Flanking region The DNA sequences extending on either side of a specific gene or locus; a region preceding or following the transcribed region. The 3′ flanking region (downstream flanking region) is found immediately distal (distant) to the part of a gene that specifies the mRNA and where a variety of regulatory sequences are located. The 3′ flanking region often contains sequences that affect the formation of the 3′ end of the message and may contain enhancers or other sites to which proteins may bind. The 5′ flanking region flanks the position that corresponds to the 5′ end of the mRNA and is that part of DNA that precedes the transcription-start site for a particular gene. The 5′ flanking region contains the promoter (transcription control region) and other enhancers or protein binding sites.
Flatworms organisms that comprise the phylum Platyhelminthes. These are normally hermaphroditic organisms that have flat bodies and are bilaterally symmetrical, with defined head and tail, centralized nervous system, and eyespots (light-sensitive cells). They include flukes (trematodes), tapeworms (Cestoda), and free-living flatworms (Turbellaria), and it is estimated that more than 20,000 species exist. Millions of humans are host to these parasites.
Flavin A prosthetic group found in flavoproteins and involved in biological oxidation and reduction. Forms the basis of natural yellow pigments like riboflavin.
Flea A major group of bloodsucking insects that feed on animals, belonging to the order Siphonaptera. There are about 2,000 known species existing on all continents. Some species are vectors for diseases. They are wingless, flattened-body types with legs with long claws. They can jump from 14 to 16 inches.
While they tend to be associated with pets such as cats and dogs (Ctenocephalides canis [dog flea] and Ctenocephalides felis [cat flea]), they do include humans as hosts.
Fleming, Sir Alexander (1881-1955) British Bacteriologist Sir Alexander Fleming was born on a farm at Lochfield near Darvel in Ayrshire, Scotland, on August 6, 1881. He attended Louden Moor School, Darvel School, and Kilmarnock Academy before moving to London, where he attended the Polytechnic Institute. He spent four years in a shipping office before entering St. Mary’s Medical School, London University, where he received an M.B., B.S., with gold medal in 1908, and became a lecturer at St. Mary’s until 1914, when he served during World War I, returning to St. Mary’s in 1918. He was elected professor of the school in 1928 and emeritus professor of bacteriology, University of London, in 1948.
Fleming was interested in the natural bacterial action of the blood and in antiseptics, and he worked on antibacterial substances that would not be toxic to animal tissues. In 1921 he discovered an important bacteriolytic substance that he named lysozyme. In 1928 he made his most important discovery while working on an influenza virus. He noticed that mold had developed accidentally on a staphylococcus culture plate and that the mold had created a bacteria-free circle around itself. Further experiments found that a mold culture prevented growth of staphylococci, even when diluted 800 times. He named the active substance penicillin.
Sir Alexander wrote numerous papers on bacteriology, immunology, and chemotherapy, including original descriptions of lysozyme and penicillin. He was the recipient of numerous awards and honors in scientific societies worldwide. Fleming shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1945 with Ernst Boris chain and Howard Walter florey, who both (from 1939) carried Fleming’s basic discovery forward in the isolation, purification, testing, and quantity production of penicillin. Fleming died on March 11, 1955, and is buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Flicker fusion rate (critical flicker frequency) The rate beyond which the human eye can no longer recognize discontinuous changes in brightness as a flicker, i.e., the rate is the frequency at which the "flicker" of an image cannot be distinguished as an individual event. The flicker fusion rate (FFR) is 31.25 Hz, or 60 frames per second (bright light) and 24 frames per second (dim light) in humans. When a frame rate is above this number, the eye sees the signal as a consistent image (as on television). A fly has an FFR of 300 frames per second.
Flora The term for all plants in a given location or, collectively, on the planet.
Florey, Sir Howard Walter (1898-1968) Australian Pathologist Sir Howard Walter Florey was born on September 24, 1898, in Adelaide, South Australia, to Joseph and Bertha Mary Florey. His early education was at St. Peter’s Collegiate School, Adelaide, and then Adelaide University, where he graduated M.B., B.S., in 1921. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, leading to the degrees of B.Sc. and M.A. in 1924. He then attended Cambridge as a John Lucas Walker student.
