A revised and enlarged version of Biologen unter Hitler, translated by Thomas Dunlap.

Dissatisfied with the descriptive and speculative methods of evolutionary biology of his time, the physiologist Jacques Loeb , best known for his “engineering” approach to biology, reflected on the possibilities of artificially creating life in the laboratory. With the objective of experimentally tackling one of the crucial questions of organic evolution, i.e., the origin of life from inanimate matter, he rejected claims made by contemporary scientists of having produced artificial life through osmotic growth processes in inorganic salt solutions. According to (...) Loeb, the answer to the question of whether or not life could be created artificially had to come from macro-molecular chemistry, in particular from the research on the recently discovered DNA. He was convinced that a prerequisite for making living matter from inanimate substances was the chemical synthesis of nuclear material capable of self-replication. Moreover, Loeb, experimentally refuting some vitalistic explanations as well as colloidal chemists’ far-reaching claims that biologically relevant macromolecules follow colloidal rather than chemical laws, pioneered research on the physical and chemical explanations of biological phenomena. (shrink)

Ute Gahlings opens up the professional field of philosophical practice with its various forms of activity such as consolation and life orientation, education and personality development as well as political and social commitment. On the basis of concrete situations in philosophical practice, she traces the complex intersubjective processes phenomenologically. She illuminates the importance of intuition, presence and atmosphere as well as the professional framing of the encounter in the field of tension between proximity and distance. In this multidimensionality, the author (...) is always concerned with core questions of an ethically based anthropology. Therefore, she also deals with professional ethical considerations and develops a code of ethics. (shrink)

Eric Davidson, a passionate molecular developmental biologist and intellectual, believed that conceptual advances in the sciences should be based on knowledge of conceptual history. Convinced of the superiority of a causal-analytical approach over other methods, he succeeded in successfully applying this approach to the complex feature of organismal development by introducing the far-reaching concept of developmental Gene Regulatory Networks. This essay reviews Davidson’s philosophy, his support for the history of science, and some aspects of his scientific personality.

Raum und Zeit sind Grundprobleme der abendlandischen Philosophietradition. Beide sind vielfach als zusammengehorig betrachtet worden, und beide sind als messbare Dimensionen Teil einer Ordnung, die uns in unserem Wahrnehmen und in unserem Handeln Orientierung und Sicherheit gibt. So verlassen wir uns bei jeder Verabredung darauf, dass der Treffpunkt und der Zeitpunkt der Verabredung eindeutig sind. Doch gibt es neben der linearen Zeit und dem metrischen Raum auch andere Weisen, Raum und Zeit zu erleben. Wenn man die Welt als offenes Zusammenspiel (...) von Dingen und Geschehnissen und Beziehungen versteht, so verlangt dies auch eine andere Auffassung von Raum und Zeit: Wir weilen und verweilen in Raumen, die uns umfangen und beherbergen. Wir empfinden kurze oder lange Weile. Und wir erfahren Weite, etwa in ihrem Gegenspiel zu Enge und Bedrangnis, wir stehen vor einer weiten Landschaft oder am weiten Meer - unser Herz wird weit. Indem wir uns einer Weile anvertrauen oder eine Weite in uns aufnehmen oder uns ihr uberlassen, behandeln wir das uns Begegnende nicht als Objekt unseres Tuns und Erkennens, sondern realisieren, dass wir in die uns umgebende Welt mit ihren je unterschiedlichen Weilen und Weiten je schon eingebettet sind. (shrink)

