Editorial: Biographical Memoirs, Volume 69

Editorial: <i>Biographical Memoirs</i> , Volume 68

Editorial

Welcome to volume 66 of Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, the first of two editions to be published during 2019.With such a plethora of outstanding memoirs, it is invidious to draw attention to any particular essay, but we need to recognize those of Nobel Prize winner Pierre-Gilles de Gennes and former Biological Secretary of the Society Patrick Bateson.Most exceptionally, special mention must be made of the memoir of Stephen Hawking.I was a friend of Stephen's from the early 1960s and must declare this interest-however, we never collaborated on any project.As will be apparent from the memoir, Stephen's is a very special case indeed and will be of wide

Editorial

You have accessMoreSectionsView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Cite this article Longair Malcolm 2022EditorialBiogr. Mems Fell. R. Soc.721–8http://doi.org/10.1098/rsbm.2022.0001SectionYou have accessEditorialEditorial Malcolm Longair Malcolm Longair [email protected] Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author Malcolm Longair Malcolm Longair [email protected] Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author Published:06 April 2022https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbm.2022.0001WelcomeA warm welcome to volume 72 of Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, the first of two volumes to be published during 2022. This is another remarkable collection of memoirs, spanning so many aspects of the achievements of Fellows of the Society. There are three Nobel Prize winners, Anthony Hewish (physics 1974), Thomas Steitz (chemistry 2009) and David Thouless (physics 2016). The memoirs of two great Soviet Foreign Members of the Society, Grigory Barenblatt and Isaak Khalatnikov, are particularly notable not only for the descriptions of their achievements in science, but also for the insight they provide into Soviet science during the Cold War—more of that below. John Polkinghorne was an outstanding particle theorist who changed career to become an influential Anglican priest. Another indication of the broad scope of this volume is the inclusion of Arnold Wolfendale, former Astronomer Royal, and the major philanthropist Leonard Wolfson (Lord Wolfson of Marylebone). We also acknowledge the contributions of Neill Alexander and David Buckingham who, besides their major scientific contributions, served as Editorial Board members of Biographical Memoirs from the time this very helpful and engaged committee was founded in 2012. But all 22 memoirs in this volume are fitting tributes to the scope and originality of those celebrated.Physics in the USSR during the Cold War—personal reflectionsReaders will, I hope, forgive me if this Editorial is more personal than usual. It so happens that this volume contains the memoirs of two great Soviet scientists, Grigory Barenblatt and Isaak Khalatnikov, who were both Foreign Members of the Society. Both of them were at the height of their careers during the remarkable period from the death of Stalin in 1953 to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the period 1988 to 1991. Both memoirs provide a wonderful portrayal of life and physics during these years as the USSR began relaxing somewhat after the often brutal dictatorship under Stalin. It was also the period of the Cold War and there were many restrictions upon life and work.The reason this Editorial is more personal than usual is that I was there in Moscow as a Royal Society–USSR Academy of Sciences Research Fellow for the academic year 1968–69. I had always wanted to become more familiar with Russian culture, being an avid lover of Russian music, opera and literature. I am eternally grateful to the Royal Society for organizing my exchange visit. It has to be said that the competition for such fellowships was not great, being in the middle of the Cold War and knowing that life would be somewhat proscribed, but I was very well briefed and supported by the Royal Society. From my personal perspective, my year in the USSR was a great success and my collaborations with the Soviet physicists and astrophysicists could not have been more profitable. I worked with both Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg (ForMemRS 1987) and Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich (ForMemRS 1979) and their younger colleagues. Among the latter was Rashid Alievich Sunyaev (ForMemRS 2009), now director emeritus of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, with whom I had a particularly productive collaboration. I knew well the work of Ginzburg, but knew less about the work of Zeldovich and his remarkable team of young researchers, by 1968 now free to work on fundamental problems of general relativity and cosmology. I participated in the Landau-style seminars (Lev Davydovitch Landau ForMemRS) of Ginzburg, Zeldovich and Shklovsky on a weekly basis and learned a vast amount of innovative astrophysics and cosmology. This was one of the most important outcomes of my visit.1Reading the memoirs of Barenblatt and Khalatnikov brought these memories vividly back to life. These marvellous memoirs describe powerfully life in the physical sciences during a period of incredible creativity on the part of the Soviet physicists. As both memoirs make clear, the scientific achievements were made against a background of surveillance by the KGB, the inability to carry out ‘normal’ academic interchanges with physicists outside the Soviet Union and serious antisemitism in both Barenblatt's and Khalatnikov's cases. But the physics they and their colleagues produced was of extraordinary quality. The author of Khalatnikov's memoir, the late Alexei Byalko, a member of the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, was a post-doc in 1968–69, just as I was. I assume we both attended the same Ginzburg seminars in the Lebedev Institute every week. I can vouch for the accuracy of his account of the vibrancy of life in physics during these years. Of course, living conditions were hard and space was at a premium. As Byalko recounts, Room 5 ‘was “shared” by two secretaries, staff and all visitors to the [Institute of Theoretical Physics] who passed through Moscow’. Informal discussions sporadically occurred in Room Five at a small blackboard, amid screams from the secretaries asking the participants to tone down their voices. This is how big science was born in a small room: everyone who happened to live through this period still remembers it as a beautiful, wonderful golden age. ‘This was our Arcadia: we were young, talented, careless, and free. We had no other things besides the job we loved. All the burden of responsibility was on Khalat.’[Khalatnikov] himself, wandering sporadically into Room Five and discovering 10–20 of the scientists there, drinking coffee, shouting at each other near the blackboard, proofreading galleys, sometimes over the international phone line for foreign journals, stared at the heavens and lamented, ‘My God, what a madhouse is here!’ The response was: ‘Yes, Isaak Markovich, a madhouse indeed, and you are at its helm!’ This was not an uncommon experience. The vitality was present in all the institutes I visited during my year in the Soviet Union. Nor should I omit to mention the extremely kind friendship and hospitality I received from all my friends and colleagues in the Soviet Union.Part of the reason that physics survived relatively unscathed from the years under Stalin's rule was that he needed the expertise of the physicists for the development of nuclear weapons. Many of the best physicists, including Landau, Ginzburg, Zeldovich and Gel'fand (Izrael Moiseivich Gelfand, ForMemRS 1977), joined the Soviet nuclear weapons programme, just as many of the best American physicists participated in the Manhattan project in the USA. Disciplines such as biology and genetics suffered greatly from the constraints of ‘dialectic materialism’, the prime example being the politically-motivated and disastrous effects of the Lysenko affair on these disciplines. Another point to remember is that research in the USSR was carried out in institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which enabled the physicists to concentrate wholly upon research without the demands of teaching and administration.This is not an apologia for Soviet science, but a reminder that spectacular science can be carried out under what on the surface appear to be unpromising circumstances. The physicists and astrophysicists had the freedom to carry out wonderfully creative physics, not so different from the liberties enjoyed by our colleagues in the West. The words ring in the memory, ‘This was our Arcadia’. This is not the usual image of science in the USSR during the Cold War, but the memoirs of Barenblatt and Khalatnikov bring vividly to light the reality of the best of Soviet physical sciences through these years of international isolation.My thanks go to the authors of the memoirs of Barenblatt and Khalatnikov for the revealing insights these provide. It is a matter of considerable importance for historians of science that these memoirs provide essential background for understanding research in physics during the years of the Cold War in the USSR.Biographical Memoirs volume 72There are 22 memoirs in this, the first 2022 volume of Biographical Memoirs. The following notes are intended to act as a guide to the different disciplines represented, with brief summaries of the scientific achievements of the Fellows, largely taken from the memoirs’ summaries. These, and previous volumes, can be freely accessed on the Royal Society's website.Astronomy and physicsRonald Bullough was a theorist known for his research into the theory of dislocations and their role in the properties of metals, including their ductility and resistance to fracture and, in particular, the influence of dislocations on the development of damage during irradiation, an area in which he was a world authority. He spent most of his career at the Harwell Laboratory of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, becoming later in his career AEA Chief Scientist while maintaining a significant presence in basic research related to the stability of strained-layer semiconductor devices.Antony Hewish was the leader of the team that, in 1967, discovered the pulsars, which proved to be rapidly rotating, magnetized neutron stars. The discovery resulted from Hewish's programme of systematic all-sky surveys to detect the scintillation of small angular diameter radio sources due to electron density fluctuations in the solar wind. The discovery paved the way for the rapid development of high energy astrophysics and an appreciation that general relativity plays a key role in the stability of neutron stars. He was awarded the 1974 Nobel Prize in physics for ‘his decisive role in the discovery of pulsars’.Isaak Khalatnikov made major contributions to quantum liquids, particularly liquid helium, and to general relativity and cosmology. He developed our theoretical understanding of superfluidity in liquid 4He and in 3He–4He mixtures as well as the idea, originally due to Landau, that the normal fluid can be described in terms of a gas of weakly-interacting excitations. In his work on general relativity and cosmology, with V. A. Belinski and E. M. Lifshitz (ForMemRS 1982), he showed not only that general solutions could contain singularities, but also how the Universe behaved near such singularities. He became founding director of the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics in 1964, where he brought together an extraordinarily powerful group of theoreticians, creating a scientific centre that played a major role in the development of theoretical physics.John Polkinghorne made many contributions to theoretical elementary particle physics, discovering important features of the analytic properties of the scattering matrix, culminating in the jointly authored book, The analytic S-matrix. He also developed a covariant formulation of Feynman's model of partons (Richard Phillips Feynman, ForMemRS 1965), later identified as quarks and gluons. In 1979, he commenced training as an Anglican priest. He became one of the most influential figures in the growing academic field of science and religion, publishing both popular and academic texts and lecturing on the international stage.David Thouless was one of the leading theoretical condensed matter physicists of his generation. With Kosterlitz, he pointed out that two-dimensional or quasi two-dimensional physical systems undergo a completely novel type of phase transition. He developed a highly original approach to the theory of localization of electrons in disordered solids, and with his co-authors pioneered the use of topological considerations in the analysis of many-body systems, now at the basis of the field of topological insulators and superconductors. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 2016.Felix Weinberg was appointed to a personal chair in combustion physics in 1967 at Imperial College, where he worked for his entire career. He was particularly noted for his optical and electrical studies of flames and his pioneering development of innovative combustion methods. He invented a family of powerful optical tools in combustion, using both broad spectrum and laser light sources. His work on electrical diagnostics led to applications of electric fields to control combustion and to improved understanding of ionization and soot formation. All his research had a strong influence on the global evolution of environmentally benign combustion furnaces.Sir Arnold Wolfendale was an international leader in the fields of cosmic ray and gamma ray astronomy. In 1965, using an installation in the Kolar Gold Mine in India, he played a major role in the first detection of the neutrinos associated with muons produced in the atmosphere. His interests in the origin of high energy cosmic rays required the development of better understanding of particle physics at energies beyond those accessible at accelerators. He used early satellite data to argue for the galactic origin of intermediate energy cosmic rays and for studies of the distribution of molecular hydrogen. He was appointed Astronomer Royal in 1991. He lobbied tirelessly for more government support for science and gave many lectures each year to general audiences, almost to the end of his life.Chemistry and crystallographyDavid Buckingham was a chemical physicist and theoretical chemist who made fundamental contributions to the understanding of optical, electric and magnetic properties of molecules. As a PhD student at Cambridge, he made significant advances in the theory of intermolecular forces and nonlinear optics. Then, in Oxford, he and his group performed the first direct measurement of a molecular electric quadrupole moment. After a period as the first chair of theoretical chemistry at Bristol, he returned to Cambridge as the first holder of the 1968 Chair of Chemistry. With colleagues he pioneered experiment and theory on vibrational optical activity and developed a powerful model to predict the structures of weakly-bound molecules.Alan Cowley was one of the most creative main group chemists of his generation. In his early years he made many fundamental contributions to the chemistry of phosphorus, not only in synthesizing new compounds but also in employing novel analytical and computational methods. In the 1980s he was at the forefront of emerging research into low-coordinate phosphorus chemistry and made seminal contributions in the areas of multiply bonded species, as well as in the transition metal coordination chemistry of phosphinidenes. In the second half of his career, he studied single source precursors for important solid-state electronic materials, many of which were far superior to known examples.Trevor Evans was responsible for revealing the main physical processes that take place in natural diamond, both in the upper mantle of the Earth and as it is ejected by volcanic action to the surface. He clarified the reason for its very long life as a metastable crystal, valuable both as a gemstone and as an industrial abrasive. Using transmission electron microscopy, he discovered dislocation loops and platelet precipitates in nitrogen-containing stones. In exacting laboratory experiments under geologically relevant conditions, he pioneered the study of the emergence of nitrogen from solution to precipitate during the ejection