Cell biology

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_biology 

Cell biology is a branch of biology studying the structure and function of the cell, also known as the basic unit of life. Cell biology encompasses both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells and can be divided into many sub-topics which may include the study of cell metabolism, cell communication, cell cycle, and cell composition. The study of cells is performed using several techniques such as cell culture, various types of microscopy, and cell fractionation. These have allowed for and are currently being used for discoveries and research pertaining to how cells function, ultimately giving insight into understanding larger organisms. Knowing the components of cells and how cells work is fundamental to all biological sciences while also being essential for research in biomedical fields such as cancer, and other diseases. Research in cell biology is interconnected to other fields such as genetics, molecular genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, medical microbiology, immunology, and cytochemistry.

History

Cells were first seen in 17th century Europe with the invention of the compound microscope. In 1665, Robert Hooke termed the building block of all living organisms as "cells" after looking at a piece of cork and observing a cell-like structure, however, the cells were dead and gave no indication to the actual overall components of a cell. A few years later, in 1674, Anton Van Leeuwenhoek was the first to analyze live cells in his examination of algae. All of this preceded the cell theory which states that all living things are made up of cells and that cells are the functional and structural unit of organisms. This was ultimately concluded by plant scientist, Matthias Schleiden and animal scientist, Theodor Schwann in 1839, who viewed live cells in plant and animal tissue, respectively. 19 years later, Rudolf Virchow further contributed to the cell theory, adding that all cells come from the division of pre-existing cells. Although widely accepted, there have been many studies that question the validity of the cell theory. Viruses, for example, lack common characteristics of a living cell, such as membranes, cell organelles, and the ability to reproduce by themselves. Scientists have struggled to decide whether viruses are alive or not and whether they are in agreement with the cell theory.

Techniques

Modern-day cell biology research looks at different ways to culture and manipulate cells outside of a living body to further research in human anatomy and physiology, and to derive medications. The techniques by which cells are studied have evolved. Due to advancements in microscopy, techniques and technology have allowed for scientists to hold a better understanding of the structure and function of cells. Many techniques commonly used to study cell biology are listed below:

• Cell culture: Utilizes rapidly growing cells on media which allows for a large amount of a specific cell type and an efficient way to study cells.
• Fluorescence microscopy: Fluorescent markers such as GFP, are used to label a specific component of the cell. Afterwards, a certain light wavelength is used to excite the fluorescent marker which can then be visualized.
• Phase-contrast microscopy: Uses the optical aspect of light to represent the solid, liquid, and gas phase changes as brightness differences.
• Confocal microscopy: Combines fluorescence microscopy with imaging by focusing light and snap shooting instances to form a 3-D image.
• Transmission electron microscopy: Involves metal staining and the passing of electrons through the cells, which will be deflected upon interaction with metal. This ultimately forms an image of the components being studies.
• Cytometry: The cells are placed in the machine which uses a beam to scatter the cells based on different aspects and can therefore separate them based on size and content. Cells may also be tagged with GFP-florescence and can be separated that way as well.
• Cell fractionation: This process requires breaking up the cell using high temperature or sonification followed by centrifugation to separate the parts of the cell allowing for them to be studied separately.

Cell classification and composition

There are two fundamental classifications of cells: prokaryotic and eukaryotic. Prokaryotic cells are distinguished from eukaryotic cells by the absence of a cell nucleus or other membrane bound organelle. Prokaryotic cells are much smaller than eukaryotic cells, making them the smallest form of life. The study of eukaryotic cells is typically the main focus of cytologists, whereas prokaryotic cells are the focus of microbiologists.

Prokaryotic cells

A typical prokaryote cell.

Prokaryotic cells include Bacteria and Archaea, and lack an enclosed cell nucleus. They both reproduce through binary fission. Bacteria, the most prominent type, have several different shapes which include mainly spherical, and rod-shaped. Bacteria can be classed as either gram positive or gram negative depending on the cell wall composition. Bacterial structural features include:

• Flagella: A tail-like structure that helps the cell to move.
• Ribosomes: Used for translation of RNA to protein.
• Nucleoid: Area designated to hold all the genetic material in a circular structure.

There are many process that occur in prokaryotic cells that allow them to survive. For instance, in a process termed conjugation, fertility factor allows the bacteria to possess a pilus which allows it to transmit DNA to another bacteria which lacks the F factor, permitting the transmittance of resistance allowing it to survive in certain environments.

Eukaryotic cells

A typical animal cell.

Eukaryotic cells can either be unicellular or multicellular and include animal, plant, fungi, and protozoa cells which all contain organelles with various shapes and sizes. These cells are composed of the following organelles:

