Reynolds, Andrew S. (Author)
Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
Volume: 51
Issue: 5
Pages: 642-654
Publication date: 2021
Language: English
At the turn of the twentieth century, the German cytologist Oscar Hertwig (a pioneer in the study of fertilization and the role of chromosomes in heredity) described the cell as both “a marvellously complicated organism” and “a small universe into the construction of which we can only laboriously penetrate by means of microscopical, chemico-physical and experimental methods of inquiry.”1 Hertwig, I suspect, would not have been surprised by the “molecular turn” taken by biology in the mid-twentieth century, nor that it revealed both a great deal of order and organization within the cell (think the genetic code, the central dogma, the cell cycle), and that it would amplify our appreciation of the cell’s complexity.
...MoreBook Mathias Grote (2019) Membranes to Molecular Machines: Active Matter and the Remaking of Life.
Book Soraya de Chadarevian (2020) Heredity under the Microscope: Chromosomes and the Study of the Human Genome.
Book Sherrie L. Lyons (2020) From Cells to Organisms: Re-envisioning Cell Theory.
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