“Context Matters — The Epigenetics Revolution”
By Stephen L. Talbott
One of three excerpts from a lengthy series of articles on the genome, this piece is intended to provide an introduction to the new molecular biological research that is causing a thorough implosion of the old, gene-centered understanding of the organism.
Notes and Reviews
“The Drama of Milkweed Pollination”
By Craig Holdrege
In the Spring, 2009 issue of In Context we introduced you to the milkweed plant and its life cycle. Here we add to that picture, with a special focus on the remarkable sequence of events resulting in the pollination of the milkweed flower.
This is part of a more comprehensive study of milkweed by Craig, “The Story of an Organism: Common Milkweed.”
“Insects: Extending into the Environment”
By Andreas Suchantke
Here we excerpt a small section from a chapter in the remarkable book Metamorphosis: Evolution in Action by the German biologist and ecologist, Andreas Suchantke. Published in English by Adonis Press, the book presents some of the fruits of Suchantke’s decades of research. The text has been abridged and adapted for its appearance here.
“Goethe at MIT”
By Stephen L. Talbott
MIT Press — that bastion of technical and engineering expertise — has produced a luxuriously blooming edition of Goethe’s 1790 work, The Metamorphosis of Plants. With a graceful, informative introduction and appendix by Gordon L. Miller, and with numerous spectacular photographs, also by Miller, the book is a wonderful validation of the scientific worth of Goethe’s pioneering researches on morphology.
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