• Nucleus: This functions as the genome and genetic information storage for the cell, containing all the DNA organized in the form of chromosomes. It is surrounded by a nuclear envelope, which includes nuclear pores allowing for transportation of proteins between the inside and outside of the nucleus. The is also the site for replication of DNA as well as transcription of DNA to RNA. Afterwards, the RNA is modified and transported out to the cytosol to be translated to protein.
• Nucleolus: This structure is within the nucleus, usually dense and spherical in shape. It is the site of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) synthesis, which is needed for ribosomal assembly.
• Endoplasmic reticulum (ER): This functions to synthesize, store, and secrete proteins to the golgi apparatus.
• Mitochondria: This functions for the production of energy or ATP within the cell. Specifically, this is the place where the Krebs cycle or TCA cycle for the production of NADH and FADH occurs. Afterwards, these products are used within the electron transport chain (ETC) and oxidative phosphorylation for the final production of ATP.
• Golgi apparatus: This functions to further process, package, and secrete the proteins to their destination. The proteins contain a signal sequence which allows the golgi apparatus to recognize and direct it to the correct place.
• Lysosome: The lysosome functions to degrade material brought in from the outside of the cell or old organelles. This contains many acid hydrolases, proteases, nucleases, and lipases, which breakdown the various molecules. Autophagy is the process of degradation through lysosomes which occurs when a vesicle buds off from the ER and engulfs the material, then, attaches and fuses with the lysosome to allow the material to be degraded.
• Ribosomes: Functions to translate RNA to protein.
• Cytoskeleton: This functions to anchor organelles within the cells and make up the structure and stability of the cell.
• Cell membrane: The cell membrane can be described as a phospholipid bilayer and is also consisted of lipids and proteins. Because the inside of the bilayer is hydrophobic and in order for molecules to participate in reactions within the cell, they need to be able to cross this membrane layer to get into cell via osmotic pressure, diffusion, concentration gradients, and membrane channels.
• Centrioles: Function to produce spindle fibers which are used to separate chromosomes during cell division.

Eukaryotic cells may also be composed of the following molecular components:

• Chromatin: This makes up chromosomes and is a mixture of DNA with various proteins.
• Cilia: They help to propel substances and can also be used for sensory purposes.

Processes

Cell metabolism

Cell metabolism is necessary for the production of energy for the cell and therefore its survival and includes many pathways. For cellular respiration, once glucose is available, glycolysis occurs within the cytosol of the cell to produce pyruvate. Pyruvate undergoes decarboxylation using the multi-enzyme complex to form acetyl coA which can readily be used in the TCA cycle to produce NADH and FADH2. These products are involved in the electron transport chain to ultimately form a proton gradient across the inner mitochondrial membrane. This gradient can then drive the production of ATP and H2O during oxidative phosphorylation. Metabolism in plant cells includes photosynthesis which is simply the exact opposite of respiration as it ultimately produces molecules of glucose.

Cell communication and signaling

Cell communication is important for cell regulation and for cells to process information from the environment and respond accordingly. Communication can occur through direct cell contact or endocrine, paracrine, and autocrine signaling. Direct cell-cell contact is when a receptor on a cell binds a molecule that is attached to the membrane of another cell. Endocrine signaling occurs through molecules secreted into the bloodstream. Paracrine signaling uses molecules diffusing between two cells to communicate. Autocrine is a cell sending a signal to itself by secreting a molecule that binds to a receptor on its surface. Forms of communication can be through:

• Ion channels: Can be of different types such as voltage or ligand gated ion channels. The allow for the outflow and inflow of molecules and ions.
• G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR): Is widely recognized to contain 7 transmembrane domains. The ligand binds on the extracellular domain and once the ligand binds, this signals a guanine exchange factor to convert GDP to GTP and activate the G-α subunit. G-α can target other proteins such as adenyl cyclase or phospholipase C, which ultimately produce secondary messengers such as cAMP, Ip3, DAG, and calcium. These secondary messengers function to amplify signals and can target ion channels or other enzymes. One example for amplification of a signal is cAMP binding to and activating PKA by removing the regulatory subunits and releasing the catalytic subunit. The catalytic subunit has a nuclear localization sequence which prompts it to go into the nucleus and phosphorylate other proteins to either repress or activate gene activity.
• Receptor tyrosine kinases: Bind growth factors, further promoting the tyrosine on the intracellular portion of the protein to cross phosphorylate. The phosphorylated tyrosine becomes a landing pad for proteins containing an SH2 domain allowing for the activation of Ras and the involvement of the MAP kinase pathway.

Cell cycle

The process of cell division in the cell cycle.

The growth process of the cell does not refer to the size of the cell, but the density of the number of cells present in the organism at a given time. Cell growth pertains to the increase in the number of cells present in an organism as it grows and develops; as the organism gets larger so does the number of cells present. Cells are the foundation of all organisms and are the fundamental unit of life. The growth and development of cells are essential for the maintenance of the host and survival of the organism. For this process, the cell goes through the steps of the cell cycle and development which involves cell growth, DNA replication, cell division, regeneration, and cell death. The cell cycle is divided into four distinct phases: G1, S, G2, and M. The G phase – which is the cell growth phase – makes up approximately 95% of the cycle. The proliferation of cells is instigated by progenitors. All cells start out in an identical form and can essentially become any type of cells. Cell signaling such as induction can influence nearby cells to differentiate determinate the type of cell it will become. Moreover, this allows cells of the same type to aggregate and form tissues, then organs, and ultimately systems. The G1, G2, and S phase (DNA replication, damage and repair) are considered to be the interphase portion of the cycle, while the M phase (mitosis) is the cell division portion of the cycle. Mitosis is composed of many stages which include, prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase, and cytokinesis, respectively. The ultimate result of mitosis is the formation of two identical daughter cells. 

The cell cycle is regulated by a series of signaling factors and complexes such as cyclins, cyclin-dependent kinase, and p53. When the cell has completed its growth process and if it is found to be damaged or altered, it undergoes cell death, either by apoptosis or necrosis, to eliminate the threat it can cause to the organism's survival.