process. His work played a major role in underpinning the characterization of gemstones, explaining many features of their colour.MathematicsJohn Conway was without doubt one of the most celebrated British mathematicians of the last half century. In 1968 he constructed the automorphism group of the then recently-discovered Leech lattice, and in so doing discovered three new sporadic simple groups. He invented The Game of Life, which brought him to the attention of a much wider audience and led to a cult following. He also combined the methods of Cantor and Dedekind for extending number systems to construct what are called ‘surreal numbers’, probably his proudest achievement. He made significant contributions to many branches of mathematics, including number theory, logic, algebra, combinatorics and geometry.Mechanics and engineeringGrigory Barenblatt devoted his scientific life to the analysis of difficult and important problems in mechanics: turbulence in the oceans, in the atmosphere and in polymeric fluids, as well as fracture, fatigue and damage accumulation in solids. He made use of sophisticated and innovative mathematical tools that he himself developed with his collaborators, in particular, similarity, scaling methods and intermediate asymptotics. In 1992 he was appointed the first G. I. Taylor professor of fluid mechanics at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge, and then in 1996 professor in residence at the Department of Mathematics, University of California at Berkeley. His work garnered many prestigious awards and world-wide recognition.Graham Wood was a world-leading corrosion scientist who bridged both the aqueous (electrochemical) corrosion and high-temperature oxidation branches of the subject. His analytical predictions of depletion and enrichment profiles in substrate and scale during preferential oxidation have long been confirmed in practice. He demonstrated that transient oxides can be vital solid lubricants in oxidative friction and wear processes. He elucidated ionic transport in amorphous anodic films, allowing the strict design of such films for practical application. While keeping active in research, he held increasingly senior administrative roles, and established a specialist graduate school.Molecular and structural biologyDame Louise Johnson was a leading architect of protein crystallography and structural enzymology. She pioneered the application of the technique to understand how enzymes function at the molecular level. Much of our current knowledge of how enzymes catalyse chemical reactions with high specificity and how their activities are regulated have their origins in her research on lysozyme, glycogen phosphorylase and protein kinases. She helped pioneer Laue protein crystallography as a method to elucidate dynamic structural changes in proteins. She was a strong advocate of synchrotron radiation as a tool for structural biology, working to establish third generation synchrotrons.Kiyoshi Nagai pioneered research in several areas of structural and molecular biology in an innovative and imaginative style. His initial work was on haemoglobin, in which he devised new methods to express haemoglobin in bacteria, enabling specific changes to be made in the amino acid sequence to test theories about the structure, function and evolution of the molecule. Later, his major research area became the elucidation of the structure of the spliceosome, the molecular that the from to the for into Steitz was the of the generation that was responsible for an in our understanding of the structure and function of His research career was one of over and the from the structures of important enzymes to understanding the structural basis of how in our is used to make the they This latter in the structure of the for which he the Nobel Prize in chemistry in was a British who made pioneering in He used late in molecular biology to the basis of and of formation. molecular and he made seminal contributions to broad areas of contributions the discovery of that and guide their as well as the of the that to in the insights into and these was a and the pioneer in the science of He discovered that the from in our could be or in the by other and also by from the The is not from the original He used this to the and In with he the control theory of the how can years after its first molecular of has confirmed that are in the Wolfson (Lord Wolfson of was a and His was made in the and, with his he helped to into one the in In his and he the that his family The Wolfson activities and have been on research and not the of science and and Alexander was appointed to the chair of the Department of and Applied at the University of in where he his research interests from to the mechanics of He experiments with a of and in and His became the application of mathematical to using the number to the of on the of their work the of and the of energy joined the scientific staff of the Laboratory at where he worked his in 1991. He showed that have two systems, for and for rapid he showed that have two of to those of He also worked on that by He used optical and electron combined with to establish the basis of was best known as the of but his interests and far beyond He was in biology and while a chair of at the University of the His also made him a leading as a for academic freedom and in the against His gave him in the and with the thanks to the authors of the memoirs for their outstanding work in of These memoirs are of and for the insight they provide into the and of a number of outstanding I am also to the Editorial and at the Royal Society, and are on the outstanding have enabled to the of of the memoirs while maintaining the of their and high It is also a to acknowledge the of the Editorial who have been very helpful in the activity by with and keeping a on all aspects of the evolution of Biographical Longair is of and of University of He was appointed the Astronomer Royal of in as well as of University of and the director of the Royal He was of the Laboratory from to He has served on and many international and working with both and the His main research interests are in high energy and the of physics and The third of his book, Theoretical in physics, was published in He is working on the third of his formation. He has to the of the of the major is for the of the of to the new Laboratory in I have more of my in Moscow in my in the the by and University Cambridge, 2022 The by the Royal Society. All This 72 in 2022 The by the Royal Society. All Citations and PDF

Editorial

Donald Lynden-Bell's many contributions to astrophysics encompass general relativity, galactic dynamics, telescope design and observational astronomy. In the 1960s, his papers on stellar dynamics led to fundamental insights into the equilibria of elliptical galaxies, the growth of spiral patterns in disc galaxies and the stability of differentially rotating, self-gravitating flows. Donald introduced the ideas of ‘violent relaxation’ and ‘the gravothermal catastrophe’ in pioneering work on the thermodynamics of galaxies and negative heat capacities. He shared the inaugural Kavli Prize in Astrophysics in 2008 for his contributions to our understanding of quasars. His prediction that dead quasars or supermassive black holes may reside in the nuclei of nearby galaxies has been confirmed by multiple pieces of independent evidence. His work on accretion discs led to new insights into their workings, as well as the realization that the infrared excess in T Tauri stars was caused by protostellar discs around these young stars. He introduced the influential idea of monolithic collapse of a gas cloud as a formation mechanism for the Milky Way Galaxy. As this gave way to modern ideas of merging and accretion as drivers of galaxy formation, Donald was the first to realize the importance of tidal streams as measures of the past history and present-day gravity field of the Galaxy. Though primarily a theorist, Donald participated in one of the first observational programmes to measure the large-scale streaming of nearby galaxies. This led to the discovery of the ‘Great Attractor’. The depth and versatility of his contributions mark Donald out as one of the most influential and pre-eminent astronomers of his day.

