Showing papers by "Max F. Perutz published in 1997"

By What Right Do We Invoke Human Rights

Abstract: I have tried to trace the development of human rights from antiquity to the present day by quoting a succession of great thinkers from Pericles, St Paul and Marcus Aurelius to John Locke, Montesquieu and John Stuart Mill. I also quote the key provisions of covenants and resolutions from Magna Carta to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I list the many shameful countries where torture is still in constant use, and the very few where suspects are not subjected to inhuman treatments. I deplore our exclusive preoccupation with rights which has made us forget about human duties. Finally, I discuss some of the criticisms that have been made of the concept of human rights.

The Significance of the Hydrogen Bond for Physiology

Abstract: For Christmas 1939 a girl friend presented me with a book token — I used it to buy Linus Pauling’s newly published Nature of the Chemical Bond 1 which I would otherwise not have been able to afford. I found in it the following passage: “Although the hydrogen bond is not strong it has great significance in determining the properties of substances. Because of its small bond energy and the small activation energy involved in its formation and rupture, the hydrogen bond is especially suited to play a part in reactions occurring at normal temperatures. It has been recognized that hydrogen bonds restrain protein molecules to their native configurations, and I believe that as the methods of structural chemistry are further applied to physiological problems it will be found that the significance of the hydrogen bond for physiology is greater than that of any other single structural feature.”

Chapter 2 Keilin and the molteno

Abstract: Publisher Summary David Keilin, born on 21 March 1887, was Lecturer in Parasitology at Cambridge University from 1925 to 1931 and Quick Professor of Biology from then until his retirement in 1954. He first distinguished himself with the discovery of the life cycles of flies whose larvae develop parasitically in animals and plants, and are themselves parasitized by micro-organisms. Keilin then made his fame with the discovery and characterization of a system of colored enzymes, the cytochromes, which turn the chemical energy gained by the combustion of foodstuffs into a form that organisms can use for growth, movement, reproduction, and even for thought. Keilin did most of his life's work at the Molteno Institute. Keilin showed lecture demonstrations and always took a special delight in projecting the porphyrin spectrum from a feather of the turaco bird. The spectroscope was his favorite instrument using which he first discovered the absorption bands of the cytochrome system in the thoracic muscle of the fly Gastrophilus intestinalis .