Pathology

The scientific branch that studies and diagnoses diseases on the cellular level is called cytopathology. Cytopathology is generally used on samples of free cells or tissue fragments, in contrast to the pathology branch of histopathology, which studies whole tissues. Cytopathology is commonly used to investigate diseases involving a wide range of body sites, often to aid in the diagnosis of cancer but also in the diagnosis of some infectious diseases and other inflammatory conditions. For example, a common application of cytopathology is the Pap smear, a screening test used to detect cervical cancer, and precancerous cervical lesions that may lead to cervical cancer.

Conscience clause in medicine in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscience_clause_in_medicine_in_the_United_States 

 

Conscience clauses are legal clauses attached to laws in some parts of the United States and other countries which permit pharmacists, physicians, and/or other providers of health care not to provide certain medical services for reasons of religion or conscience. It can also involve parents withholding consenting for particular treatments for their children.

In many cases, the clauses also permit health care providers to refuse to refer patients to unopposed providers. Those who choose not to refer or provide services may not be disciplined or discriminated against. The provision is most frequently enacted in connection with issues relating to reproduction, such as abortion, sterilization, contraception, and stem cell based treatments, but may include any phase of patient care.

History

The earliest national conscience clause law in the United States, which was enacted immediately following the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, applied only to abortion and sterilization. It was sponsored by Senator Frank Church of Idaho. The Church Amendment of 1973, passed by the Senate on a vote of 92-1, exempted private hospitals receiving federal funds under the Hill-Burton Act, Medicare and Medicaid from any requirement to provide abortions or sterilizations when they objected on “the basis of religious beliefs or moral convictions.” Nearly every state enacted similar legislation by the end of the decade—often with the support of legislators who otherwise supported abortion rights. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, the author of the Roe v. Wade majority opinion, endorsed such clauses “appropriate protection” for individual physicians and denominational hospitals.

According to Nancy Berlinger, of the bioethics research institute The Hastings Center, "...Conscientious objection in health care always has a social dimension and ...Laws and professional guidelines on conscientious objection in health care must balance the respect for an individual’s beliefs against the well-being of the general public."

Conscience clauses have been adopted by a number of U.S. states. including Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota. There are some recent comprehensive reviews of federal and state conscience clause laws across the United States and in select other countries.

Some clauses address local concerns: Oregon, recognizes a physician's right to refuse to participate in physician-assisted suicide, although it is legal in that state.

Informed consent

An informed consent clause, although allowing medical professionals not to perform procedures against their conscience, does not allow professionals to give fraudulent information to deter a patient from obtaining such a procedure (such as lying about the risks involved in an abortion to deter one from obtaining one) in order to impose one's belief using deception. These principles were reaffirmed in the Utah Supreme Court's decision in Wood v. University of Utah Medical Center (2002). Commenting on the case, bioethicist Jacob Appel of New York University wrote that "if only a small number of physicians intentionally or negligently withhold information from their patients significant damage is done to the medical profession as a whole" because "pregnant women will no longer know whether to trust their doctors."

Right of Conscience Rule

The Right of Conscience Rule was a set of protections for healthcare workers enacted by President George W. Bush on December 18, 2008, allowing healthcare workers to refuse care based on their personal beliefs. Specifically, the rule denied federal funding to institutions that did not allow workers to refuse care that went against their beliefs. In February 2011, President Barack Obama rescinded the Right of Conscience Rule.

Pharmacists

States have historically provided a conscience clause right allowing pharmacists to refrain from participating in abortions. In April 2005, Governor Rod Blagojevich by emergency executive order required all pharmacists to provide Plan B levonorgestrel. In September 2012, the Illinois Appellate Court found the Governor's order violated Illinois law.

In June 2006, the Pharmacy Board of the Washington State Department of Health rejected a draft rule proposed by Governor Christine Gregoire to require all pharmacies to begin carrying Plan B. Governor Gregoire responded by releasing a public statement warning the Board members to reconsider or they could be removed. In July 2006, the Washington State Human Rights Commission warned the Board members that they would be personally liable for illegally discriminating against women if they did not pass the Governor's Plan B rule.  In April 2007, the Board approved a final rule prohibiting pharmacies from not stocking Plan B for religious reasons but allowing exemptions for “good faith” business reasons.

When Ralph's Thriftway, a grocery store in Olympia, Washington, refused for religious reasons to carry Plan B, it was widely boycotted, leading Gregoire to cancel the grocer's longstanding account with the Washington Governor's Mansion. The only complaints for violating the Plan B rule were filed against the grocer. Half of Washington's hospitals are Catholic. The grocer sued but, instead of alleging violations of the broader Constitution of Washington, its attorneys at the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty only filed under the Free Exercise Clause of the United States Constitution. The case is known as Stormans, Inc. v. Wiesman. 

On November 8, 2007, U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton granted the grocer a preliminary injunction blocking the rule. On May 1, 2008, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Judges Thomas G. Nelson and Jay Bybee denied the state a stay of the injunction pending appeal, over a dissent by Judge A. Wallace Tashima. However, on July 8, 2009, Circuit Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, joined by Richard Clifton and N. Randy Smith reversed the preliminary injunction.

On February 22, 2012, after four years of discovery and a twelve-day bench trial, Judge Leighton issued a permanent injunction blocking the Plan B rule as unconstitutional. On July 23, 2015, Circuit Judge Susan P. Graber, joined by Judges Mary H. Murguia and Richard Clifton reversed. The grocer's petition for certiorari from the Supreme Court of the United States was denied on June 28, 2016. Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas, dissented, writing that “the rules challenged here reflect antipathy towards religious beliefs that do not accord with the views of those holding the levers of government power.”