Nanocracks in nature and industry.

You have accessMoreSectionsView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Cite this article Proceedings B Editorial Team 2021Retraction: ‘Predator macroevolution drives trophic cascades and ecosystem functioning’Proc. R. Soc. B.2882021214020212140http://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.2140SectionYou have accessRetractionRetraction: ‘Predator macroevolution drives trophic cascades and ecosystem functioning’ Proceedings B Editorial Team Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author Proceedings B Editorial Team Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author Published:27 October 2021https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.2140This article retracts the followingResearch ArticlePredator macroevolution drives trophic cascades and ecosystem functioninghttps://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.0384 Denon Start volume 285issue 1883Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences25 July 2018Proc. R. Soc. B285, 20180384. (Published Online 25 July 2018). (doi:10.1098/rspb.2018.0384)The Proceedings B Editorial Team and the Royal Society are retracting the article ‘Predator macroevolution drives trophic cascades and ecosystem functioning’ by D. Start [1].Following the publication of this article, the journal was made aware of potential problems with the paper. An investigation raised questions over inconsistencies in the paper and missing or incomplete archived data. There were also concerns over the relationship between data published in this paper and that in another paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science by Start et al. [2], in particular that the same data values were presented as individual values in this paper but as means of larger samples in the other paper.As the author was not able to address the concerns, Proceedings B has concluded that results drawn from the data cannot be considered reliable.For these reasons, the journal has decided to retract the article.Footnotes© 2021 The Author(s)Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Scientific and cultural societies are notoriously inconsistent in their policies and activities and the Royal Society of South Africa has been no exception. Admittedly, many changes have been dictated by changing circumstances or because the new policy was of clear benefit to the Society. But for some inconsistencies there is no real excuse. The Philosophical Society of South Africa, forerunner of the Royal Society, did not publish memoirs or obituaries of deceased Fellows but when the Royal Society was established in 1908, it was apparently decided that such tributes would henceforth appear in the Transactions. Although many biographical memoirs have indeed appeared since then, about an equal number of deceased Fellows have been ignored by the Transactions, either through oversight or because no-one suitable could be found to prepare the articles, because a new editor did not agree with the policy of publishing memoirs or for reasons which remain unknown.

One of the pioneers of radioactivity research, Rutherford feared his work would be overlooked—and changed his publishing strategies to make sure it wasn’t.

Open AccessMoreSectionsView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Cite this article Mace Georgina 2010Personal perspectives in the life sciences for the Royal Society's 350th anniversaryPhil. Trans. R. Soc. B3653–4http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0232SectionOpen AccessEditorialPersonal perspectives in the life sciences for the Royal Society's 350th anniversary Georgina Mace Georgina Mace [email protected] Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author Georgina Mace Georgina Mace [email protected] Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author Published:12 January 2010https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.02322010 is the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society. The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, first published in 1665, while being a few years younger than the society itself, is still the oldest scientific journal printed in the English-speaking world and the world's longest running scientific journal in continuous production. Our authors have included many of the most outstanding scientists of the times including Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday and Charles Darwin, and the contents have communicated many of the major scientific findings of the past few centuries. Since 1887, the journal has been published as two separate publications, one serving the physical sciences and this one focusing on the life sciences.The question of what we should do for the 350th anniversary of the society has preoccupied the editorial team since early 2008. One idea, quite common for scientific publishing anniversaries, was that we should identify key papers that had been published in the journal during its long history and republish them with commentary from a contemporary specialist, bringing the science up to date. Another idea was to focus specifically around a small number of contemporary controversies. However, we agreed that while the 350th anniversary is an important historical moment for the Royal Society, the moment was right to consider the state of the science and its future directions rather than simply to celebrate important historical findings. Our intention then was to produce an issue that would be forward-looking, providing a resource for the present and future more than a record of the past. We decided that a good way to do this would be to invite key thinkers on the contemporary topics of great interest and importance to review where their field was situated, give their perspectives and try to point to some promising as well as less promising routes for the future.What are the contemporary topics of high interest and importance? There are various possible means to identify these, but our deliberations were given a helpful boost by a survey the Royal Society undertook in late 2007, asking fellows and university research fellows to briefly indicate what they thought were the ‘biggest gaps in knowledge’. The group polled is probably neither random nor well sampled but can at least be regarded as well informed and relevant for the task. Their responses were unsurprisingly divergent and also had a tendency to be either very specialized or very general. Rather alarmingly, or perhaps rather charmingly, many wrote about the current issues in their own particular research area. But there was also quite a strong convergence of views from across the wide range of specialisms sampled, towards just four or five major topics in the life sciences. Probably, the most common were the topics to do with complex biological systems, especially the brain and genetic control of organism function. Many respondents cited questions related to brain function; how the mind relates to the brain; human and animal cognition, consciousness and the emerging links to neurobiology. A related set of topics concerning the nature of intelligence, biological information processing and the way in which artificial intelligence systems can help us to understand complex biological processes were also common. A second set of topics raised by many concerned genome to organism processes, ways in which the emerging technologies associated with sequencing and bioinformatics might contribute to our understanding of the way that the genome controls the functioning of organisms. Also commonly raised was the long standing but still unresolved set of questions about the origins of life and the sources and maintenance of variability. Finally, and notably, the more commonly mentioned by the junior research fellows was a set of topics around environmental change, human population growth, sustainability and the future of life on Earth.Using this set of topics as a starting point, we identified leading researchers working across the biological sciences, but especially in these areas. We invited them to consider the big questions in the broad field in which they work, to identify new or promising approaches as well as the aspects of research where they were sceptical about the current and