|
Arabic
Bengali
Chinese
English
French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Malay
Polish
Portuguese
Spanish
Turkish
Ukrainian
Vietnamese|
BIOGRAPHIES OF GREAT SCIENTISTS
Morgan Thomas Hunt. Biography of a scientist
Directory / Biographies of great scientists
Thomas Hunt Morgan was born September 25, 1866 in Lexington, Kentucky. His father Charlton Hunt Morgan, US Consul in Sicily, was a relative of the famous magnate J.P. Morgan, his mother was Ellen Kay Morgan. From childhood, Thomas showed an interest in natural history. He enters the University of Kentucky and graduates in 1886. In the summer immediately after graduation, he went to the naval station at Ennisquam on the Atlantic coast, north of Boston. This was the last year of the existence of the local laboratory. The following year, the group that organized and ran this laboratory came to Woods Hole. In Ennisquam, Thomas was first introduced to marine life. This acquaintance captured him, and from then on the study of marine forms attracted his special interest throughout his life. He did his graduate work under the guidance of William Keith Brooks, a marine biologist. Brooks was an excellent teacher who trained a whole generation of eminent American zoologists. In 1888, Morgan moved to Woods Hole, and in the summer of that year he began working at the State Fishing Station. In 1890, Thomas returned to Woods Hole at the Marine Biological Station, and spent most of the rest of his life summering here. In the same year, Morgan succeeded as department head at Brian Mawr College. In 1897 he was elected one of the trustees of the maritime station, and he remained so all his life. That was the year the station and its management were taken over by the Young Turks, and Morgan was one of the new trustees chosen at this critical period. At the same time, Wilson from the University of Chicago appeared at the station. It was Wilson who, in 1904, persuaded him to take up a professorship at Columbia University. For twenty-four years they worked in very close association. Like most zoological biologists of his time, Morgan was educated in comparative anatomy and especially descriptive embryology. His dissertation dealt with the embryology of a species of sea spider and was based on material he collected at Woods Hole. This work was based on descriptive embryological data with conclusions extending into the realm of phylogeny. Morgan, like some of his Johns Hopkins contemporaries, was heavily influenced by H. Newell Martin, who was a physiologist and student of T. H. Huxley. It is likely from him that Morgan acquired his penchant for physiological approaches to biology. He had an early interest in experimental embryology. Morgan spent two summers at the Naples Biological Station, where he first went in 1890, and then in 1895. Here he met and made friends with many of those who contributed to the development of experimental embryology: with Driesch, Boveri, Dorn and Herbst. Although Morgan was already an experimental embryologist himself, it was this communication that really directed his interests in this direction. They formed a group of researchers, very active both abroad and in the United States. It was an exciting time, because scientists had a new approach to everything and new questions constantly arose. The problems that Morgan and other embryologists were then working to solve concerned the extent to which development depends on or is influenced by specific formative substances supposedly present in the egg. How are these formative substances involved in development and how do they function? The young scientist was also engaged in physiological research, but genetics brought him real fame. At the end of the 3th century, Morgan visited the garden of Hugh de Vries in Amsterdam, where he saw the defriz lines of evening primrose. It was then that he showed his first interest in mutations. Whitman, director of the Woods Hole Biological Station, who was an experimental geneticist, also played a role in Morgan's reorientation. He devoted many years to the study of hybrids between different species of doves and pigeons, but did not want to apply the Mendelian approach. This is understandable, since the pigeons in this case get, to put it mildly, a hodgepodge. Strange signs that do not give a beautiful ratio of 1: XNUMX confused Morgan, and for the time being, he did not see a way out. Thus, before 1910, Morgan could rather be considered an anti-Mendelist. In that year, the scientist began to study mutations - inherited changes in certain signs of the body. Morgan conducted his experiments on Drosophila, small fruit flies. With his light hand, they have become a favorite object of genetic research in hundreds of laboratories. They are easy to get, they are found everywhere, they feed on plant sap, any fruit rot, and the larvae absorb bacteria. The breeding energy of Drosophila is huge: from an egg to an adult, it takes ten days. For geneticists, it is also important that Drosophila are subject to frequent hereditary changes; they have few chromosomes (only four pairs), the cells of the salivary glands of fly larvae contain giant chromosomes, they are especially convenient for research. With the help of the fly, genetics has made many discoveries to date. The popularity of Drosophila is so great that a yearbook devoted to it is published in English, containing abundant and varied information. Having started his experiments, Morgan first obtained fruit flies in grocers and fruit shops, since the shopkeepers, who were annoyed by the flies, willingly allowed the eccentric to catch them. Then, together with his coworkers, he began to breed flies in his laboratory, in a large room, dubbed "fly". It was a thirty-five-square-meter room with eight work stations. They also cooked food for flies. There were usually at least five workers in the room. It is now clear that Morgan's experimental technique was simply not suitable for detecting the increase in mutation rate that would have occurred under the influence of radium. Nevertheless, the scientist received mutations, began to study them, and everything that followed came from these supposedly spontaneous mutations. The first of these mutations, not the first one found, but the first one that really mattered, was the white-eye trait, which turned out to be sex-linked. It