In 2014 and 2016, Senator Cory Booker introduced the “Access to Birth Control Act” bill, which would require all pharmacists in the United States to provide emergency contraception.

Responses

Health care providers opposed to abortion or contraception support the clauses because they believe that disciplinary or legal action for refusing to perform services obliges providers to supply services which their moral or religious principles forbid.

Reproductive rights organizations, such as Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America, oppose the provision because they maintain that pharmacists, doctors, and hospitals have a professional duty to fulfill patients' legal medical needs, regardless of their own ethical stances. Opponents see conscience clauses as an attempt to limit reproductive rights in lieu of bans struck down by Supreme Court rulings such as Roe v. Wade.

As a result, the term "conscience clause" is controversial and primarily used by those who support these provisions. Those who oppose them often prefer to use the term "refusal clause," implying that those who exercise the clauses are refusing to treat a patient.

Catholic doctrine

The conscience clause is widely invoked in Catholic universities, hospitals, and agencies because the Catholic Church opposes abortion, contraceptives, sterilization, and embryonic stem cell treatments. Opponents of related FOCA legislation have interpreted the possible end of the conscience clause as a demand to either "do abortions or close." Timothy Dolan has said, "“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences." However, conscience clauses are sometimes interpreted differently and their use will often depend on the given context.

Public health specialists have questioned whether "conscience clauses" are ethical, observing in an article on the danger to miscarrying patients created by hospital anti-abortion policies that "in some Catholic-owned hospitals, the private patient–physician relationship, patient safety, and patient comfort are compromised by religious mandates that require physicians to act contrary to the current standard of care in miscarriage management."

Legal protection of access to abortion

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_protection_of_access_to_abortion 

Governments sometimes take measures designed to afford legal protection of access to abortion. Such legislation often seeks to guard facilities which provide induced abortion against obstruction, vandalism, picketing, and other actions, or to protect patients and employees of such facilities from threats and harassment (see sidewalk interference).

 

Another form such legislation sometimes takes is in the creation of a perimeter around a facility, known variously as a "buffer zone", "bubble zone", or "access zone". This area is intended to limit how close to these facilities demonstration by those who oppose abortion can approach. Protests and other displays are restricted to a certain distance from the building, which varies depending upon the law, or are prohibited altogether. Similar zones have also been created to protect the homes of abortion providers and clinic staff.

Bubble zone laws are divided into "fixed" and "floating" categories. Fixed bubble zone laws apply to the static area around the facility itself, and floating laws to objects in transit, such as people or cars.

Laws in Australia

Tasmania, Victoria, Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, the Northern Territory and Queensland are the states and territories in Australia where buffer zones exist. The Australian Capital Territory has a buffer zone of only 50 m that has to be approved by the ACT health minister.

Tasmania was the first state or territory to enforce buffer zones. In 2013, the Tasmanian Parliament passed the Reproductive Health (Access to Terminations) Act which enforces 'access zones' of a radius of 150 metres from premises at which abortions are provided. Behaviour prohibited within access zones includes: besetting, harassing, intimidating, interfering with, threatening, hindering, obstructing or impeding a person; protests in relation to terminations that are able to be seen or heard by a person accessing a clinic; footpath interference; and intentionally recording a person accessing a clinic without their consent. The laws, in particular, the recent regulations passed by the NSW parliament in June 2018, were opposed by "sidewalk counsellors" who are "known to stand outside clinics with the intention of changing the minds of women entering the clinics". 

In November 2015, Victoria became the second state to pass legislation to limit protests outside abortion clinics and 150 metre buffer zones are now enforced. Prior to this, in 2005, the Australian Democrats proposed a law to create buffer zones around clinics in Victoria. However, these attempts were unsuccessful as buffer zones were not included in Victoria's Public Health and Wellbeing Act.

Laws in Canada

Several "buffer zone" laws have been enacted within Canada. Two of the country's provinces and territories have passed laws intended to protect medical facilities that provide induced abortion:

• British Columbia: 10 metre fixed buffer zone around a doctor's office, 50 metre fixed buffer zone around a hospital or clinic, and 160 metre fixed buffer zone around an abortion provider or clinic worker's home. The Access to Abortion Services Act, enacted in 1995, refers to this area as an "access zone". It prohibits protesting, sidewalk counseling, intimidation of or physical interference with abortion providers or their patients inside of this space. The provisions against protesting and sidewalk counselling were repealed on January 23, 1996, as violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but were both restored in October of the same year.
• Ontario: 50 metre fixed buffer zone around clinics that perform abortions; variable buffer zones of up to 150 metres granted upon application to hospitals, pharmacies and other health facilities. The Safe Access to Abortion Services Act, 2017 prohibits protesting, sidewalk counseling, intimidation, physical interference, and recording or photographing patients and employees within buffer zones.

Access zone legislation has also been passed at the level of local government in Canada:

• Calgary, Alberta: fixed buffer zone which requires protesters to remain across the street from a clinic in Kensington. Established in 1991, the injunction also limits the number of pro-life demonstrators who carry signs, or pray. It was first challenged by Michael O'Malley of Campaign Life Coalition in 1997, and again in 2000, but a judge upheld it both times.
• Toronto, Ontario: 500 feet fixed buffer zone around doctors' homes, 25 feet (7.6 m) fixed buffer zone around doctors' offices, 60 feet (18 m) fixed buffer zone around two clinics in the Cabbagetown and Scott districts, 30 feet (9.1 m) fixed buffer zone around another clinic, and 10-foot (3.0 m) floating buffer zone around patients and staff. The injunction was granted on August 30, 1994.