conventional wisdom. Another non-random sorting then took place as different people accepted or declined the offer, but the final collection is pretty well balanced across the key topics.The order in which the papers are presented starts with the set of issues and problems related to sustainable development in the face of environmental degradation, failing policies and changing human demography. A closely inter-related set of papers point to the intricate linkages between human societal norms and structures, and the continuing spiral of environmental degradation. Working our way out of this will require integrated solutions across the social, economic and environmental sciences. A poignant fact noted by several authors here is that just at the moment when we most need cooperative human behaviour, cultural and economic processes associated with economic growth and development are leading to the breakdown of the community sizes and structures most likely to deliver what is needed. Dasgupta introduces the idea of natural capital as a necessary consideration in addition to conventional economic measures used to denote the well-being of societies, and recommends that this be routinely used to assess sustainability. Levin also focuses on sustainability but from the perspective of the biological forces that determine cooperation as opposed to competition. His conclusion on the overriding importance of cooperation is picked up in more detail by Nowak in his general analysis of the evolution of cooperation, especially in the case of spatially or demographically structured populations. These papers, each based on the fundamental principles from distinct scientific areas, individually and collectively point to the significant areas that can inform contemporary debates about the sustainability of human societies.The urgency of the problem is highlighted by Mooney who documents the degradation of biological systems and of ecosystem services upon which we depend. While the evidence of driving processes and possible solutions is becoming clearer, there are blockages to progress that seem to sit at the interface of the science and policy worlds. May describes the ecological issues relating to biodiversity loss in the face of continuing pressures from land for food production, energy, population trends and climate change. How can all these different demands be accommodated, and how much is the society willing to accept technological solutions? Even if those solutions do exist and function successfully in the narrow context in which they are developed, what might be their unintended side effects or wider consequences?Scientific progress will undoubtedly contribute new solutions. These may come from new science and technology or from new applications from established disciplines. Loreau argues for a more coherent ecosystem ecology that brings the intricate processes that ecology has revealed to bear on resolving the ecosystem service failures that result from environmental degradation. Beddington assesses impending agricultural and land-use demands with a look at new technologies, and Hill examines what quantitative genetics, which essentially gave us the tools for the first agricultural revolution based on selective breeding, can deliver in the new genomics era.Hill's paper neatly provides a link between the environmental and the applied problems to the suite of fundamentally interesting issues to do with the origins of life and genetic diversity, the diversification of life and the predictability of evolution. In this area, there has been massive progress in recent times, based partly on the new discoveries but also on new technologies and experimental systems. One general conclusion that emerges from this set of papers, most appropriately in the current celebrations related to Darwin's anniversary, is the progress in understanding the shape of the history of life and the role of key innovations in permitting adaptive evolution. Bell addresses the tempo and mode of evolution, especially the conflicting views on whether slow and gradual evolution can really be the norm given the recent genetic- and field-based evidence for strong selection and rapid, major changes. Evolutionary novelty and its potential to influence the nature of diversification and the appearance of novelties is then detailed by Barrett, for plant reproductive traits, and by Cavalier-Smith for the major transformations in the history of life. The major transitions that underpin both these papers are discussed in more general terms by Conway-Morris who presents the evidence for randomness and open-endedness in evolution, and concludes that it is more predictable than generally supposed.A human demographic shift of particular interest to many is the current and future shifts to an ageing population. Linda Partridges' paper provides the link between evolutionary biology and emerging techniques for medical intervention. An evolutionary look at ageing clearly points to the multi-disciplinary nature of the associated health problems. Of enormous topical relevance, Watt then explains why stem cell therapies may be of particular relevance across a range of medical problems affecting both old and young.Frith then discusses the emerging links between neuroscience and social cognition; surely a key area for future research, where a common approach to understanding the brain is to examine function across a range of social processes and situations. An alternative approach described by Hinton is to develop computer systems based on biology to help us understand the most complex processes such as visual processing.Finally, but by no means least, are two papers taking different approaches to the emerging genomics revolution where technologies are providing enormous amounts of new data to inform scientific understanding of genetic control. O'Brien introduces us to some of the many benefits from this new technology and some emerging patterns; Brenner reminds us that sometimes small reductionist experiments can provide clearer clues to process than mass processing.There is much to contemplate in these papers, and many valuable insights. I thank all the authors for their willingness to think deeply and broadly, and communicate important and complex processes so clearly. A measure of the success of this volume would be to see the progress made in these the next time the society or the journal has a major anniversary. Thanks are also due to the Editorial team, especially Claire Rawlinson and James Joseph, as well as the members of the journal's Editorial Board for their suggestions and their ideas that shaped this issue.FootnotesOne contribution of 19 to a Theme Issue ‘Personal perspectives in the life sciences for the Royal Society's 350th anniversary’.© 2010 The Royal SocietyThis is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Next Article VIEW FULL TEXT DOWNLOAD PDF FiguresRelatedReferencesDetailsCited byMace G (2011) Comments from the departing Editor, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366:1561, (3-4), Online publication date: 12-Jan-2011. This Issue12 January 2010Volume 365Issue 1537Theme Issue 'Personal perspectives in the life sciences for the Royal Society's 350th anniversary' compiled and edited by Georgina Mace Article InformationDOI:https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0232PubMed:20008379Published by:Royal SocietyPrint ISSN:0962-8436Online ISSN:1471-2970History: Published online12/01/2010Published in print12/01/2010 License:© 2010 The Royal SocietyThis is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Citations and impact Subjectsenvironmental science

David Curtis was a pioneer in the identification of excitatory and inhibitory transmitters released at synapses in the central nervous system. He made major contributions to the identification of gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA) and glycine as inhibitory transmitters released at inhibitory synapses. His work laid the foundation for the subsequent acceptance that L-glutamate was the major excitatory transmitter. David’s scientific work led to him receiving many accolades and honours, including Fellowships of the Australian Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society and a Companion of the Order of Australia.

