Reflections on Natural History
Posted by Paul O'Neill, on 7 February 2011
One of the highlights of working at RIKEN CDB is undoubtedly the arrival upon my desk of “Library News”. Within this publication lies the eclectic column written by institute deputy director Shigeru Kuratani. These bimonthly articles are lively and often illuminating insights into the field of evolutionary morphology, frequently embracing topics such as art, literature, philosophy, and architecture.
There is plenty to entertain developmental biologists, including reviews of several classic anatomy texts such as De Beer’s “The Development of the Vertebrate Skull” and Ramón y Cajal’s “Histology of the Nervous System of Man and Vertebrates”. The pursuit of rare texts and prints is a common theme in many issues and a real sense of enthusiasm for science, history, and adventure is evident as Dr. Kuratani details his quests for classic anatomical text books throughout his career, for treasured natural history plates from the antiquarian markets on the banks of the Seine, and for particular rare specimens of moths resident in the mountains of Japan.
An enlightening and entertaining way to pass time over a cup of coffee, these library columns are now available from the Kuratani lab website (http://www.cdb.riken.jp/emo/clm.html).
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Thanks for the link, Paul. I just read Kuratani’s most recent column (on architecture and morphology). Good coffee reading indeed!