Laws in South Africa

The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act prohibits anyone from "preventing the lawful termination of a pregnancy" or "obstructing access to a facility for the termination of a pregnancy", imposing a penalty of up to ten years' imprisonment.

Laws in the United States

At the federal level in the United States, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE), makes it an offense to use intimidation or physical force – such as forming a blockade – in order to prevent a person from entering a facility which provides reproductive healthcare or a place of worship. The law also creates specific penalties for destroying, or causing damage to, either of these types of building.

California, New York, and Washington have each established their own version of FACE. Other states have instituted several different kinds of measures designed to protect clinics, their employees, and patients:

• 11 states make it illegal to obstruct the entrance to a clinic: California, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington.
• Six states prohibit making threats toward a clinic's staff or patients: California, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Washington, and Wisconsin. Two states, Maine and Washington, also ban harassment by telephone.
• Four states ban property damage to a clinic: California, Oregon, New York, and Washington.
• One state, Maine, has enacted a noise regulation pertaining to activity outside of a clinic, and also made it an offense to intentionally release a substance with an unpleasant odor inside of it.
• One state, North Carolina, prohibits weapon possession during a demonstration outside of a clinic.

In the February 2003 case, Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that pro-life activists could not be prosecuted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a law drafted to counter organized crime, or the Hobbs Act, a law intended to address economic damages caused by extortion. The Court reaffirmed this holding on February 28, 2006 in a unanimous decision, although only eight Justices participated in the ruling, because Samuel Alito had not yet been confirmed.

"Buffer zone" laws

In the United States, three states have passed "buffer zone" legislation, which can create either a "fixed" area around a medical facility or a "floating" area around patients and staff:

• Colorado: 100 feet fixed and eight feet floating. After being enacted in 1993, the "floating" provision was first challenged in 1995, when three pro-life activists suggested that it violated their right to freedom of speech. Although upheld in a trial court and by the state's appeals court, the Supreme Court of Colorado would not hear the case, so the petitioners took their case against Colorado's floating buffer law to the Supreme Court of the United States. In February 1997, considering its ruling against a floating buffer zone in the case Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York, the Supreme Court requested that the appeals court of Colorado re-examine their state's law. It was upheld again, and in February 1999, the Supreme Court of Colorado agreed with the holdings of the lower court. In the 2000 case Hill v. Colorado, the "floating" provision was again appealed before the federal Supreme Court, where this time it was upheld, 6-3.
• Massachusetts: 35 feet fixed buffer zone enacted in 2007. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley’s Office defended the constitutionality of the statute in the federal court proceedings. In May 2007, Attorney General Coakley testified before the Legislature in support of the passage of the legislation. The buffer zone law was signed by Governor Deval Patrick and took effect on November 13, 2007. Attorney General Coakley successfully defended the statute before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which affirmed the constitutionality of the Commonwealth's buffer zone law on July 8, 2009. The 2007 law changed the 2000 law, which provided for an 18 feet fixed buffer zone and six feet floating buffer zone. Enacted on November 10, 2000, this law was struck down by U.S. district judge Edward Harrington soon afterward because he felt there was an unacceptable discrepancy in the floating buffer zone being applied to pro-life protesters but exempted from clinic workers. The law was restored in August 2001 by a federal appeals court. This law was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 26, 2014.
• Montana: 36 feet (11 m) fixed buffer zone and eight feet floating buffer zone.

Several local governments in the United State have, at some time, also passed similar municipal ordinances:

• Buffalo and Rochester, New York: 15 feet fixed and 15 feet (4.6 m) floating around four clinics in two cities. The buffer zone resulted from an injunction issued by the U.S. district court in response to a federal lawsuit filed against 50 individuals and three pro-life organizations, including Operation Rescue, by three doctors and four clinics. The law was challenged in the 1997 case court case, Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York, by pro-life activist Paul Schenck. The case came before the Supreme Court, where Justices, in considering Madsen v. Women’s Health Center, ruled 8-1 to uphold the constitutionality of the fixed buffer zone, but not that of a floating buffer zone.
• Melbourne, Florida: 36 feet fixed buffer zone around a clinic, 300 feet (91 m) floating buffer zone around patients, and 300 feet (91 m) buffer zone around the homes of the clinic's employees. The injunction also regulated noise levels outside of the clinic and prevented demonstrators from displaying images which could be seen from inside. It was upheld in full by the Supreme Court of Florida but came before the federal Supreme Court in Madsen v. Women’s Health Center in 1994. The Court upheld the fixed buffer zone, and the noise regulation around clinics and in residential areas, but rejected the floating buffer zone, residential buffer zone, and prohibition against displaying images.
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: 15 feet fixed buffer zone and eight feet floating buffer zone. The statute was approved by the Pittsburgh City Council in December 2005. In 2009 a three judge appeals court panel found in Brown v. Pittsburgh that while either a fixed buffer or a floating buffer alone is constitutional, this combination of buffers is "insufficiently narrowly tailored," and thus unconstitutional.
• West Palm Beach, Florida: 20 feet buffer zone and noise ordinance approved in September 2005.^[18] U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks found the law to be an infringement of the right to free speech on April 11, 2006, and ordered that it be enjoined, but upheld the regulation against excessive noise.
• Chicago, Illinois: 8 foot floating buffer zone within 50 feet of clinic entrance enacted in November 2009.

