Brian J Ford | Cardiff University (original) (raw)
Videos by Brian J Ford
National ITV news report on microscope identified by Prof. Ford from mud in Delft, Netherlands in... more National ITV news report on microscope identified by Prof. Ford from mud in Delft, Netherlands in 2015.
2 views
Prof. Ford's reception after his address to microscopical Society of America, July 2014.
6 views
Extract of humorous asides during Prof. Ford's talk in Chicago.
4 views
Final remarks and lengthy applause after Prof. Ford's speech to the Microscopical Society of Amer... more Final remarks and lengthy applause after Prof. Ford's speech to the Microscopical Society of America. July 2014.
Presentation on the usurpation of science by Nonscience, an aquisitive enterprize that empowers E... more Presentation on the usurpation of science by Nonscience, an aquisitive enterprize that empowers Experts and gives them access to unaccountable sums of money with which they advance themselves, rather than society. Plagiarism is rife, and is flourishing among the highest echelons of academia.
An Evening with Brian No 36: for Inter/Micro 2020, McCrfone Research Institute, Chicago, Illinois.
6 views
Description of methods of coronavirus transmission, recommending cotton gloves to curtail manual ... more Description of methods of coronavirus transmission, recommending cotton gloves to curtail manual contact, and pointing out the problems with current protocols.
An Evening with Brian No 37: for Inter/Micro 2021. We have learnt few lessons from covid-19; and ... more An Evening with Brian No 37: for Inter/Micro 2021.
We have learnt few lessons from covid-19; and here we discover some novel approaches to the management of a pandemic, and find out where we have gone wrong.
#covid19 #pandemic #brianjford #intermicro
133 views
Extract from TV documentary FOOD FOR THOUGHT with Brian J Ford and Marion Bowman showing details ... more Extract from TV documentary FOOD FOR THOUGHT with Brian J Ford and Marion Bowman showing details of the 35 tons of food that the average British person consumes in 70 years.
Facing the unknown realities of living cells. Guest presentation at the 8th International Confe... more Facing the unknown realities of living cells.
Guest presentation at the 8th International Conference Science and Scientist 2020: Understanding the Subject/Object, Mind/Body Unity.
9 views
Lecture looking back at a lifetime in microscopy. Presentation on the award of the silver Ernst... more Lecture looking back at a lifetime in microscopy.
Presentation on the award of the silver Ernst Abbe medal from the New York Microscopical Society, 2020.
6 views
Critique of current covid-19 protocols, using ultraviolet to demonstrate virus persistence.
Opening lecture to the London debate on the aquatic dinosaur theory by Brian J Ford. Numerous sci... more Opening lecture to the London debate on the aquatic dinosaur theory by Brian J Ford. Numerous scientific papers and other sources are assembled to show that giant dinosaurs can only have evolved in an aquatic habitat.
7 views
Papers by Brian J Ford
Academia Biology, Oct 11, 2023
The related disciplines of ecology and evolution pay little heed to the essential driver of devel... more The related disciplines of ecology and evolution pay little heed to the essential driver of development, the single living cell. We cannot comprehend the realities of population dynamics and evolutionary impetus without the cell being at the heart of our considerations. Biologists emphasize the importance of the organism, and imperatives derived from Cartesian reductionism underpin contemporary interpretations of multicellular organisms and the manifestation of life in protists. We search for increased resolution and greater magnification; however, the crucial contribution of the entire single living cell is conventionally overlooked. Our failure to elucidate the mechanisms underpinning the phenomenology of response in the living cell is seen as a failure to interpret the physics of metabolic and sensory processes, but life transcends physics. The responsive behavior of living cells and their ability to solve novel problems have not been resolved, and our standard model physics is itself not up to the task. It is here posited that living organisms survive and proliferate through complex mechanisms inimical to conventional scientific analysis. To watch life at work it is the lower-power lens we need, not the high-resolution microscope.
