Physiology's impact: discovering life.

Plant Physiology's Best Paper Award 2002.

Physiology's impact: exploring the mysteries of life.

The discipline of physiology explores the mysteries of life. How is it possible that the same organism can live in a dangerous environment, where extreme ambient temperatures, gravitational forces, oxygen availability, or other abiotic factors impose serious challenges to the maintenance of homeostasis? Clearly, our continued survival depends on our bodies being adaptive. We can explore these p...

A Multidimensional Impact Modelfor the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life

I first argue that the extraterrestrials we will find will not communicate, for the simple reason that they would likely be either immensely inferior or immensely superior to us. Then, I argue that the discovery of extraterrestrials will be slow, like other previous major scientific discoveries. I introduce a multidimensional model to assess and to prepare the impact of discovering extraterrest...

Physiology's impact: Applying mathematics and advanced technologies.

How do you measure the mechanical forces generated by single cells? What are the cues that guide cell migration? What are the interactions between cells that account for cooperative behaviors among cells? To answer these and many other basic questions about biological function, we must have the right tools. Mathematicians have perhaps the ultimate tool in science developed and honed over centur...

Animal Experimentation : the legacy of Claude

Claude Bernard, the father of scientific physiology, believed that if medicine was to become truly scientific, it would have to be based on rigorous and controlled animal experiments. Bernard instituted a paradigm which has shaped physiological practice for most of the twentieth century. In this paper we examine how Bernard's commitment to hypothetico-deductivism and determinism led to (a) his ...