Debate

Supporters of such laws claim that these zones are necessary to ensure that women have access to abortion. They argue that a buffer zone helps to prevent blockading of a clinic's entrance, to protect the safety of patients and staff, and to ensure that clients do not feel intimidated, distressed, or harassed by the presence of pro-life activists.

Some traditional free speech advocates such as the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association have cautiously sided in favour of narrowly defined "bubble zones" around abortion clinics on the basis that patients have a medical right to privacy when receiving confidential legal medical procedures that is compromised if protesters identify patients for the purpose of publicly shaming or intimidating them.

The American Civil Liberties Union helped enact the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in 1994, which guarantees pedestrian access to clinics, but does not restrict related speech activity. In Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York, the ACLU filed briefs defending the constitutionality of a court order that prohibited defendants from protesting within 15 feet of clinic driveways and entrances in western New York. The Supreme Court upheld the ACLU's position. 

Some pro-choice activists have also argued that anyone convicted of anti-abortion violence should be permanently banned from protesting outside abortion clinics. Professor Jacob M. Appel of New York University has argued that "[m]uch as we do not permit convicted pedophiles to teach kindergarten or convicted hijackers to board airplanes, common sense dictates that individuals who have been imprisoned for plotting violence against abortion clinics should never again be permitted anywhere near such facilities.".

Those who oppose the creation of such legislation contend that "bubble zones", by limiting the ability to protest peacefully, represent an infringement upon their rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

Trofim Lysenko

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko

 

Trofim Lysenko
Trofim Lysenko in 1938
Born	Trofim Denisovich Lysenko 29 September 1898 Karlivka, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	20 November 1976 (aged 78) Moscow, Soviet Union
Citizenship	Soviet
Alma mater	Kiev Agricultural Institute
Known for	Lysenkoism Rejecting Mendelian inheritance Vernalization
Scientific career
Fields	Biology Agronomy
Institutions	Soviet Academy of Sciences

Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (Russian: Трофи́м Дени́сович Лысе́нко, Ukrainian: Трохи́м Дени́сович Лисе́нко, Trokhym Denysovych Lysenko; 29 September [O.S. 17 September] 1898 – 20 November 1976) was a Soviet agronomist and biologist. As a student Lysenko found himself interested in agriculture, where he worked on a few different projects, one involving the effects of temperature variation on the life-cycle of plants. This later led him to consider how he might use this work to convert winter wheat into spring wheat. He named the process "jarovization" in Russian, and later translated it as "vernalization". Lysenko was a strong proponent of soft inheritance and rejected Mendelian genetics in favor of pseudoscientific ideas termed Lysenkoism.

His experimental research in improved crop yields earned him the support of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, especially following the famine and loss of productivity resulting from crop failures and forced collectivization in several regions of the Soviet Union in the early 1930s. In 1940, Lysenko became director of the Institute of Genetics within the USSR's Academy of Sciences, and the exercise of political influence and power further secured his anti-Mendelian doctrines in Soviet science and education.

Soviet scientists who refused to renounce genetics were dismissed from their posts and left destitute. Hundreds if not thousands of others were imprisoned. Several were sentenced to death as enemies of the state, including the botanist Nikolai Vavilov. Scientific dissent from Lysenko's theories of environmentally acquired inheritance was formally outlawed in the Soviet Union in 1948. Though Lysenko remained at his post in the Institute of Genetics until 1965, his influence on Soviet agricultural practice had declined after the death of Stalin in 1953.

Early rise

The son of Denis and Oksana Lysenko, Trofim Lysenko was born into a peasant family of Ukrainian ethnicity in Karlivka, Poltava Governorate (present-day Poltava Oblast, Ukraine) on 29 September 1898.

As a young man working at the Kiev Agricultural Institute (now the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine), Lysenko worked on converting winter wheat into spring wheat. The conversion of winter wheat into spring wheat was not a new discovery. Scientific experiments had been done by Nikolai Vavilov. It was Vavilov who initially supported Lysenko and encouraged him on his work. Lysenko had a difficult time trying to grow various crops (such as peas and wheat), through the harsh winters. However, when he announced success, he was praised in the Soviet newspaper Pravda for his claims to have discovered a method to fertilize fields without using fertilizers or minerals, and to have shown that a winter crop of peas could be grown in Azerbaijan, "turning the barren fields of the Transcaucasus green in winter, so that cattle will not perish from poor feeding, and the peasant Turk will live through the winter without trembling for tomorrow."

Lysenko speaking at the Kremlin in 1935. At the back (left to right) are Stanislav Kosior, Anastas Mikoyan, Andrei Andreyev and the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin

Lysenko argued that there is not only competition, but also mutual assistance among individuals within a species, and that mutual assistance also exists between different species.

According to Lysenko,

The organism and the conditions required for its life are an inseparable unity. Different living bodies require different environmental conditions for their development. By studying these requirements we come to know the qualitative features of the nature of organisms, the qualitative features of heredity. Heredity is the property of a living body to require definite conditions for its life and development and to respond in a definite way to various conditions.

