eTHE SOCIETY OF BIOLOGY MAGAZINE ■ ISSN 000Biologist6 3347 ■ SOCIETYOFBIOLOGY.ORG VOL 60 NO 5 ■ OCT/NOV 2013 EVENTS WILDLIFE CALENDAR WARNING INSIDE How disease from domestic 2013 animals could wipe out iconic endangered species MYCOLOGY RESEARCH BIOGRAPHY RICH PICKINGS FACT AND FISSIONN ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE Exploring treasures Using neutrons to e legacy of a great in the fungal kingdom study biomaterials Victorian scientist New from Garland Science Biology of Aging Roger McDonald Biology of Aging presents the biological principles that have led to a new understanding of the causes of aging and describes how these basic principles help one to understand the human experience of biological aging, longevity, and age-related disease. Intended for undergraduate biology students, it describes how the rate of biological aging is measured; explores the mechanisms underlying cellular aging; discusses the genetic pathways that affect longevity in various organisms; outlines the normal age-related changes and the functional decline that occurs in physiological systems over the lifespan; and considers the implications of modulating the August 2013 • 360pp • 239 illus rate of aging and longevity. The book also Pb: 978-0-8153-4213-7 • £42.00 includes end-of-chapter discussion questions to help students assess their knowledge of the material. TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1. Basic Concepts in the Biology of Aging 2. Measuring Biological Aging 3. Evolutionary Theories of Longevity and Aging 4. Cellular Aging 5. Genetics of Longevity 6. Plant Senescence 7. Human Longevity 8. The Physiology of Human Aging 9. Age-Related Disease in Humans 10. Modulating Aging and Longevity INSTRUCTOR RESOURCES • Question Bank • Figures from the book in PowerPoint and jpeg formats • Answers to end-of-chapter questions • Sample syllabus STUDENT RESOURCES • Answers to end-of-chapter questions • Online flashcards and glossary www.garlandscience.com/aging Issue 5 - BOA - Draft 1.indd 1 01/07/2013 15:16:17 eTHE SOCIETY OFBiologist BIOLOGY MAGAZINE Volume 60 No 5 October/November 2013 Contents 30 22 34 14 IN THIS ISSUE 8 Biology Week 22 Who was… Alfred THE SOCIETY OF BIOLOGY MAGAZINE ■ ISSN 0006 3347Biologiste ■ SOCIETYOFBIOLOGY.ORG VOL 60 NO 5 ■ OCT/NOV 2013 News EVENTS WILDLIFE CALENDAR calendar Russel Wallace? INSIDE WARNING 4 Society news How disease from domestic 2013 The events you don’t want to James Williams explores the animals could wipe out iconic endangered species 40 Members miss this month. legacy of this important Victorian scientist 100 years after his death. 43 Branches 10 Opinion: The journals they Regulars are a-changin' 26 Cats on camera MYCOLOGY RESEARCH BIOGRAPHY 3 Nelson’s column RICH PICKINGS FACT AND FISSION ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE Exploring treasures Using neutrons to e legacy of a great Eva Amsen on the trend for more Cat expert Roger Tabor on in the fungal kingdom study biomaterials Victorian scientist open peer reviews. tracking our feline friends. Cover00_BIO_60_5_COVERS_V2.indd 1 photo: Mark Higgins/19/09/2013 10:28 10 Opinion Shutterstock 12 Policy update 14 Pets and pestilence 30 Finding fungi 38 Spotlight Diseases in domestic pets can Maurice Moss marks UK Fungus 49 Reviews devastate wild populations, Day with a forest foray. 26 53 Biofeedback reports John Bonner. 54 Museum piece KA 34 The ‘science’ in sci-fi 55 Crossword TRAN 18 Subatomic science Discworld’s Dr Jack Cohen on E P Tom Ireland meets biologists putting the science into 56 Final word JOHN working in a nuclear reactor. science fiction. Vol 60 No 5 / THE BIOLOGIST / THE BIOLOGIST Vol 60 No 5 October/November 2013 Contacts EDITORIAL STAFF Allan Jamieson BSc PhD CBiol FSB Society of Biology Director of Membership, Marketing Catherine Jopling BSc PhD MSB Charles Darwin House, and Communications 12 Roger Street, Susan Omar BSc PGCE CBiol CSci MSB MRSPH FRGS Jon Kudlick London WC1N 2JU Editor Leslie Rose BSc CBiol FSB FICR MAPM Tel: 020 7685 2550 Sue Nelson Fax: 020 3514 3204 Managing Editor [email protected] Tom Ireland MSB ADVISORY PANEL www.societyofbiology.org [email protected] Ian Clarke, Horticulture Research International, UK Communications Assistant Clive Cornford, Unitec, Auckland, New Zealand Views expressed in this magazine are Karen Patel AMSB Sharon Grimster, BioPark, UK not necessarily those of the Editorial [email protected] Board or the Society of Biology. Marios Kyriazis, For membership enquiries call 0844 858 9316 Biogerontologist and anti-ageing physician, UK © 2013 Society of Biology [email protected] Alan Lansdown, Imperial College London, UK (Registered charity no. 277981) For subscription enquiries call 020 7685 2556 Walter Leal Filho, [email protected] Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany e Society permits single copying Don McManus, Bancroft Centre, Australia of individual articles for private study or research, irrespective of where EDITORIAL BOARD Peter Moore, King’s College London, UK J Ian Blenkharn MSB