Phosphatides and Phosphagens

The important phosphorus compounds in organisms are much more complex than the simple salts, to which Nietzsche attributed such influence on man’s character. Long before he wrote, it was known that phosphoric acid combines not only with inorganic bases to form salts, but with alcohols to form esters. In the middle of the 19th century, Théophile Juste Pelouze (1807-1867) extended this knowledge to an ester of glycerol. This proved to be significant...

Phosphates as Plant Nutrients

One hundred years after the discovery of “cold light,” the presence of phosphorus in plants and animals was ascertained, and its form was established as a compound of phosphoric acid. This knowledge had little practical effect until the “nature” of the acid, in its various forms, was explained through the work of Thomas Graham. From it, there started a considerable technical development. At about that time (1833), the Duke of Richmond proved that...

THE ELEMENT FROM ANIMALS AND PLANTS - HISTORY OF PHOSPHORUS

t was a little late to search for the philosophers’ stone in 1669, yet it was in such a search that phosphorus was discovered. Wilhelm Homberg (1652-1715) described it in the following manner: Brand, [Pg 179]“a man little known, of low birth, with a bizarre and mysterious nature in all he did, found this luminous matter while searching for something else. He was a glassmaker by profession, but he had abandoned it in order to be free for the pursuit...

The Dancing Mouse A Study in Animal Behavior - Chapter III

BEHAVIOR: DANCE MOVEMENTS The peculiarities of behavior of the dancing mouse are responsible alike for the widespread interest which it has aroused, and for its name. In a little book on fancy varieties of mice, in which there is much valuable information concerning the care of the animals, one who styles himself "An old fancier" writes thus of the behavior of the dancer: "I believe most people have an idea that the waltzing is a stately dance executed on the hind feet; this is not so. The performer simply goes round and round on all fours,...