Work in agriculture

Lysenko worked with different wheat crops to try to convert them to grow in different seasons. Another area Lysenko found himself interested in was the effect of heat on plant growth. He believed that every plant needed a determinate amount of heat throughout its lifetime. He attempted to correlate the time and the amount of heat required by a particular plant to go through various phases of development. To get his data he looked at the amount of growth, how many days went by, and the temperature on those days. In trying to determine the effects, he made a small statistical reasoning error. This is a general trend that can be seen throughout the majority of his works and his major "findings". He was confronted by Maksimov, who was an expert on thermal plant development. Lysenko did not take well to this or any criticism. After this encounter, Lysenko boldly claimed that mathematics had no place in biology.

Vernalization

In 1927, at the age of 29, working at an agricultural experiment station in Azerbaijan, Lysenko embarked on the research that would lead to his 1928 paper on vernalization, which drew wide attention because of its potential practical implications for Soviet agriculture. Severe cold and lack of winter snow had destroyed many early winter-wheat seedlings. By treating wheat seeds with moisture as well as cold, Lysenko induced them to bear a crop when planted in spring. Lysenko coined the term "Jarovization" (яровизация) to describe this chilling process, which he used to make the seeds of winter cereals behave like spring cereals. (Because spring cereals are called Jarovoe in Russian – from jarovój, an archaic adjective meaning spring, especially in relation to crops). However, this method had already been known by farmers since the 1800s, and had recently been discussed in detail by Gustav Gassner in 1918. Lysenko himself translated Jarovization as "vernalization" (from the Latin vernum meaning Spring). Lysenko's claims for increased yields were based on plantings over a few hectares, and he believed that the vernalized transformation could be inherited, that the offspring of a vernalized plant would themselves possess the capabilities of the generation that preceded it – that it too would be able to withstand harsh winters or imperfect weather conditions.

Lysenko's genetic theory

One of several unsubstantiated Lysenkoist claims: vegetative hybridisation. The mechanism would imply a Lamarckian effect of scion on stock when a fruit tree is grafted. No such effect has ever been reliably observed.

 

Lysenko rejected Mendelian genetic inheritance theory in favor of his own logic. He believed Gregor Mendel's theory to be too reactionary or idealist. Lysenko's ideas were a mixture of his own and those of Russian agronomist Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, indeed Lysenko often referred to his ideas as "Michurinism". They were not directly derived from established ideas such as Mendelian genetics theory, Lamarckism or Darwinism. He shaped his genetic concepts to support the simple practical purpose of breeding and improving crops. His ideas were also shaped with the caution to disprove other claims made by his fellow geneticists. His ideas and genetic claims later began to be termed "Lysenkoism". He claimed that his ideas were not associated with Lamarckism and that they were unique but that is not entirely true. It is possible to see that there are similarities between the two ideas, such as a belief in the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Some of Lysenko's ideas can also seem to be vitalistic. He claimed that plants are self-sacrificing − they do not die to a lack of sunlight or moisture but so that healthy ones may live and when they die they deposit themselves over the growing roots to help the new generation survive.

Lysenko believed that in one generation of a hybridized crop, the desired individual could be selected, mated again and continue to produce the same desired product, not worrying about separation/segregation in future breeds. For that to work, he had to assume that after a lifetime of developing (acquiring) the best set of traits to survive, those were passed down to the next generation. That assumption disregarded the potential for variation or mutation. Lysenko did not believe that genes or DNA existed and only spoke about them to say that they did not exist. He instead believed that any body, once alive, obtained heredity. That meant that the entirety of the body was able to pass on the hereditary information of that organism, and was not dependent on a special element such as DNA or genes. That puzzled biologists at that time because it went against all established notions of heredity and inheritance. It also contradicted the Mendelian principles that most biologists had been using to base their ideas on. Most scientists believed that Lysenko's ideas were not credible, because they did not truly explain the mechanisms of inheritance. Biologists now consider that his beliefs are pseudo-scientific, with little relationship to genetics.

Another of Lysenko's theories was that obtaining more milk from cows did not depend on their genetics but on how they were treated. The better they were handled and taken care of, the more milk would be obtained; Lysenko and his followers were well known for taking very good care of their livestock. Lysenko claimed that the cuckoo was born when young birds such as warblers were fed hairy caterpillars by the parent (rather than host) birds; this claim failed to recognise that the cuckoos he described were brood parasites. Lysenkoites believed that fertilization was not random, but that there was specific selection of the best mate. For reasons like these, Lysenkoism can be viewed as pseudo-scientific.

After World War II ended, Lysenko took an interest in the works of Olga Lepeshinskaya, an older feldsher and biologist, who claimed to be able to create cells from egg yolk and non-cellular matter. Lepeshinskaya recognized common ground between her ideas and Lysenko's. By combining both of their ideas it was possible to proclaim that cells could grow from non-cellular material and that the predicted ratios of Mendelian genetics and meiosis were incorrect, thus undermining the basis of modern cytology, as well as genetics.

Consequences of Lysenkoism

Lysenko forced farmers to plant seeds very close together since, according to his "law of the life of species", plants from the same "class" never compete with one another. Lysenko played an active role in the famines that killed millions of Soviet people and his practices prolonged and exacerbated the food shortages. The Soviet Union's allies suffered under Lysenkoism, too. Communist China adopted his methods in the late 1950s and endured even bigger famines. Peasants were reduced to eating tree bark and bird droppings. At least 30 million died of starvation.