Development and homeostasis of the haematopoietic system is dependent upon stem cells that have the unique ability to both self‐renew and to differentiate in all cell lineages of the blood. The crucial decision between haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) self‐renewal and differentiation must be tightly controlled. Ultimately, this choice is regulated by the integration of intrinsic signals together with extrinsic cues provided by an exclusive microenvironment, the so‐called haematopoietic niche. Although the haematopoietic system of vertebrates has been studied extensively for many (...) decades, the specification of the HSC niche and its signals involved are poorly understood. Much of our current knowledge of how niches regulate long‐term maintenance of stem cells is derived from studies on Drosophila germ cells. Now, two recently published studies by Mandal et al.1 and Krezmien et al.2 describe the Drosophila haematopoietic niche and signal transduction pathways that are involved in the maintenance of haematopoietic precursors. Both reports emphasize several features that are important for controlling stem cell behavior and show parallels to both the vertebrate haematopoietic niche as well as the Drosophila germline stem cell niches in ovary and testis. The findings of both papers shed new light on the specific interactions between haematopoietic progenitors and their microenvironment. BioEssays 29:713–716, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

OUTSTANDING PAPER AWARD, Division of the History of Chemistry, American Chemical Society.

Until the 1930s Germany had been the international leader in biochemistry, chemistry, and areas of biology. After WWII, however, molecular biology as a new interdisciplinary scientific enterprise was scarcely represented in Germany for almost 20 years. Three major reasons for the low performance of molecular biology are discussed: first, the forced emigration of Jewish scientists after 1933, which not only led to the expulsion of future distinguished molecular biologists, but also to a strong decline of ''dynamic biochemistry'', a field which (...) contributed greatly to molecular biology. Second, German university structures that strongly impeded interdisciplinary research. Third, the international isolation and self-isolation of German scientists that was a major obstacle to the implementation of new fields of research developed elsewhere. Despite the fact that there was no official boycott against Germany as there had been after WWI and despite the Cold War policy of integrating Germans into the West, as a consequence of National Socialism and WWI for many years only very few German scientists gained access to the international community of molecular biologists. Max Delbruck played an important role in helping the Germans establish modern, mostly molecular, biology because he retained strong connections to Germany. Most importantly, it required a new generation of young scientists who had received part of their training in the US to establish modern molecular biology at German universities and Max Planck Institutes. (shrink)

In this second decade of the 21st century, we find the pervasive influence of synthetic biology everywhere, not only in research laboratories, but also in the discourses of politicians and ethicists. Despite its ubiquity, the precise meaning of the notions of "synthetic biology" and "synthetic life," as well as their history, potential, and risks, remain obscure not only to the layperson, but also to most biologists.The aim of this special issue is twofold. First, it is intended to help the reader (...) better appreciate what synthetic biology is all about and what are its roots. Second, once the overall picture has been expounded and made clearer, the questions of whether research in synthetic biology raises new and .. (shrink)

This article analyzes, Polanyi’s notion of authority in science and his criticism of Popper and Russell. It uses the history of early genetics and neo-Darwinism in order to examine the fruitfulness of Polanyi's concepts for an understanding of the history of biology. It discusses the responsibility of scientists in influential positions and shows that scientific authority is – as is criticism – indispensable for progress.

Abstract:The paper traces continuities and changes in the aesthetic perception and symbolic charge of energy landscapes in Germany in the post-war period. At the center of analysis are four resources—hydropower, lignite, nuclear power, and wind energy—which have deeply inscribed themselves into the landscape with their infrastructures and were often controversial at the time. A comparison will demonstrate how contentious energy landscapes sometimes developed into accepted cultural landscapes and even hallmarks of regional identity. Over time, the strange new energy landscapes became (...) part of the “normal” landscape, their artificial origins almost forgotten. As physical phenomena and cultural constructs, the history of energy landscapes can thus provide valuable information on changing identities and imaginations, world and nature images, use practices and power relations. (shrink)

In Goethe's Faust, the poet refers to alchemists' widespread ideas on artificial creation of life in the laboratory. In Faust, such an attempt was not successful: the little man,Homunculus, created by the scholar Wagner through crystallization, was a pure spirit; his form and light disappeared in an attempt to become real life. According to Goethe, life was obviously not a crystal, and he pointed to decisive differences between crystals and organic beings, the latter for example elaborating their food into clear-cut (...) organs and unable to be reconstituted from their ingredients, once destroyed. Thus Goethe's "sensitivity to the 'Gestalt' of the entire complicated organism and his general philosophical attitude .. (shrink)