FRSPH the copying is done. Multiple copying Brian Osborne, Australia of individual articles for teaching Phil Collier MSc PhD CBiol FSB FLS FHE John Scott, University of Leicester, UK purposes is also permitted without Cameron S Crook BSc MPhil CBiol MSB MIEEM FLS Robert Spooner-Hart, University of specific permission. For copying or Rajith Dissanayake MSc PhD FZS AMSB Western Sydney, Australia reproduction or any other purpose, Catherine Duigan BSc PhD FSB FLS written permission must be sought from Kathleen Weathers, Institute of the Society. Exceptions to the above are John Heritage BA DPhil CBiol FSB Ecosystem Studies, USA those institutions and non-publishing Sue Howarth BSc PhD CBiol FSB Steve Wilson, Pfizer Animal Health organisations that have an agreement or licence with the UK Copyright Licensing Agency or the US Copyright Clearance Centre. Access to the magazine is available online; please see the Society’s DISCOVERIES EXTREMOPHILES website for further details. Our idea of what can survive at extreme depths has changed dramatically since the 19th century biologists regarded such discoveries British naturalist eBiologist any natural philosophers Edward Forbes only as exceptions to Forbes’ in the 17th century believed that life untarnished rule. Any organisms assumed that all living could not exist that lived in the cold and dark must M below 600m be scavengers, the thinking went, organisms were visible to the underwater surviving on decaying matter drifting naked eye and were surprised when down from the sunlit waters above. e Biologist is produced on behalf contemporaries, such as Antony Of course, for any organism van Leeuwenhoek in Holland trying to stay alive at such and Robert Hooke in England, depths, the dearth of discovered life so small it food would not be the could be seen only through only problem. Thriving a magnifying lens. There ecosystems need a steady of the Society of Biology by were whole microcosms in supply of energy, and a drop of water. there was precious little In subsequent on the ocean fl oor – or so years, some naturalists biologists thought. assumed upper limits on an organism’s size. Then, ink Publishing Ltd. Deep sea worlds in the 19th century, natural In 1977, geologists John Corliss philosophers discovered the of Oregon State University and remains of creatures that had John Edmond of MIT were using A WINDOW roamed the Earth for millions of the research submarine Alvin to years, many larger than any land investigate an area of the ocean 124-128 Barlby Road animal known. By the 20th century, natural fl oor in the eastern Pacifi c north- east of the Galápagos Islands. In this philosophers had come to be called area a camera lowered by a research scientists and the subcategory of ship had photographed live white scientists termed biologists were BIOGRAPHY clams, a full 2km below the surface. discovering countless examples both London W10 6BL When Corliss and Edmond neared of life’s ingenuity and of nature’s the site, they found the temperature ability to overturn assumptions. of the water in the vicinity to be Nonetheless, they expected that life a few degrees warmer than they had ultimate limits (especially in expected and directed Alvin’s pilot regard to temperature and pressure), to take the submarine in a direction ON THE LIFE and that there were environments so www.thinkpublishing.co.uk where the water seemed warmer hostile that they could not support still. When they crested a ridge, even the most robust organism. David Toomey is Alvin’s lights illuminated an oasis One such environment was the an associate of life – white clams, mussels, ocean fl oor. In the 19th century, professor of TOXICOLOGY crabs and fi sh. it was generally assumed that English and director FOOD SCARE STORIES of the Professional The two geologists hurriedly used 020 8962 3020 all oceanic life depended on the Writing and Alvin’s mechanical arm to collect photosynthesis of plankton and Technical samples of everything it could other microorganisms in the sunlit Communication reach. Later, when scientists aboard waters that extended a few metres Program at the Alvin’s parent ship studied the water below the surface. University of In 1830, British naturalist Edward Massachusetts- samples and heard Corliss and Amherst. His other Edmond’s report, they concluded Forbes noted that because sunlight The books include that the geologists had happened SCIENCES could not penetrate deeper than New Time upon a place where scalding hot about 600m, plankton could not Travelers: A THE OUTER water was issuing up through survive below that depth and Journey to the thousands of cracks in a patch of photosynthesis could not operate. It Frontiers of Physics and Stormchasers: ocean fl oor 100m across. followed that because there could be Design the Hurricane This phenomenon has since no photosynthesis, and no basis for Hunters and their become known as a hydrothermal a food chain, there could be no life. Flight into vent and is understood to be LIMITS On occasion, someone did fi nd Hurricane Janet.