Outside the Soviet Union, scientists spoke critically: British biologist S. C. Harland lamented that Lysenko was "completely ignorant of the elementary principles of genetics and plant physiology" (Bertram Wolfe, 2017). Criticism from foreigners did not sit well with Lysenko, who loathed Western "bourgeois" scientists and denounced them as tools of imperialist oppressors. He especially detested the American-born practice of studying fruit flies, the workhorse of modern genetics. He called such geneticists "fly lovers and people haters". 

Unable to silence Western critics, Lysenko tried to eliminate all dissent within the Soviet Union. Scientists who refused to renounce genetics found themselves at the mercy of the secret police. The lucky ones simply got dismissed from their posts and were left destitute. Hundreds if not thousands of others were rounded up and dumped into prisons or psychiatric hospitals. Several were sentenced to death as enemies of the state or starved in their jail cells (most notably the botanist Nikolai Vavilov). Before the 1930s, the Soviet Union had a strong genetics community. Lysenko gutted it, and by some accounts set Russian biology and agronomy back a half-century.

Politics

Trofim Lysenko out in the field working with his wheat. (c. 1920–1930)

During the early and mid twentieth century the Soviet Union went through war and revolution. Political oppression caused tension within the state but also promoted the flourishing of science. This was possible due to the flow of resources and demand for results. Lysenko aimed to manipulate various plants such as wheat and peas to increase their production, quality, and quantity. However, Lysenko in particular more so impressed political officials with his success in motivating peasants to return to farming.

The Soviet Union's collectivist reforms forced the confiscation of agricultural landholdings from peasant farmers and heavily damaged the country's overall food production, and the dispossessed peasant farmers posed new problems for the regime. Many had abandoned the farms altogether; many more waged resistance to collectivization by poor work quality and pilfering. The dislocated and disenchanted peasant farmers were a major political concern to the USSR's leadership. Lysenko became prominent during this period by advocating radical but unproven agricultural methods, and also promising that the new methods provided wider opportunities for year-round work in agriculture. He proved himself very useful to the Soviet leadership by reengaging peasants to return to work, helping to secure from them a personal stake in the overall success of the Soviet revolutionary experiment.

Timeline of Genetics and Science in the Soviet Union

Lysenko's success at encouraging farmers to return to working their lands impressed Stalin, who also approved of Lysenko's poor background, as Stalin stood with the proletariat. By the late 1920s, the USSR's leaders had given their support to Lysenko. This support was a consequence, in part, of policies put in place by the Communist Party to rapidly promote members of the proletariat into leadership positions in agriculture, science and industry. Party officials were looking for promising candidates with backgrounds similar to Lysenko's: born of a peasant family, without formal academic training or affiliations to the academic community. Due to close partnership between Stalin and Lysenko, Lysenko acquired an influence over genetics in the Soviet Union during the early and mid twentieth century. Lysenko eventually became the director of Genetics for the Academy of Sciences, which gave him even more control over genetics. He remained in the position for several years until some time after the fall of Stalin and later Nikita Khruschchev, when he was relieved of his duties.

Lysenkoism also played well into the Soviet theme occurring at that time, which was to "create the new Soviet man". The logic was that if people are able to inherit the acquired characteristics, it could be possible to create a better society. This led the leaders of the Soviet Union to hope that peasants could be turned into exceptional citizens. However, this was never one of Lysenko's intentions; he strongly opposed genetic engineering of humans and the eugenics movement.

After Stalin

Following Stalin's death in 1953, Lysenko retained his position, with the support of the new leader Nikita Khrushchev. However, mainstream scientists re-emerged, and found new willingness within Soviet government leadership to tolerate criticism of Lysenko, the first opportunity since the late 1920s. In 1962, three of the most prominent Soviet physicists, Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich, Vitaly Ginzburg, and Pyotr Kapitsa, presented a case against Lysenko, proclaiming his work as pseudoscience. They also denounced Lysenko's application of political power to silence opposition and eliminate his opponents within the scientific community. These denunciations occurred during a period of structural upheaval in Soviet government, during which the major institutions were purged of the strictly ideological and political machinations which had controlled the work of the Soviet Union's scientific community for several decades under Stalin.

In 1964, physicist Andrei Sakharov spoke out against Lysenko in the General Assembly of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR:

He is responsible for the shameful backwardness of Soviet biology and of genetics in particular, for the dissemination of pseudo-scientific views, for adventurism, for the degradation of learning, and for the defamation, firing, arrest, even death, of many genuine scientists.

The Soviet press was soon filled with anti-Lysenkoite articles and appeals for the restoration of scientific methods to all fields of biology and agricultural science. In 1965, Lysenko was removed from his post as director of the Institute of Genetics at the Academy of Sciences and restricted to an experimental farm in Moscow's Lenin Hills (the Institute itself was soon dissolved). After Khrushchev's dismissal in 1964, the president of the Academy of Sciences declared that Lysenko's immunity to criticism had officially ended. An expert commission was sent to investigate records kept at Lysenko's experimental farm. His secretive methods and ideas were revealed. A few months later, a devastating critique of Lysenko was made public. Consequently, Lysenko was immediately disgraced in the Soviet Union.

After Lysenko's monopoly on biology and agronomy had ended, it took many years for these sciences to recover in Russia. Lysenko died in Moscow in 1976, and was ultimately interred in the Kuntsevo Cemetery, although the Soviet government refused to announce Lysenko's death for two days after the event and gave his passing only a small note in Izvestia.