Abstract
DR. J. E. HARRIS, of Christ's College, Cambridge, has been awarded a Messel research fellowship in biology by the Royal Society as from January 1. Dr. Harris held a Commonwealth Fund fellowship at Columbia University and the Guggenheim School of Aeronautics in 1933-35, and has since been University demonstrator in zoology at Cambridge. He proposes to investigate how far current morphological views on the evolution of the fins of fish are substantiated by a study of the functions of these organs. From an analysis of the effect of the fins on an accurate model of the dogfish suspended in a wind tunnel, it has been found possible to draw fairly definite conclusions concerning the action of these fins on the static stability of the living fish. It seems likely that an extension of these methods to other types will throw light on the relationship between the form of the fins and the habits and possible course of evolution of the different groups. The work will be combined with a study of the neuro-muscular mechanism and of the forces produced by actively moving fins, the methods available for such study having already proved adequate. It is hoped that time will also permit of the confirmation and interpretation of Dr. Harris's somewhat striking observation, that there exists in the nucleus of the unfertilized egg Of echinoderms a physical polarity which can be demonstrated by observations on the rate of free fall of the nucleolus in the germinal vesicle. Dr. Harris will work at Cambridge and possibly also at the Tortugas Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and the Guggenheim School of Aeronautics, New York.
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Messel Research Fellowship. Nature 139, 19 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/139019b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/139019b0