In 1925, he visited the United States on a Rockefeller traveling fellowship for a year, returning in 1926 to a fellowship at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, receiving a Ph.D. in 1927. At this time he also held the Freedom Research Fellowship at the London Hospital. In 1927, he was appointed Huddersfield Lecturer in Special Pathology at Cambridge. In 1931 he succeeded to the Joseph Hunter Chair of Pathology at the University of Sheffield.
In 1935 he became professor of pathology and a fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. He was made an honorary fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in 1946, and an honorary fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1952. From 1945 to 1957 he was involved in the planning of the John Curtin School of Medical Research in the new Australian National University. In 1962 he was made provost of Queen’s College, Oxford.
During World War II he was appointed honorary consultant in pathology to the army, and in 1944 he became Nuffield visiting professor to Australia and New Zealand.
His collaboration with Ernst Boris chain, which began in 1938, led to the systematic investigation of the properties of naturally occurring antibacterial substances. Lysozyme, an antibacterial substance found in saliva and human tears, discovered by Sir Alexander fleming, was their original interest, but they moved to substances now known as antibiotics. The work on penicillin was a result.
In 1939 Florey and Chain headed a team of British scientists, financed by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, whose efforts led to the successful small-scale manufacture of penicillin. They showed that penicillin could protect against infection but that the concentration of penicillin in the human body— and the length of time of treatment—were important factors for successful treatment. In 1940 a report was issued describing how penicillin had been found to be a chemotherapeutic agent capable of killing sensitive germs in the living body. An effort was made to create sufficient quantities for use in World War II to treat war wounds, and it is estimated to have saved thousands of lives. In 1945 Florey was awarded a Nobel Prize in medicine with Alexander Fleming and Ernst Chain.
Florey was a contributor to and editor of Antibiotics (1949). He was also coauthor of a book of lectures on general pathology and has had many papers published on physiology and pathology.
In 1944 he was created a knight bachelor. When a life peerage was conferred on him in 1965, he chose to be styled Lord Florey of Adelaide and Marston. He was provost of Queen’s College, Oxford, from 1962 until he died on February 21, 1968.
Flower The reproductive part of a plant. Can be both male and female, producing both pollen and ovule. Flowers are the most commonly used part in identifying a plant and are often showy and colorful.
Fluid feeder An animal that lives by sucking nutrient-rich fluids from another living organism. The two main ways to fluid-feed are piercing and sucking, and cutting and licking. Examples of insects that pierce and suck are platyhelminths, nematodes, annelids, and arthropods, which all have distinct mouth parts that bore into their prey and then suck out the prey’s body fluids with a pharynx. Secreted enzymes help aid in the digestion of the fluids. Piercing by insects typically involves the use of a proboscis formed by the maxillae and composed of two canals. The first canal carries in the prey’s blood, and the other delivers saliva and anticoagulants.
The cutting-and-licking technique is used by black flies and vampire bats, who cut the prey’s body with teeth or sharp mouthparts and then lick the fluids while injecting anticoagulants to prevent clotting.
Fluid mosaic model The model proposes that a plasma membrane surrounds all cells and is composed of about half lipids, mostly phospholipids and cholesterol, and half proteins, with the proteins and phospholipids floating around the membrane in constant motion unless they bind to something. By being fluid, the lipid molecules can move to open up as a channel whereby substances can enter or leave. The protein molecules in the membrane act as carrier, channel, or active transport mechanisms for larger molecules that must enter or leave the cell.
Fluke An organism belonging to the phylum Platy-helminthes, a flatworm of the class Trematoda. Flukes are flat, unsegmented, and parasitic. Two orders exist, the Mongenea (monogenetic flukes) and Digenea (dige-netic flukes). Humans become hosts for Schistosoma mansoni (human blood fluke) and Fasciola hepatica (sheep liver fluke).
Also a single lobe of a whale’s tail.
Folate coenzymes A group of heterocyclic compounds that are based on the 4-(2-amino-3,4-dihydro-4-oxopteridin-6-ylmethylamino) benzoic acid (pteroic acid) and conjugated with one or more L-glutamate units. Folate derivatives are important in DNA synthesis and erythrocyte formation. Folate deficiency leads to anemia.
Folivore An animal whose primary source of food is foliage. For example, the larvae of the buck moth (Hemileuca maia [Drury]) eats only the leaves of oak, favoring scrub, live, blackjack, and post oaks; the Karner blue butterfly (Lycaeides melissa samuelis) larvae feed only on the leaves of wild blue lupine (Lupi-nus perennis).
