This volume summarises the lecture and poster sessions of a NATO advanced workshop held in Edinburgh, July 15th-19th, 1985. The workshop was held to bring together plant scientists of many different disciplines but who share a common interest in the regulatory role of calcium in plant development. Although this volume covers the formal proceedings, an equal length of time was devoted to discussion both in large and small groups. A little of the flavour of the directions and character of the discussions will be found in the final article by David Clarkson which was written to cover this other...

In the summer of 1976 a successful workshop on nucleic acids and protein synthesis in plant systems was organised in Strasbourg by Jacques Weil and Lawrence Bogorad. The participants in the workshop, were, without exception, excited both by the quality of the work discussed and by the rapid progress being made in several areas of genomic analysis and expression in plants. It also became apparent that there was a need for an international assembly of this sort at regular intervals. These workshops not only encourage stim ulating discussion and constructive thinking but also result in increased...

The physiological role of histamine in gastric secretion has been controversial since Popielski demonstrated that histamine sti mulates this secretion. The results using H2-receptor antagonists, together with the findings that histamine is produced and stored in the fundic mucosa and released upon vagal or hormonal stimulation, indicate that this amine is the major physiological stimulant of the parietal cells. The concepts of histamine as a 'final common chemo stimulator' of parietal cells, and as part of a 'multi-messenger' potentiating interaction of various hormonal secretagogues on...