Potassium and sodium transport in non-animal cells: the Trk/Ktr/HKT transporter family

Bacterial Trk and Ktr, fungal Trk and plant HKT form a family of membrane transporters permeable to K⁺ and/or Na⁺ and characterized by a common structure probably derived from an ancestral K⁺ channel subunit. This transporter family, specific of non-animal cells, displays a large diversity in terms of ionic permeability, affinity and energetic coupling (H⁺–K⁺ or Na⁺–K⁺ symport, K⁺ or Na⁺ uniport), which might reflect a high need for adaptation in organisms living in fluctuating or dilute environments. Trk/Ktr/HKT transporters are involved in diverse functions, from K⁺ or Na⁺ uptake to membrane potential control, adaptation to osmotic or salt stress, or Na⁺ recirculation from shoots to roots in plants. Structural analyses of bacterial Ktr point to multimeric structures physically interacting with regulatory subunits. Elucidation of Trk/Ktr/HKT protein structures along with characterization of mutated transporters could highlight functional and evolutionary relationships between ion channels and transporters displaying channel-like features.     

Book Review: Current Perspectives in the History of Science in East Asia,edited by Y. S. Kim and F. Bray

In 1670, the Bolognese mathematician Pietro Mengoli published his Speculationi di musica, a highly original work attempting to found the mathematical study of music on the anatomy of the ear. His anatomy was idiosyncratic and his mathematics extraordinarily complex, and he proposed a unique double mechanism of hearing. He analysed in detail the supposed behaviour of the subtle part of the air inside the ear, and the patterns of strokes made on the eardrum by simultaneous sounds. Most strikingly, he divided the musical octave into a continuous set of regions which he colour-coded to show their effects on a listener. His work did not find its way into the mainstream of seventeenth-century mathematical studies of music, but when examined in its context it has the potential to shed light on that discipline, as well as being of considerable interest in its own right. Here, I focus on the anatomical and mathematical basis of Mengoli's work.     

The introduction of the differential notation to Great Britain

In the history of chemistry, the Danish chemist Julius Thomsen (1826–1909) is best known for his contributions to thermochemistry. Throughout his life, he was a pronounced atomist and a tireless advocate of neo-Proutian views as to the constitution of matter. On many occasions, especially in his later years, he engaged in speculations concerning the unity of matter and the complexity of atoms. In this engagement, Thomsen was alone in Danish chemistry, but his works were representative of a large number of 19th-century chemists, particularly in England and Germany. Thomsen's ideas as to the constitution of matter, the periodic system and the noble gases, may be seen as typical of this vigorous trend in fin de siècle chemistry.     

Jean Méry (1645–1722) and his ideas on the foetal blood flow

We present an analysis, and first full English translation, of a paper by Kant entitled ‘Über die Vulcane im Monde’ (1785). Kant became interested in the question of whether the mountains of the Moon were extinct volcanoes. Stimulated by the work of Herschel, Aepinus, and others, he considered the appearance of the Moon's surface and the possibility of lunar vulcanism. From this, he was led to consider the structures of mountain ranges on the Earth, which he decided were non-volcanic in origin, being produced by eruptions of vapours from the interior of the Earth soon after it formed from an original ‘chaos’. Kant developed his ideas in such a way as to yield a characteristic eighteenth-century ‘theory of the Earth’. We argue that the empirical base of his theory was provided by knowledge of the mountain ranges of Bohemia and Moravia. Analogies based on observations of the Moon further assisted in the construction of the theory. But the reasoning ran in two directions: what was seen on the Moon was construed in terms of what Kant knew of the Earth's topography; and the Earth's topography was presumed to be analogous to that of the Moon, for both the Earth and the Moon (and indeed all heavenly bodies) supposedly had essentially similar origins. Kant's ideas of 1785 are related to his earlier writings of 1754, 1755, and 1756, and also to the lectures on physical geography that he presented at Königsberg.     

A bibliographical study of the introduction of Lavoisier's Traité élémentaire de chimie into Great Britain and America

As the most famous woman scientist of the twentieth century, there has been no shortage of books and articles on the life and career of Marie Curie (1867–1934). Her role as a director of a laboratory-based research school in the new scientific field of radioactivity, a field which embraced both chemistry and physics, however, has never been examined. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the question of research schools, and Morrell, Ravetz, Geison, and Klosterman, amongst others, have written on this subject. Using, in part, the methodology of Morrell, this paper investigates the role of Marie Curie as a school director in the Paris Faculty in the years 1907–14, examining the work and characteristics of her school and assessing her effectiveness as a director.     

James F. W. Johnston's influence on agricultural chemistry in the Netherlands

This paper describes the introduction of Liebig's ideas on agricultural chemistry into the Netherlands. The aversion to Liebig held by the Utrecht professor G. J. Mulder hindered the direct influence that might have been borne by Liebig's own writings; the introduction was made principally by means of Dutch translations of the text-books of the Scottish agricultural chemist J. F. W. Johnston, who generally followed Liebig's ideas.