Follicle Any enclosing cluster or jacket of cells, or a small sac or pore, that protects and nourishes within it a cell or structure. A fluid-filled follicle in the ovary harbors the developing egg cell. When the follicle ruptures (ovulation), an egg is released. A hair follicle envelops the root of hair.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) A U.S. federal agency responsible for regulating the development, use, and safety of drugs, medical devices, food, cosmetics, and related products.
The u.S. Food and Drug Administration is a scientific, regulatory, and public health agency that oversees items accounting for 25 cents of every dollar spent by consumers. Its jurisdiction encompasses most food products (other than meat and poultry); human and animal drugs; therapeutic agents of biological origin; medical devices; radiation-emitting products for consumer, medical, and occupational use; cosmetics; and animal feed. The agency grew from a single chemist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1862 to a staff of approximately 9,100 employees and a budget of $1.294 billion in 2001, comprising chemists, pharmacologists, physicians, microbiologists, veterinarians, pharmacists, lawyers, and many others. About one-third of the agency’s employees are stationed outside of the Washington, D.C., area, staffing over 150 field offices and laboratories, including five regional offices and 20 district offices. Agency scientists evaluate applications for new human drugs and biologics, complex medical devices, food and color additives, infant formulas, and animal drugs. Also, the FDA monitors the manufacture, import, transport, storage, and sale of about $1 trillion worth of products annually at a cost to taxpayers of about $3 per person. Investigators and inspectors visit more than 16,000 facilities a year and arrange with state governments to help increase the number of facilities checked.
Food chain The energy path in a community by way of food from those who produce it to those that feed on them. For example, plants are eaten by herbivores that are eaten by carnivores. Food chains that are interconnected are called food webs.
Forensics The use of social and physical sciences to combat crime, e.g., the science of using DNA for identification. It has been used to identify victims; establish paternity in child-support cases; and prove the presence of a suspect at a crime scene. Forensic science can be used for issues from burglary to environmental protection.
Formula An exact representation of the structure of a molecule, ion, or compound showing the proportion of atoms that compose the material, e.g., H20.
Forssmann, Werner Theodor Otto (1904-1979) German Surgeon Werner Theodor Otto Forssmann was born in Berlin on August 29, 1904, to Julius Forss-mann and Emmy Hindenberg. He was educated at the Askanische Gymnasium (secondary grammar school) in Berlin. In 1922 he went to the University of Berlin to study medicine, passing his state examination in 1929. For his clinical training he attended the University Medical Clinic and in 1929 went to the August Victoria Home at Eberswalde near Berlin.
He developed the first technique for the catheterization of the heart by inserting a cannula into his own antecubital vein, through which he passed a catheter for 65 cm. He then walked into the x-ray department to have a photograph taken of the catheter lying in his right auricle. He abandoned cardiology after being ridiculed for this act. Andre F. Cournand and Dickinson W. Richards perfected this procedure. He was appointed chief of the surgical clinic of the city hospital at Dresden-Friedrichstadt and at the Robert Koch Hospital, Berlin. During World War II he became a prisoner of war until his release in 1945, when he went into practice with his wife. Beginning in 1950 he practiced as a urological specialist at Bad Kreuznach. In 1958 he was chief of the surgical division of the Evangelical Hospital at Dusseldorf until 1970.
In 1956 he was awarded, together with Andre cournand and Dickinson W. richards, the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their work in development of cardiac catheterization. He was also appointed honorary professor of surgery and urology at the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz. He was awarded many honors and belonged to a number of scientific organizations during his career. He died on June 1, 1979, in Schopfheim, in the Black Forest in West Germany.
Fossil Preserved remains or imprints of once-living plants or animals or their tracks, or burrows, or products (e.g., dung).
Founder effect When a small population migrates from a larger population, becomes isolated, and forms a new population, the genetic constitution of the new population is that of a few of the pioneers, not the main population source; the genetic drift observed in a population founded by a small nonrepresentative sample of a larger population; it is the difference between the gene pool of a population as a whole and that of a newly isolated population of the same species.