Mindfulness has emerged as a potential motivator for sustainable lifestyles, yet few studies provide insight into the relationship between mindfulness practice levels and individual engagement in pro-environmental behaviors. We also lack information about the significance of meditators’ behavioral differences in terms of their measurable environmental impact and the motivational processes underlying these differences in pro-environmental performance. We classified 300 individuals in three groups with varying meditation experience and compared their pro-environmental motivations and levels of animal protein consumption. Exceeding prior attempts (...) to compare high-impact behaviors of mindfulness practitioners and non-practitioners, we created the most detailed classification of practice engagement by assessing frequency, experience and type of meditation practice. This nuanced view on mindfulness practice reveals that advanced meditators, who reported high levels of connectedness with nature, subjective happiness and dispositional mindfulness showed significantly more concern for the environment. They also demonstrated the lowest levels of greenhouse gas emissions, land occupation and water use related to their animal-protein consumption. This study is the first to follow a self-determination theory perspective to deepen our understanding of the motivational differences between meditator groups. We revealed that advanced meditators reported significantly more integrated motivation toward the environment than non-meditators. We also provided preliminary evidence for a new theoretical framework suggesting that experiential strategies such as mindfulness practices could strengthen the relational pathway of pro-environmental behaviors. Using sequential mediation analysis, we confirmed that the negative effect of mindful compassion practice on greenhouse gas emissions from animal-protein consumption is partially mediated by CWN and integrated motivation toward the environment. While our study does not support assumptions of causality, it shows that much can be learned by studying the motivations of advanced meditators for maintaining high levels of pro-environmental behavior. (shrink)

In contrast to anti-Jewish campaigns at German universities in the 19th century, which met with opposition from liberal scholars, among them prominent chemists, there was no public reaction to the dismissals in 1933. Germany had been an international leader in chemistry until the 1930s. Due to a high proportion of Jewish physicists, chemistry was strongly affected by the expulsion of scientists. Organic and inorganic chemistry were least affected, while biochemistry suffered most. Polymer chemistry and quantum chemistry, of minor importance among (...) the majority of academic chemists was further weakened by the expulsion of renowned scientists. However, a look at the research carried out in Nazi Germany shows that no field of research "emigrated" as such, except research into molecular beams. The reception of emigré chemists differed with respect to their field of research and the degree of competition in the host countries. Thus biochemists and physical chemists were accepted at American universities, whereas organic chemists were not. In contrast, they received high positions in Turkey, Palestine/Israel, and Egypt. After WWII, few emigrés were asked to come back. The delay of the resumption of international contacts by German chemists contributed to the delay in rebuilding in particular German biochemistry, the physical chemistry of polymers, and physical organic chemistry. (shrink)

This article argues that Foucault’s account of the intersection between population, liberal economy, and biopolitics needs to be reconstructed in light of Malthus’ Essay on the Principle of Population. Taking Malthus into account brings to the fore how deeply the question of population is tied to a colonial hierarchy that differentiates between dangerous ‘savage’ and economic ‘civilized’ life. ‘Savage life’ is depicted as a catastrophic form of life, which uses resources in a non-economic way due to its forgetfulness of the (...) future. The article shows how this notion of ‘savage life’ broadens the concept of liberal economic governmentality. Most importantly, it highlights the role of passions and futurity for liberal governmentality. As the discussion of Malthus’ texts demonstrates, the passions of hope and fear assume a crucial role for engendering futurity in the economic subject. As will be shown, while the more ‘savage life’ is considered to be made governable through fear, the more civilized life is supposed to be allured by hope. The article points out the implication of this analysis for Foucault’s notion of biopolitics in relation to liberal economy. (shrink)

