Elements in the history of the Periodic Table.
Discovery of the Periodic Table was rendered possible only after four decisive prerequisites had been achieved. These were (i) the abandonment of the metaphysical and occult notions of elements that typified the alchemical era; (ii) the adoption of a modern and workable definition of an element; (iii) the development of analytical chemical techniques for the isolation of the elements and determination of their properties; and (iv) the devising of a means of associating each element with a characteristic natural number. The Periodic Table made its appearance on cue almost as soon as these preconditions had been fulfilled.
What Neural Substrates Trigger the Adept Scientific Pattern Discovery by Biologists?
This study investigated the neural correlates of experts and novices during biological object pattern detection using an fMRI approach in order to reveal the neural correlates of a biologist’s superior pattern discovery ability. Sixteen healthy male participants (8 biologists and 8 non-biologists) volunteered for the study. Participants were shown fifteen series of organism pictures and asked to detect patterns amid stimulus pictures. Primary findings showed significant activations in the right middle temporal gyrus and inferior parietal lobule amongst participants in the biologist (expert) group. Interestingly, the left superior temporal gyrus was activated in participants from the non-biologist (novice) group. These results suggested that superior pattern discovery ability could be related to a functional facilitation of the parieto-temporal network, which is particularly driven by the right middle temporal gyrus and inferior parietal lobule in addition to the recruitment of additional brain regions. Furthermore, the functional facilitation of the network might actually pertain to high coherent processing skills and visual working memory capacity. Hence, study results suggested that adept scientific thinking ability can be detected by neuronal substrates, which may be used as criteria for developing and evaluating a brain-based science curriculum and test instrument.
Synthesis of 2,4-dideoxy-.beta.-D-erythro-hexopyranosyl nucleosides
The synthesis of 1-(2,4-dideoxy-β-D-erythro-hexopyranosyl)thymine (12) 1 was accomplished using two different synthetic routes. It was obtained starting either from 1,2:5,6-di-O-isopropylidene-α-D-glucofuranose or from tri-O-acetyl-D-glucal. The other modified nucleosides, with either a cytosine, guanine, or adenine moiety, were synthesized using the second reaction scheme. Deoxygenation reactions were accomplished with the (2,4-dichlorophenoxy)thiocarbonyl derivatives generated in situ