Fragile X syndrome It is the most common form of genetically inherited mental retardation. Named for its association with a malformed X chromosome tip, the frequency of the syndrome is greater in males than in females, occurring in approximately 1 in 1,000 male births and 1 in 2,500 female births. In 1991 the causative gene FMR-1 (fragile X mental retardation) was discovered. Fragile X is the most common inherited cause of learning disability and affects boys and girls of all ethnic groups.
Fragmentation A mechanism of asexual reproduction in which the parent plant or animal separates into parts that re-form whole organisms.
Frameshift mutation A mutation via an addition of a pair or pairs of nucleotides that changes the codon reading frame of mRNA by inserting or deleting nucleotides.
Fraternal In offspring, twins that are not identical. Identical twins occur when both fetuses come from the division of a single fertilized egg and have separate placentas. Fraternal twins can be either same or opposite sex.
Free energy Energy readily available for producing change in a system.
Free radical A molecule that contains at least one unpaired electron; highly reactive chemical that usually exists only for a short time. Formed in the body during oxidation, a normal by-product of metabolism, they can bind with electrons from other molecules and can cause cellular damage by disrupting normal cellular processes, but can be kept in check by antioxidants such as certain enzymes or vitamins (C and E).
Freshwater The Earth is mostly water, which covers 74 percent of its surface. Freshwater accounts for only 3 percent of the total water. Freshwater is water that contains less than 1,000 milligrams per liter (mg/L) of dissolved solids. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) states that, generally, more than 500 mg/L of dissolved solids is undesirable for drinking and many industrial uses.
Fritts, Harold Clark (1928- ) American Botanist, Dendrochronologist Harold Fritts was born on December 17, 1928, in Rochester, New York, to Edwin C. Fritts, a physicist at Eastman Kodak Company, and Ava Washburn Fritts. As a young boy he was interested in natural history and weather and even had a subscription to daily weather maps. Along with his maps, he constructed a weather vane that read out wind directions in his room. Fritts attended Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, from 1948 to 1951 and received a B.A. in botany. From 1951 to 1956 he attended Ohio State University in Columbus and received an M.S. in botany in 1953 and a Ph.D. in 1956.
Fritts made major contributions in understanding how trees respond to daily climatic factors and how they record that information in ring structure. He developed a method to statistically record a tree’s response to changes in climate. Using that information he developed a method to reconstruct climate from past tree rings and to reconstruct spatial arrays of past climate from spatial arrays of tree-ring data. He also developed a biophysical model of tree-ring structure response to daily weather conditions. This work has laid the groundwork for much current dendroclimatic reconstruction work.
Fritts authored nearly 60 pioneering scientific papers on dendrochronology, including the bible of the field, Tree Rings and Climate in 1976, one of the most cited books on the subject. In 1965 he was elected a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship in botany in 1968. In 1982 he was given the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Bio-climatology from the American Meteorological Society, and in 1990 he received the Award of Appreciation from the dendrochronological community, in Lund, Sweden.
Fritts pioneered the understanding of the biological relationships and reconstruction of past climate from tree-ring chronologies. He currently is engaged in some scientific writing and is finishing work on the tree ring model.
Frond The leaf of a fern or palm. Consists of the stipe (petiole or stalk of the fruiting body) and blade, the expanded portion of the frond. Also used to describe the main part of a kelp plant.
Frugivore An organism that generally eats fruits, e.g., the fruit bat.
Fruit A mature or ripened ovary or cluster of ovaries in a flower.
Fruiting body The organ in which meiosis occurs and sexual spores are produced in fungi and mycobac-teria. They are distinct in size, shape, and coloration for each species.
Functional group Organic compounds are thought of as consisting of a relatively unreactive backbone, for example a chain of sp3 (three p orbitals with the s orbital) hybridized carbon atoms, and one of several functional groups. The functional group is an atom, or a group of atoms, that has similar chemical properties whenever it occurs in different compounds. It defines the characteristic physical and chemical properties of families of organic compounds.
Fungi A kingdom of heterotrophic, single-celled, multinucleated, or multicellular organisms that include yeasts, molds, and mushrooms; organisms that lack chlorophyll, cannot photosynthesize, and get their nutrients directly from other organisms by being parasites or from dead organic matter, acting as saprophytes. Molds, yeasts, mildews, rusts, smuts, and mushrooms are all fungi. Fungi have a true nucleus enclosed in a membrane and chitin in the cell wall. There are about 8,000 fungi known to attack plants. Some fungi are pathogenic to humans and other animals. Some molds, in particular, release toxic chemicals called mycotoxins that can result in poisoning or death.
