biology

William F. Martin

William F. Martin is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand William F. Martin rather than just read about it. In short: William Martin (born February 16, 1957, in Bethesda, Maryland) is an American botanist and microbiologist, currently Head of the Institut für Molekulare Evolution, Heinrich Heine Universität, Düsseldorf. Born in Bethesda, Maryland, Martin was educated at Richland College, Dallas, Texas, and Texas A&M University.

Key takeaways

William F. Martin belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect William F. Martin to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of William F. Martin from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

William Martin (born February 16, 1957, in Bethesda, Maryland) is an American botanist and microbiologist, currently Head of the Institut für Molekulare Evolution, Heinrich Heine Universität, Düsseldorf. Born in Bethesda, Maryland, Martin was educated at Richland College, Dallas, Texas, and Texas A&M University. After working as a carpenter in Dallas, Martin moved to Hannover, Germany, and obtained his university Diploma from Technische Universität Hannover in 1985. Martin's PhD is from Max-Planck-Institut für Züchtungsforschung, Cologne, where he did postdoctoral research, followed by further postdoctoral work at Institut für Genetik, Technische Universität Braunschweig, where he obtained his Habilitation in 1992. In 1999, Martin became full (C4) professor at Universität Düsseldorf. Martin is a distinguished and sometimes controversial contributor to the field of molecular evolution and the origin of life. He is known particularly for his work on the evolution of the Calvin cycle and plastids including chloroplasts, and, more generally, for contributions to understanding the origin and evolution of eukaryotic cells. Martin is co-author, with Miklos Mueller of Rockefeller University, of the 1998 paper The Hydrogen hypothesis for the first eukaryote. A wealth of subsequent research papers include contributions, independently and with Michael J. Russell of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to understanding the geochemical origins of cells and their biochemical pathways. Martin's work is well cited (nearly 30,000 times) and he has an h-index of 95.

Awards 1990: Heinz Maier-Leibnitz-Preis of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft 1997: Technology Transfer Prize, Industrie und Handelskammer Braunschweig 1998: Miescher-Ishida Prize of the International Society of Endocytobiology 2017: Spiridion Brusina Medal of the Croatian Society of Natural Sciences. 2018: Preis der Klüh Stiftung

Honours 2000-2007 Foreign Associate, CIAR Programme in Evolutionary Biology 2001- Faculty 1000 Member for Plant Genomes and Evolution 2006- Elected Fellow, American Academy for Microbiology 2006-2009 Julius von Haast Fellow of the New Zealand Ministry for Research, Science and Technology 2008 Elected Member of the Nordrhein-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften

Selected publications Martin, W; Mueller, M (1998). "The hydrogen hypothesis for the first eukaryote". Nature. 392 (6671): 37–41. Bibcode:1998Natur.392...37M. doi:10.1038/32096. PMID 9510246. S2CID 338885. Martin, W; Stoebe, B; Goremykin, V; Hansmann, S; Hasegawa, M; Kowallik, KV (1998). "Gene transfer to the nucleus and the evolution of chloroplasts". Nature. 393 (6681): 162–165. Bibcode:1998Natur.393..162M. doi:10.1038/30234. PMID 11560168. S2CID 205000315. Race, HL; Herrmann, RG; Martin, W (1999). "Why have organelles retained genomes?" (PDF). Trends in Genetics. 15 (9): 364–370. doi:10.1016/s0168-9525(99)01766-7. PMID 10461205. Martin, W; Rujan, T; Richly, E; Hansen, A; Cornelsen, S; Lins, T; Leister, D; Stoebe, B; Hasegawa, M; Penny, D (2002). "Evolutionary analysis of Arabidopsis, cyanobacterial, and chloroplast genomes reveals plastid phylogeny and thousands of cyanobacterial genes in the nucleus". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 99 (19): 12246–12251. Bibcode:2002PNAS...9912246M. doi:10.1073/pnas.182432999. PMC 129430. PMID 12218172. Martin, W; Russell, MJ (2003). "On the origins of cells: An hypothesis for the evolutionary transitions from abiotic geochemistry to chemoautotrophic prokaryotes, and from prokaryotes to nucleated cells". Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B. 358 (1429): 59–85. doi:10.1098/rstb.2002.1183. PMC 1693102. PMID 12594918. Weiss, MC; Sousa, FL; Mrnjavac, N; Neukirchen, S; Roettger, M; Nelson-Sathi, S; Martin, WF (2016). "The physiology and habitat of the last universal common ancestor". Nature Microbiology. 1 (9): 16116. doi:10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.116. PMID 27562259. S2CID 2997255.

References

External links

Molecular Evolution

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with William F. Martin

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what William F. Martin claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to William F. Martin before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about William F. Martin ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of William F. Martin

In research: William F. Martin appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses William F. Martin in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: William F. Martin is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1957 births, 21st-century American biologists, American evolutionary biologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for William F. Martin outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study William F. Martin in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what William F. Martin means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain William F. Martin out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is William F. Martin in simple terms?

Why does William F. Martin matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study William F. Martin?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on William F. Martin.