This essay examines dominant notions of reproductive identity in feminist bioethics from a queer-crip perspective by considering the “reproductive situation” in Germany of people who are classified as disabled and people who are classified as queer. I analyze the ways in which such people are excluded from the understandings of reproductive identity that figure prominently in German feminist bioethics, and argue that feminist bioethics in Germany, which has become a well-established part of important bioethical institutions, reflects many, if not most, (...) of the neo-eugenic developments that characterize more recognizably mainstream bioethics. I also show that feminist bioethics constitutes the reproductive subject as nondisabled, intelligibly gendered, and heterosexual. (shrink)

This paper discusses the extent to which governmentality provides a critical visibility of the economy beyond its liberal imaginary. It argues that Foucault’s conceptual and historical understanding of liberal governmentality has two traits that encumber a de-centering of the economy from a Foucauldian perspective. The first obstacle results from a persistent asymmetry of the concept of governmentality as it remains solely geared towards replacing the monolithic account of the state. Governmentality is therefore in danger of rendering the economic invisible instead (...) of advancing an analytics of power appropriate to the specificity of this field. The second impediment relates to how Foucault reads the invisibility of the economy asserted in liberal discourse. While Foucault emphasizes how the “invisible hand” imparts a critical limitation towards the sovereign hubris of total sight, the paper unearths a more complex politics of truth tied to the invisible economy. Drawing on selected historical material, the papers shows that the liberal invisibility of the economy rather functions as a prohibitive barrier towards developing novel and critical visibilities of the economy. A Foucauldian perspective on economy, the paper concludes, benefits from piercing through this double invisibility of the economy. (shrink)

A recent cover of the German news magazine Der Spiegel announced: “Victory over Genes. Smarter, healthier, happier: How we can outwit our genome” (2010). The magazine’s article, instead, emphasizes the importance of epigenetics. According to Florian Maderspacher (2010), who reprinted the cover in his editorial in Current Biology, the relief or “schadenfreude” about the apparent victory over genes—which the cover, the article, and commentaries to it reveal—is, in part, a German phenomenon. It echoes “a latent anti-scientific attitude in parts of (...) the German public,” which for historic reasons is particularly strong with regard to genetics: “After all, the idea that people’s properties—good or bad—are determined by .. (shrink)

Das, was wir umgangssprachlich in einem weiteren Sinne Wirklichkeit nennen, erscheint bei Heidegger wesentlich in zweifacher Gestalt, als Gegenstand von Wissenschaft und besonders Technik einerseits und als Verhältnis von Welt und Dingen, von Sprache und Stille andererseits. Sein Denken verfährt, wenn er in die eine Richtung der Wirklichkeit schaut, kritisch-negierend, in der anderen Richtung dagegen hörend und aufzeigend.

Der Ruf des Esels als offenes Klangobjekt in Robert Bressons Film Au hazard Balthazar (F 1966), der die Bild-Montage insistierend stört, wird in diesem Beitrag in den Kontext der Bioakustik gestellt. Am JA des Esels differenzieren sich Geräusche medial so aus, dass die Grenze zwischen Ding und Kreatur durchlässig wird. Bressons Passion erweist sich damit als Experiment, die akustischen Kanäle der Kommunikation als Transformatoren von Lebewesen, Räumen und jener Übertragung wahrzunehmen, die kybernetisch informierten Tierforschern Sprache heißt. The paper presents the (...) donkey's bray in Robert Bresson's film (F 1966) that disturbs the montage insistently as an open sound object and puts it in the context of bioacoustics. The donkey's hee-haw diversifies noise in such a way that the borderline between object and creature becomes permeable. Bresson's passion proves to be an experiment to perceive the acoustic channels of communication as transformers of animals, spaces and that kind of transmission that researchers informed by cybernetics call »language«. (shrink)