Fur (ferric uptake regulator) The iron uptake regulating protein present in prokaryotes, which binds simultaneously Fe and DNA, thereby preventing the biosynthesis of enzymes for the production of scavenger chelates (siderophores).
Gall (hypertrophies) An abnormal swelling, growth, or tumor found on certain meristematic (growing) plant tissues caused by another organism such as parasites, insects, bacteria, fungi, viruses, injuries, or chemicals. There are hundreds of types of galls, and insects and mites are the most common organisms that cause them. The plant interacts with the attacking organism and provides raw materials to construct the gall via abnormal tissue growth. Many galls provide food and protective housing for various species of insects, and the resulting larvae that hatch are used as food by birds. Galls have been used for dyes, tannin for leather processing, medicines, and even food. There are over 1,400 species of insects that produce galls, and these insects collectively are called cecidozoa. Gallic acid was first isolated from oak leaf galls by the Swedish chemist Karl Scheele in 1786.
Galton, Sir Francis (1822-1911) British Anthropologist, Explorer Francis Galton has the distinction of being the half cousin of another prominent scientist of the 19th century, Charles Darwin. Galton is known as the founder of biometry and eugenics.
He was born in 1822, the youngest of seven children, into a wealthy Quaker family in Sparkbrook, near Birmingham, to Samuel Tertius Galton, a banker, and Frances Anne Violetta Darwin, the half sister of the physician and poet Erasmus Darwin, father of Charles Darwin, who would later influence greatly the mind of Francis.
He was homeschooled by his invalid sister Adele until he was five and was reading at an early age, appearing to have close to instant recall. He later attended King Edward’s School in Birmingham between 1836 and 1838, and then became an assistant to the major surgeon in the general hospital of that city at age 16. He continued his medical education by attending King’s College in London, and by 1840 he was attending Trinity College in Cambridge, although his attention was moving from medicine to mathematics. He never finished his studies due to a nervous breakdown and the stress from taking care of a terminally ill father.
By 1865 Galton had become keenly interested in genetics and heredity and was influenced by his cousin Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species in 1859. In Galton’s Hereditary Genius (1869) he presented his evidence that talent is an inherited characteristic. In 1872 he took on religion with Statistical Inquiries into the Efficacy of Prayer. Dalton created the study of eugenics, the scientific study of racial improvement, and a term he coined, to increase the betterment of humanity through the improvement of inherited characteristics, or as he defined it: "the study of agencies, under social control, that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally." His thoughts on improving human society became widely admired.
Galton contributed to other disciplines and authored several books and many papers. In fact, between 1852 and 1910, he published some 450 papers and books in the fields of travel and geography, anthropology, psychology, heredity, anthropometry, statistics, and more. Twenty-three publications alone were on the subject of meteorology.
He became interested in the use of fingerprinting for identification and published Finger Prints, the first comprehensive book on the nature of fingerprints and their use in solving crime. He verified the uniqueness and permanence of fingerprints, and suggested the first system for classifying them based on grouping the patterns into arches, loops, and whorls.
As late as 1901, close to 80 years old, he delivered a lecture "On the Possible Improvement of the Human Breed Under Existing Conditions of Law and Sentiment," to the Anthropological Institute, and he even returned to Egypt for one more visit. He published his autobiography, Memories of My life, in 1908 and was knighted the following year. Galton received a number of honors in addition to the ones already cited. He was a member of the Athenaeum Club (1855). He received honorary degrees from Oxford (1894) and Cambridge (1895) and was an honorary fellow of Trinity College (1902). He was awarded several medals that included the Huxley Medal of the Anthropological Institute (1901), the Darwin-Wallace Medal of the Linnaean Society (1908), and three medals from the Royal Society: the Royal (1886), Darwin (1902), and Copley (1910) medals.
Galton lived with a grandniece in his later years, and a month short of his 89th birthday, in 1911, his heart gave out during an attack of bronchitis at Grayshott House, Haslemere, in Surrey. He is buried in the family vault at Claverdon, near Warwick, Warwickshire. Galtonia candicans, a white bell-flowered member of the lily family from South Africa, and commonly known as the summer hyacinth, was named for Galton in 1888.
