Fundamental ecology is fundamental

Fundamental ecology is fundamental.

The primary reasons for conducting fundamental research are satisfying curiosity, acquiring knowledge, and achieving understanding. Here we develop why we believe it is essential to promote basic ecological research, despite increased impetus for ecologists to conduct and present their research in the light of potential applications. This includes the understanding of our environment, for intel...

Why Identity Is Fundamental

Sensing Stretch Is Fundamental

Stretch induces changes in cardiomyocyte biology that are implicated in heart failure, but the mechanism by which stretch is sensed and signals are transduced is unknown. New understanding of the Z disc elements of contractile units are beginning to elucidate the mechanism of stretch sensing and its relation to cardiac adaptation and disease.

Sherwood’s Plot: Fundamental or Empirical?

There are several examples of heuristic rules first proposed from empirical observation, which eventually earned physicochemical validity after the fundamental derivation of a posteriori. This may be the case of Sherwood’s plot – for which a sound rationalization from first principles, entailing enthalpy and mass balances, is provided here; it applies to (fine) chemicals undergoing concentr...

Is There a Fundamental Level?

1. Talk about ‘‘the fundamental level of reality’’ pervades contemporary metaphysics. The fundamentalist starts with (a) a hierarchical picture of nature as stratified into levels, adds (b) an assumption that there is a bottom level which is fundamental, and winds up, often enough, with (c) an ontological attitude according to which the entities of the fundamental level are primarily real, whil...