David Curtis was a pioneer in the identification of excitatory and inhibitory transmitters released at synapses in the central nervous system. He made major contributions to the identification of gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA) and glycine as inhibitory transmitters released at inhibitory synapses. His work laid the foundation for the subsequent acceptance that l -glutamate was the major excitatory transmitter. David's scientific work led to him receiving many accolades and honours, including fellowships of the Australian Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society and a Companion of the Order of Australia. Note: This memoir was commissioned by the Historical Records of Australian Science and is published here with minor amendments. It was published in June 2020 and is available at https://doi.org/10.1071/HR19016 .

You have accessMoreSectionsView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Cite this article 2008Address of the President, Lord Rees of Ludlow OM Kt PRS, given at the anniversary meeting on 30 November 2007Notes Rec. R. Soc.62211–221http://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2007.0050SectionYou have accessAddress of the President, Lord Rees of Ludlow OM Kt PRS, given at the anniversary meeting on 30 November 2007 Published:10 March 2008https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2007.0050EducationLet me congratulate those who have received the awards just presented—these medal-winners exemplify the scientific excellence that the Society promotes and celebrates. It would be interesting to know what brought them into science. I'd hazard a guess that it was some childhood influence—probably an inspiring teacher. Indeed, the government's advertising campaign some years ago, ‘Thank a teacher’, resonated with many of us.Many pupils today never encounter an expert and enthusiastic science teacher. Too few new specialist teachers are joining the profession, especially in physics and maths, to replace those now retiring. Until a few years ago, the Royal Society wasn't much involved with pre-university education. But it now concerns us greatly. We've convened a group with the acronym SCORE (for science community partnership supporting education), chaired by Sir Alan Wilson, to coordinate views from the main learned societies—physics, chemistry and biosciences. This initiative follows the successful precedent of ACME (the Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education), a committee established five years ago to act as a single voice for the mathematical community. We hope these Royal Society initiatives will lead to more effective input into education policy.To meet the government's targets of increasing the percentage of teachers qualified to teach physics, newly recruited physics graduates won't be enough. Supplementary measures are needed. Biology teachers can be given extra expertise in physics. Mature professionals should be encouraged to consider a move into teaching from a career in research, industry or the armed forces. Also, more can be done to encourage scientists based in universities to spend time in schools and vice versa.Very young children have a natural interest in science—whether focused on space, dinosaurs or tadpoles. But we're not so good at converting youthful enthusiasms into sustained engagement with science in the 11–16 age range.This is especially serious here in England. In our unduly specialized education system, those who are turned off science by 16 years of age will drop it. They thereby foreclose most options of studying it at university.Practical work in school laboratories is not always adequate—at least according to the hard-hitting recent report of the House of Lords Select Committee. We would also like pupils to have more chance to do some sort of genuine scientific investigation or fieldwork.It is surprising, however, how little is agreed about what teaching methods are most effective. As a specific contribution, the Royal Society plans to set up some new fellowships for educational research, with similar status to our URFs (University Research Fellows—the Society's flagship programme supporting 300 of tomorrow's leaders in science). This is one way in which modest resources, backed by the expertise and standing of the Society, could make a distinctive difference.Schools should not just focus on the education of would-be professionals. Also of concern is the low educational and skill level of too many disadvantaged pupils—and, even worse, their low ambitions.But there's another reason for emphasizing basic scientific literacy. Today's young people will grow up in a world where ever more political choices—on energy, environment, medicine and bioethics—have a scientific dimension. For an informed public debate, everyone needs at least some feel for science—some engagement with its concepts. We welcome the commitment of Ian Pearson, the new science minister, to the encouragement of public engagement with science—something to which the Royal Society is itself strongly committed.(As a parenthetical note, let me mention the Royal Society's study on university education beyond 2015, to be published next month. Our earlier report, A degree of concern, clarified the numbers of graduates in various subjects. The ‘headline figures’ show, for example, that the numbers reading ‘biological sciences’ have risen sharply. But only about 4000 a year graduate in straight ‘biology’. Much the largest subject in the ‘biological sciences’ group is psychology (around 11 000 per year); the second largest, with over 5000 graduates a year, is sports science.)Research fundingThe demarcations between government departments were altered after the July reshuffle; there is now a separate schools ministry, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), with responsibility for teachers and curriculum. The changes do, however, bring under another single ministry, the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS), three domains of special interest to the Society: higher education, the research councils, and the Chief Scientific Advisor's office. We have established good contacts with John Denham and his ministerial team.Incidentally, a casualty of the revamping of ministries has been the Select Committee on Science and Technology. This committee has produced some excellent reports; its respected chair, Phil Willis has become a good friend of the Society's. The Committee's remit spanned many departments, and it was able to accommodate this breadth. It would be a real loss if, in its new downgraded status of subcommittee, it were unable to maintain an effective role—such wide-ranging matters should not be left to the House of Lords committee, excellent though that is.The Comprehensive Spending Review settlement gave the Research Councils, overall, an annual increase of about 2.7% in real terms—a more generous deal than most parts of government received. But the move towards covering full economic costs eroded this, so it's not clear that volume can be maintained. And the new Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) starts life with a legacy of overcommitment, with potentially serious consequences that we are watching closely.A second funding stream for university research comes via the Higher Education Funding Councils. Our American colleagues are bemused by this ‘dual support system’. I tell them that, for all our gripes about the Research Assessment Exercise, it is better than the US system, where professors must hustle for grants to meet even basic academic needs. I'll say no more about the Research Assessment Exercise—a much over-discussed