cases of scientific experimental techniques. Some years ago it that scientific fraud is on the rise. There fraud of recent years involve precisely this was fairly common to see, in papers in have certainly been several ultra-high­ sort of falsification of data, but in the physiology journals, statements like: ‘this profile fraud cases in the last few years, Nature survey only one in three hundred result was observed in six out of eight 5 both in physical sciences – notably that of respondents admitted to faking results. The preparations tested. In the other two, a Jan Hendrik Schön of Bell Labs1 – and in US government currently defines research different result was observed, namely …’ I the biomedical sciences (for instance the misconduct as ‘fabrication, falsification or have the feeling, admittedly based on no 6 hard evidence, that this has become far less Herrman and Brach case in Germany2). The plagiarism’ , broadly reflecting the view common. In part this may reflect the move distinguished physicist and Vice Provost of propounded by Goodstein.