was a big discovery. Since 1911, Morgan and his associates began to publish a series of works in which experimentally, based on numerous experiments with Drosophila, it was proved that genes are material particles that determine hereditary variability, and that their carriers are the chromosomes of the cell nucleus. Then the chromosomal theory of heredity was formulated in general terms, which confirmed and reinforced the laws discovered by Mendel. One of the associates of the scientist Alfred Sturtevant recalled: "I'm afraid I can't give you an idea of the atmosphere that prevailed in the laboratory. I think it was something that must be experienced to be fully appreciated. One of the greatest advantages of this place was the presence of both Morgan and Wilson. So the students who specialized in one of them saw the other very often. They complemented the other in a number of ways and were great friends. During our early years at Columbia University, we fed fruit flies bananas, and there was always a big bunch of bananas hanging in the corner of the room. Wilson's room was across a few doors from ours, down the corridor.He was very fond of bananas, so there was another motivating reason to frequent the "fly room". Throughout this time, Morgan made regular visits to Woods Hole. This, however, did not mean a break in experiments with Drosophila. All cultures were packed in casks - large casks of sugar, and sent by express steamer. What you started in New York, you ended up in Hole, and vice versa. We always came by water: that was the time when the Fall River Line was in operation, and Morgan was always doing all sorts of experiments that had nothing to do with fruit fly. He raised chickens, rats and mice, grew various plants. And it was all carried by hand, and loaded onto the Fall River Line ship, and then brought back to New York. And when Morgan got here, he plunged headlong into working with marine forms, into the embryology of one variety or another, even though work with Drosophila was actively moving forward in the meantime. That was Morgan's style of work - he did not feel happy if he did not forge several things from the hot at the same time. Morgan came from an aristocratic family, but was devoid of any arrogance or snobbery. When the Russian scientist Nikolai Vavilov came to Morgan, he knew well the work of the Colombian laboratory. It seemed unlikely to Vavilov that genes could be located on a chromosome, like beads on a string, and such an idea seemed to him mechanistic. Vavilov expressed all this to Morgan, expecting sharp, even, perhaps, in an arrogant tone, objections from the world-famous geneticist. Nikolai Ivanovich, of course, could not know the features of the character of the famous scientist. After listening carefully to Vavilov, Morgan suddenly said that the idea that the genes are located linearly on the chromosome somehow did not like him. If anyone gets evidence that this is not so, he will readily accept them. Was there a share of hidden irony inherent in this answer of Morgan, because the American liked to tease, liked to play? One of his scientist friends admitted that he often argued with Morgan, but whenever he began to think that his arguments had prevailed, he suddenly found that, without understanding how this happened, he was arguing from the opposite, losing side. . This is how a brilliant scientist could arrange it. But, on the other hand, Morgan was always friendly, always ready to help, and if you wanted to discuss something with him seriously, whether it was scientific or personal matters, he was always ready to provide support. Morgan's general task, which he sought to solve with his biological activity, was to give a materialistic interpretation of the phenomena of life. In biological explanations, what irritated him most was any suggestion that there was a purpose. He was always reserved about the idea of the existence of natural selection, since it seemed to him that this opens the door to explaining biological phenomena in terms that presuppose the existence of a goal. He could be persuaded and convinced that there was absolutely nothing in this idea that would not be materialistic, but he never liked it, so he had to convince him of this again and again every few months. Morgan's two most abusive words were: "metaphysical" and "mystical". The word "metaphysical" meant for him something connected with philosophical dogma, some kind of explanation, inaccessible to the verification of experience. In 1928, Morgan moved to the California Institute of Technology in order to organize a new biological department. What interested him in this enterprise was the opportunity to organize the department as he wanted, and, moreover, at an institute where physics and chemistry were at their best, where a research atmosphere reigned, and where work with students was aimed at growing researchers out of them. . Morgan remained at the institute until his death, but he returned regularly to Woods Hole every summer. For ten years, Morgan's students managed to study three hundred generations of fruit flies. In the thirties, Vavilov wrote: “The laws of Mendel and Morgan formed the basis of modern scientific ideas about heredity, on which breeding work is built, both with plant and animal organisms ... Among biologists of the XNUMXth century, Morgan stands out as a brilliant experimental geneticist, as a researcher exclusive range. Morgan died on December 4, 1945. Author: Samin D.K.
Machine for thinning flowers in gardens
02.05.2024 Advanced Infrared Microscope
02.05.2024 Air trap for insects
01.05.2024
▪ New suspended speaker system ▪ Smartphone case with airbags ▪ The spacecraft will fly to the sun
▪ site section Color and music installations. Selection of articles ▪ article by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. Famous aphorisms ▪ article How many types of insects exist in nature? Detailed answer ▪ article Snowberry racemosus. Legends, cultivation, methods of application ▪ article Another stroboscope. Encyclopedia of radio electronics and electrical engineering ▪ article Flying cards. Focus Secret
Home page | Library | Articles | Website map | Site Reviews
www.diagram.com.ua |
We recommend interesting articles Section 
See other articles Section 
Latest news of science and technology, new electronics:
All languages of this page