Nature, 1981
AFTER not being seen since 1674, original specimens sent by the "father of the microscope", Anton... more AFTER not being seen since 1674, original specimens sent by the "father of the microscope", Antony van Leeuwenhoek, have been found to be still in existence. A systematic search through the four large files of his letters sent to the Royal Society, revealed nine little envelopes containing original material and fixed to the final pages of three of the letters. Only minute traces of one of the specimens ("tWitte van een schrijff-penne"-white from a writing-pen [quill]) remained, but the remainder were intact. The sectioned material was compressed into compact masses, but otherwise the specimens were in excellent condition. Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) lived and worked in Delft where he produced his own single-lens microscopes. His status as the founder of microscopy derives from decades of dedicated and accurate observation, faithfully recorded in lengthy letters most of which were sent to London. His observations of spermatozoa, bacteria and a host of histological specimens were without precedent. Many workers have since commented on the 'crudity' of his techniques, emphasizing that his material was examined whole, or 'torn apart', and it has become generally accepted that section-cutting did not begin until the middle years of the nineteenth century. The discovery of his specimens reveals two examples of plant material cut as fine sections. They are "Pit van vlier"-elder pith, and "Kurk"-cork. The conclusions that can be drawn from these specimens about seventeenth-century microtechnique are many (a fuller account by the author appears in the current Notes and Records of the Royal Society) but the central finding is that van Leeuwenhoek, working at the dawn of microscopy, could prepare by hand sections that would be acceptable for !~?oratory use today. D Brian J. Ford is in the Science Unit, Cardiff. "Stuckjens vande gesicht senuwe van een koebeest over dwars afgesneden''-pieces of optic nerve of a cow cut in transverse section. The specimens were attached to a letter dated I June 1674, and signed by van Leeuwenhoek, as shown below.
Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 2001
From the earliest years of the Society until the start of the Third Millennium, Fellows of the So... more From the earliest years of the Society until the start of the Third Millennium, Fellows of the Society have been actively developing the microscope and its uses, from Robert Hooke's pioneering microscopy to the varied forms of the electron microscope. With it they have elucidated the structure of matter, from oolitic limestone to bread, and the nature of living organisms, from microbes in vinegar to current studies of DNA and the folding of proteins.
Brain, Mind and Medicine: Essays in Eighteenth-Century Neuroscience, 2007
Advances in Imaging and Electron Physics, 2009
National ITV news report on microscope identified by Prof. Ford from mud in Delft, Netherlands in... more National ITV news report on microscope identified by Prof. Ford from mud in Delft, Netherlands in 2015.
2 views
Prof. Ford's reception after his address to microscopical Society of America, July 2014.
6 views
Extract of humorous asides during Prof. Ford's talk in Chicago.
4 views
Final remarks and lengthy applause after Prof. Ford's speech to the Microscopical Society of Amer... more Final remarks and lengthy applause after Prof. Ford's speech to the Microscopical Society of America. July 2014.
Presentation on the usurpation of science by Nonscience, an aquisitive enterprize that empowers E... more Presentation on the usurpation of science by Nonscience, an aquisitive enterprize that empowers Experts and gives them access to unaccountable sums of money with which they advance themselves, rather than society. Plagiarism is rife, and is flourishing among the highest echelons of academia.
An Evening with Brian No 36: for Inter/Micro 2020, McCrfone Research Institute, Chicago, Illinois.
6 views
Description of methods of coronavirus transmission, recommending cotton gloves to curtail manual ... more Description of methods of coronavirus transmission, recommending cotton gloves to curtail manual contact, and pointing out the problems with current protocols.
An Evening with Brian No 37: for Inter/Micro 2021. We have learnt few lessons from covid-19; and ... more An Evening with Brian No 37: for Inter/Micro 2021.
We have learnt few lessons from covid-19; and here we discover some novel approaches to the management of a pandemic, and find out where we have gone wrong.
#covid19 #pandemic #brianjford #intermicro
133 views
Extract from TV documentary FOOD FOR THOUGHT with Brian J Ford and Marion Bowman showing details ... more Extract from TV documentary FOOD FOR THOUGHT with Brian J Ford and Marion Bowman showing details of the 35 tons of food that the average British person consumes in 70 years.