topic in all university common rooms—except to note that a group chaired by Adrian Smith will be guiding the Society's views on what should replace it after 2008.Whatever the funding system is, it must avoid introducing perverse incentives. Up till now, there has, for instance, been a disincentive for applied work, and for popular writing and outreach.We know that a few universities attract the lion's share of research funding—from all sources. That's likely to be true whatever system prevails. But despite the trend towards concentration, there's at least one top-rated department in more than 50 of our universities. I think it's crucial to retain a system that allows excellence to sprout and bloom anywhere in the university system.Let me give an example. Leicester University is world-class in genetics and in space science. That wasn't planned. Enterprising young researchers in these two fields happened to have jobs there, and the system that prevailed in the 1970s allowed them to build up major research groups. And Sir Philip Cohen, who played a key role in developing the acclaimed biomedical excellence of Dundee, is on record as saying that he would have had more difficulties were he starting today.Of course the healthiest situation is one where funding is not only more generous but also comes from a variety of sources—public and private—allocated by different criteria. The USA benefits from a far stronger tradition of private funding. In this country there is substantial non-governmental funding of biomedical research—above all from the Wellcome Trust—but the physical sciences are more dependent on public funding. The Society itself makes a modest contribution, which we hope gradually to enlarge.I've so far focused parochially on the UK—and on a modest time horizon. All universities—both their teaching and their research—will need to change if we are to exploit new technologies. People everywhere in the world will be immersed in a cyberspace that is ever more information-rich and sophisticated. Scientists anywhere—including skilled amateurs—will be able to download from a ‘virtual observatory’, or from a library of genome data.And the sociology of research is changing. There are more collaborative papers (many with overseas authors); many of us use large facilities (such as the recently opened Diamond Light Source facility). Enhanced computer power is transforming how we do our science. We can handle huge volumes of data. Scientists can do ‘numerical experiments’ where they cannot do real experiments, and address questions such as: What do pollutants do to the world's climate? How do financial markets react to various externalities? And so forth. As an astronomer, I can crash stars and galaxies together in a ‘virtual universe’ in a computer. The map of learning is itself changing as knowledge expands; developments are often fastest on the interfaces between traditional subjects.But whatever happens, one thing is surely clear. If the UK is to maintain a leading role in science, it needs enough of the right people.Science must attract a good share of the talented entrants to universities. But that is not enough. It also matters where those who are well educated in science end up. Even if the educational pathways are open and smooth, scientific careers won't attract young people unless they have a positive perception of the profession. Most Fellows feel, I'm sure, that academia, public service or private industry has offered them challenging opportunities. It's crucial that enough of tomorrow's scientists, medics and engineers should feel the same way. Otherwise this country won't play its part in meeting the great twenty-first-century challenges.In my Cambridge college I asked a group of final-year engineering students what their career plans were. Only one was going to be an engineer—the rest were heading for the city or management consultancy.It's fine that some take those paths (provided, at least, that they don't think they're thereby getting closer to the ‘real world’!). But isn't the overwhelming flight of talent from manufacturing a cause for concern? Anecdotal accounts suggest that many large companies don't offer the real ‘high flyers’ enough scope, early on, to make a mark, show initiative, and achieve a financial premium, to the extent that the financial sector does. The solution lies in the hands of the senior management—and of bodies such as the Confederation of British Industry.It's a special worry that too few of the very best young people schooled in this country are now committing themselves to academic or research careers. We're fortunate in the UK to have high research productivity and several universities in the premier league. But this good fortune would be threatened if staff quality were not sustained.American universities maintain an ascendancy by draining talent from poorer countries. We in the UK are also making more academic appointments from abroad. That's welcome in itself—indeed, we should strive for a brain gain to match that of the USA. But it's precarious to be too dependent on potentially transient staff. (The situation is, incidentally, worse in economics than in almost any science subject.)Academic pay will never make us rich, but to stem the internal brain drain into other career paths it should surely keep pace with the public service. And we should resist the erosion of the distinctive features of academic life that compensate us for modest pay: relative autonomy, and the prospect, without undue hassle, of competing for basic funding for the research one chooses to do. And that choice is anything but frivolous—for most academic scientists, it's a judgement on which they stake much of their working life, and their reputation. Access to ‘responsive mode’ funding is as important as adequate salaries for maintaining the attractiveness of academia—and therefore the quality of our universities.In that connection, we should be uneasy at the mooted introduction of ‘economic benefit’ as a criterion in the assessment of research grant applications. There is indeed a case for favouring some areas of research on broad strategic grounds—genomics or nanophysics rather than string theory, for example. But that's different from trying to assess economic payoff at the level of a single grant application.Even the wizards of venture capital are highly fallible when they try to pick discoveries with commercial potential. To expect the average grants committee to make any worthwhile judgement—and, moreover, to do this at the ‘proposal’ stage, before the work has even been done—seems worse than unrealistic.None of the leading universities—in the UK or in the USA—are primarily ‘applied’ institutions: they excel at ‘curiosity-driven’ research. In the USA, Harvard and Stanford are regarded as major national assets because of their attraction for international talent, the collective expertise of their faculty, and the consequent quality of the graduates they feed into all walks of life. But each is embedded in a ‘cluster’ of research laboratories, small companies, non-governmental organizations, and so forth—to symbiotic benefit.The same is true here in the UK. Indeed, a recent report showed that the scale and success of such clusters was amazingly steeply correlated with the research strength of the embedded university.In the clusters that great universities attract around them, talent attracts talent (and big companies too). Success breeds success—and, just as importantly, failure is accepted as a step towards later success: a dynamic and interactive community develops that offers, in the words of a Financial Times article, a ‘low risk place to do high risk