In the course of demographic change, the proportion of older people in many countries is rising continuously and more and more people are experiencing a long time together as a couple. In old age, subjective wellbeing and health aspects are associated with partners’ satisfaction with couple relationship. The need for couple counseling in old age is growing in parallel with demographic developments. However, empirical studies on couple therapy with older people in long-term couple relationships exist to date only to a (...) limited extent. The present contribution deals with this knowledge gap. In an explanative two phases design, research has been conducted with long-term couples in couple counseling of which we would like to present here the central qualitative study. The aim is to be able to describe details of these factors. Older couples who have lived in long-term couple relationships were interviewed after using standardized questionnaires concerning the individual and couple-related stress factors and problems at the beginning and the end of their couple counseling process. Five couples from this study were the interviewees for the following study. The couples were interviewed separately. In this interview study and central part of this contribution, the stress factors, problem areas and coping processes of the older couples were examined. The results serve as a suggestion for further research and can only be interpreted with caution due to the small sample of five case studies: The central results of the study are summarized in a circular process model and are discussed in the light of relevant theoretical approaches. The culmination of massive chronic and acute strains and losses associated with feelings of excessive demands and desperation gave rise to emotional alienation of the partners. In the course of couple therapy, the partners mutually opened their thoughts and emotions and modified their previous dysfunctional pattern of interaction. Thus, emotional and physical rapprochement of the partners was fostered with the effect that subjective load of the partners and dissatisfaction of the couple relationship decreased, and subjective emotional wellbeing increased. To prevent negative emotions and destructive conflicts with their spouse, some of the interviewed partners actively used avoidance strategies in couple interactions. Upon completion of couple therapy changes in the couple relationships appeared instable as soon as overcharging stress factors occurred again. The results suggest that an approach to couple therapy for older people in long-term couple relationships should prioritize emotional safeness and attachment in couple relationship to facilitate constructive conflict management. The couple therapy process should emphasize emotion regulation strategies based on age-related strengths and consider age-related vulnerabilities. Moreover, long-term couples may benefit from catamnestic consultation appointments to consolidate the developed changes. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis study investigated age differences in empathic accuracy, the ability to correctly perceive others’ emotions, in a sample of 151 boys and men from three age groups: adolescents, young adults, and middle-aged adults. All participants viewed nine newly developed film clips, each depicting a boy or a man reliving one of three emotions, while talking about an autobiographical memory. Adolescents and middle-aged men were less accurate than young men, and these age differences were associated with parallel age differences in fluid-mechanical (...) abilities. In addition, age differences in vocabulary, one indicator of crystallized-pragmatic intelligence, were associated with age differences in empathic accuracy in adolescent and young, but not middle-aged, men. Within the limitations of cross-sectional data, this study provides evidence for the idea that empathic accuracy is an effortful t... (shrink)

Suls provides a useful review of research interested in the contribution of chronic negative emotions to coronary heart disease. Despite widespread support for a link between negative emotions and the etiology of disease, it is largely unknown if discrete negative emotions, particularly anger, sadness, and anxiety contribute to the development of physical disease in different ways. In this comment, we argue that answering this question will require a more comprehensive analysis of the unique characteristics of discrete emotions as well as (...) conceptually refined assumptions about how discrete emotions develop and change across the adult lifespan. (shrink)

Eukaryotic genomes are packaged into a nucleoprotein complex known as chromatin. The term was introduced in 1879 by German cytologist Walther Flemming. While observing the processes of mitosis in a light microscope, Flemming coined the term to describe the easily stainable threads in the nucleus. He predicted that it would not have a long life: “The word chromatin may serve until its chemical nature is known, and meanwhile stands for that substance in the cell nucleus which is readily stained”. However, (...) Flemming’s prediction did not come true. Although the chemical nature of chromatin—a complex of nucleic acid and proteins—was already elucidated at the end of the 19th century, the.. (shrink)