Facing the unknown realities of living cells. Guest presentation at the 8th International Confe... more Facing the unknown realities of living cells.
Guest presentation at the 8th International Conference Science and Scientist 2020: Understanding the Subject/Object, Mind/Body Unity.
9 views
Lecture looking back at a lifetime in microscopy. Presentation on the award of the silver Ernst... more Lecture looking back at a lifetime in microscopy.
Presentation on the award of the silver Ernst Abbe medal from the New York Microscopical Society, 2020.
6 views
Critique of current covid-19 protocols, using ultraviolet to demonstrate virus persistence.
Opening lecture to the London debate on the aquatic dinosaur theory by Brian J Ford. Numerous sci... more Opening lecture to the London debate on the aquatic dinosaur theory by Brian J Ford. Numerous scientific papers and other sources are assembled to show that giant dinosaurs can only have evolved in an aquatic habitat.
7 views
Academia Biology, Oct 11, 2023
The related disciplines of ecology and evolution pay little heed to the essential driver of devel... more The related disciplines of ecology and evolution pay little heed to the essential driver of development, the single living cell. We cannot comprehend the realities of population dynamics and evolutionary impetus without the cell being at the heart of our considerations. Biologists emphasize the importance of the organism, and imperatives derived from Cartesian reductionism underpin contemporary interpretations of multicellular organisms and the manifestation of life in protists. We search for increased resolution and greater magnification; however, the crucial contribution of the entire single living cell is conventionally overlooked. Our failure to elucidate the mechanisms underpinning the phenomenology of response in the living cell is seen as a failure to interpret the physics of metabolic and sensory processes, but life transcends physics. The responsive behavior of living cells and their ability to solve novel problems have not been resolved, and our standard model physics is itself not up to the task. It is here posited that living organisms survive and proliferate through complex mechanisms inimical to conventional scientific analysis. To watch life at work it is the lower-power lens we need, not the high-resolution microscope.
Nature, 1981
AFTER not being seen since 1674, original specimens sent by the "father of the microscope", Anton... more AFTER not being seen since 1674, original specimens sent by the "father of the microscope", Antony van Leeuwenhoek, have been found to be still in existence. A systematic search through the four large files of his letters sent to the Royal Society, revealed nine little envelopes containing original material and fixed to the final pages of three of the letters. Only minute traces of one of the specimens ("tWitte van een schrijff-penne"-white from a writing-pen [quill]) remained, but the remainder were intact. The sectioned material was compressed into compact masses, but otherwise the specimens were in excellent condition. Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) lived and worked in Delft where he produced his own single-lens microscopes. His status as the founder of microscopy derives from decades of dedicated and accurate observation, faithfully recorded in lengthy letters most of which were sent to London. His observations of spermatozoa, bacteria and a host of histological specimens were without precedent. Many workers have since commented on the 'crudity' of his techniques, emphasizing that his material was examined whole, or 'torn apart', and it has become generally accepted that section-cutting did not begin until the middle years of the nineteenth century. The discovery of his specimens reveals two examples of plant material cut as fine sections. They are "Pit van vlier"-elder pith, and "Kurk"-cork. The conclusions that can be drawn from these specimens about seventeenth-century microtechnique are many (a fuller account by the author appears in the current Notes and Records of the Royal Society) but the central finding is that van Leeuwenhoek, working at the dawn of microscopy, could prepare by hand sections that would be acceptable for !~?oratory use today. D Brian J. Ford is in the Science Unit, Cardiff. "Stuckjens vande gesicht senuwe van een koebeest over dwars afgesneden''-pieces of optic nerve of a cow cut in transverse section. The specimens were attached to a letter dated I June 1674, and signed by van Leeuwenhoek, as shown below.
Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 2001
From the earliest years of the Society until the start of the Third Millennium, Fellows of the So... more From the earliest years of the Society until the start of the Third Millennium, Fellows of the Society have been actively developing the microscope and its uses, from Robert Hooke's pioneering microscopy to the varied forms of the electron microscope. With it they have elucidated the structure of matter, from oolitic limestone to bread, and the nature of living organisms, from microbes in vinegar to current studies of DNA and the folding of proteins.
Brain, Mind and Medicine: Essays in Eighteenth-Century Neuroscience, 2007
Advances in Imaging and Electron Physics, 2009
Journal of Microscopy, 1982
SUMMARY A section of elder-pith cut from Sambucus nigra in May 1674 by the pioneer Dutch microsco... more SUMMARY A section of elder-pith cut from Sambucus nigra in May 1674 by the pioneer Dutch microscopist, Antony van Leeuwenhoek, has been imaged under SEM, a modern Leitz photomicroscope, and the original Leeuwenhoek microscope at the University of ...
Journal of Microscopy, 1972
SUMMARY A single-drop method is described in which blood specimens may be observed in dynamic coa... more SUMMARY A single-drop method is described in which blood specimens may be observed in dynamic coagulation, in an artificially produced cellular environment. The method is eminently suitable for rapid, repeatable observations of hæmostatic phenomena on a ...
Notes and Records of the Royal Society …, 1981
Downloaded from rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org on December 21, 2010 37 THE VAN LEEUWENHOEK SPECI... more Downloaded from rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org on December 21, 2010 37 THE VAN LEEUWENHOEK SPECIMENS By Brian J. Ford Science Unit, Mill Park House, 57 Westville Road, Cardiff [Plates 1 to 6] Introduction IN May 1674 the pioneer Dutch microscopist Antony van ...
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It was on reading the first Chapter that I wondered for whom the book was written. This chapter, ... more It was on reading the first Chapter that I wondered for whom the book was written. This chapter, on the cell's nutritional needs, attempts to cover a very wide subject in a few pages, and I found it rather confusing. On the same pages that we are told that sucrose is cane ...
infocus Magazine, Mar 6, 2012
Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology
Traditions of Eastern thought conceptualised life in a holistic sense, emphasising the processes ... more Traditions of Eastern thought conceptualised life in a holistic sense, emphasising the processes of maintaining health and conquering sickness as manifestations of an essentially spiritual principle that was of overriding importance in the conduct of living. Western science, which drove the overriding and partial eclipse of Eastern traditions, became founded on a reductionist quest for ultimate realities which, in the modern scientific world, has embraced the notion that every living process can be successfully modelled by a digital computer system. It is argued here that the essential processes of cognition, response and decision-making inherent in living cells transcend conventional modelling, and microscopic studies of organisms like the shell-building amoebae and the rhodophyte alga Antithamnion reveal a level of cellular intelligence that is unrecognized by science and is not amenable to computer analysis.
Institute of Biology: the first Fifty Years, 2000
The Institute’s origins are retold by the volume editor Brian J Ford, the 1950s by Mike Buttolph,... more The Institute’s origins are retold by the volume editor Brian J Ford, the 1950s by Mike Buttolph, the 1960s by Harry Grenville, the 1970s by Bernard Thomason, the 1980s by Chris Smith, and the 1990s by Wilson Wall. The individual contributions that alternate with each chapter provide personal insights and reminiscences from different areas of Institute life. First is a section by John Cloudsley-Thompson, who worked under one of our Institute’s founders, Jim Danielli, in the early 1950s, and reminds us of the era of our first General Secretary. The theme is continued in the section written by our outgoing President John Norris, who looks back on how he became a member and reflects on changing attitudes to biology. A flavour of Council meetings is given in David Morgan’s contribution, who reminds us all of the important rôle of the conferences organised by the Institute’s committees. The Vice-President’s view is contributed by Diana Anderson, who discusses the International Diploma in Toxicology of the Institute as an example of how we can offer accreditation in biology.
Single Lens, Story of the Sinmple Microscope, 1985
An accout of Linnaeus's microscopy, the only account published in a book.