things’. The most effective knowledge transfer is via the movement of people.These phenomena featured in Lord Sainsbury's recent report on innovation, entitled The race to the top. His theme was that the UK can never compete on costs but only by leading the race towards greater sophistication—higher ‘value added’. This country's future is bleak unless we can compete at the top end of the value chain.Competition now comes not just from the USA and Europe, but from the burgeoning Far East, where the world's scientific talent and intellectual capital will surely become increasingly concentrated.The current strength of UK universities gives us a head start that we must sustain, despite growing competition. If they remain competitive, we can make this country a ‘partner of choice’ for global science and innovation—a magnet for mobile talent and inward investment. (Although the analogy is imperfect, there are similarities to the way in which the injection of sufficient resources allowed London to surge ahead as a global financial centre.)We don't know what the twenty-first-century counterparts of the electron, quantum theory, the double helix and the computer will be—nor where the great innovators of the future will get their formative training and inspiration. But it's not wishful thinking that the twenty-first century will be influenced by the creative ideas that germinate in these small islands.There is much debate on how well the UK is doing in the innovation stakes. The crude figures show that R&D is concentrated in a few areas such as pharmaceuticals and aerospace—and in the larger companies. But there is obviously a lot of thinking in and other service which is not in the R&D I'd like to the Royal Society's on innovation in the which is just getting and which to other of how well we're doing at science into were and many in the 1970s and of our industry was one The government has a key needs to be If we can be one of the best in the world in which to do science, positive into the of increasing are a of people who can a new from anywhere in the world and with it. This lead to commercial But there's an need for them to with public The benefits of science are than they our quality of life. Scientists must their engagement with the global that will us all in the we in the UK have to be global on the should be the of and the of Technology has now been the recently for the for and are welcome But they are the level that the could do more to attract the and best into science than a strongly from all to and for the developing and the and of the UK take a R&D in this country has up to the level in it after the of the most are too far from the to attract private funding. of is at a global level of around US per for the even given the and the several before a commercial Indeed, there is a case for the to bring But if we take the on as a there should be R&D into a of for and it by or is one of several on which the Society can campaign with the Royal of and with its new President, Lord It is excellent that they have to House almost next have to say because the at is between and report of the on was published this The Society an excellent meeting in March on the scientific who to the current and what the could not have done better than to the at this strength of the has turned around the perception of Most major financial and now that the is important for And are that changes in in the developing by on resources, and so is far more science to be the global are of course just an of changes in and we need more (and more computer to assess the on and But the debate now even more the the and the We must hope for at the next meeting of the to the on change was next Our government's recently published the of UK by at least by concerns are on the public most people are of how to the There have been five great in the We are now a We are the of life before is a crucial of and economic we're if to there are in the be to But these the only For many of the of our has value in its over and what it to us the of our is also a in maintaining the of our with the UK Department for and the UK Committee and (the UK Department for the Royal the and the UK Research Council the Royal Society is therefore a at next to the need for international to and change as parts of an in the rest of the century will on developments even more than the new future and the on and of course on world this will around by but it could level even start to the that have to in the more were to from the to the we in our ever more of an and from the of be but their consequences could be so that even a low is are with the of life, or But what we should worry most about in the twenty-first century be that have never happened but where even one could our to can we assess these more their and their This is surely a that scientists should try to They should to that the best expertise is they can work to The of support for effective of change from the and of the It is even more to resources from needs and them to or trying to a that never at But suggest that substantial would be as an even for an Royal Society, and its should surely do all they can to of these and for is a current where this is even if not with the that this international scientific have so far of and rather than science and But let me now mention two scientific in this 2007 offered an of the anniversary of the at It's now the and Sir was there to the that he had the and to It is an much a part of our national as at the same time it is doing science, of a that even have been of when it was has many discoveries about years ago by and are at up to per and his colleagues are now the for even more A of have been around each other with a In this system, in the of are far more the from these little stars with and thereby how the are can been more than ever there was a double anniversary this It was on that was into The was just enough to be able to the space of by Only years his small on the But the was an end in was no to maintain the and it's been years the on the To young people it's know that the to the just as they know that the the but the almost as in the one case as the the and the has never the same there have been developments in the of many We on space for and so from the science it has given largest space are those of the USA and of But there are great for Europe, and we in the UK could do has of many have of the but few have of (the British The UK has a but it needs The Royal Society has therefore a UK space so that we can exploit better and can and the success in space science and in the commercial and now for some different science, where I can no special expertise at stem and We congratulate Sir on his with our for work on stem have for but and are we say an of is an it is research is in its early but could offer for such as and the government an to some of research in this But the Royal Society, and has to change as in new in We are that the government to the of The new are in the wide-ranging and The Society's concern is that should the to the of the we work with other to and to their scientific is a of the Society's important role in public and This role is We remain for instance, with we have up our acclaimed earlier report by a with about the potentially will be This is the of new and that needs support and investment. The scientific will be by those in a research where they can for the not be a to in all but in and he like is in of its and it also concerns about how the benefits are to be and the The Royal Society recently a for views on the scientific and that need to be We were by the from non-governmental and scientists and we will move with a and a