Brian J. FordHonFLSHonFRMS (born 1939 in
Corsham, Wiltshire[1]) is an independent research biologist, author, and lecturer, who publishes on scientific issues for the general public. He has also been a television personality for more than 40 years. Ford is an international authority on the microscope.[2] Throughout his career, Ford has been associated with many academic bodies. He was elected a Fellow of Cardiff University in 1986, was appointed Visiting Professor at the University of Leicester,[3] and has been awarded Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Microscopical Society[4] and of the Linnean Society of London.[5] In America, he was awarded the inaugural Köhler Medal[6] and was recently recipient of the Ernst Abbe medal awarded by the New York Microscopical Society.[7] In 2004 he was awarded a personal fellowship from NESTA,[8] the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. During those three years he delivered 150 lectures in scores of countries, meeting 10,000 people in over 350 universities around the world.
President (and now President Emeritus) of University of Cambridge Society for the Application of Research[15]
Learned Societies
Fellow of the
Linnean Society - serving as a member of their council as their Zoological Secretary and is their honorary surveyor of scientific instruments[9]
Fellow of the
Institute of Biology - a former member of their council and chairman of their history network[9] (He also edited: Institute of Biology: The First Fifty Years which is devoted to the history of this Institute.[16])
He was the first British President of the European Union of Science Journalists' Associations,[citation needed] founding Chairman of the Science and Technology Authors Committee at the
Society of Authors, [citation needed] and the president of the Cambridge Society for the Application of Research (CSAR) of Cambridge University.[17] Ford has been a member of
Mensa and was a director of British Mensa from 1993–1997, resigning a few months after being elected for a second term.[18][19] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society in 1962.
2012 aquatic dinosaur hypothesis
In the April 2012 issue of Laboratory News, Ford put forward the idea that all large dinosaurs were aquatic, arguing that they were too large and heavy to be land animals.[20] Recent oxygen
isotope analysis and taphonomic changes show clear evidence for a semi-aquatic lifestyle, however only for the
Spinosaurus, so far no
sauropod or
ornithischian has been conclusively shown to be semi-aquatic,[21][22][23] although the small
ankylosaurianLiaoningosaurus has been suggested to have had such a lifestyle.[24]
Patterns of sex, the mating urge and our sexual future,
ISBN0-354-04375-7. UK, Macdonald and Janes, 1979.
ISBN0-312-59811-4. USA, St Martin's Press, 1980.
"The recovery, removal, and reconstruction of human skeletal remains, some new techniques", chapter in Field manual for museums. Paris,
UNESCO, 1970.
"Récuperation, enlèvement et reconstitution des ossements", chapter in Musées et recherches sur le terrain. Paris,
UNESCO, 1970.
Brian J Ford explains why he considers Cardiff the most unappreciated city in the world, chapter in The Cardiff book,
ISBN0-900807-05-9. Barry: Stewart Williams Publishers, 1973.
"Discharge to the environment of viruses in wastewater, sludges and aerosols", chapter with JS Slade in Viral pollution of the environment, ed: G Berg,
ISBN0-8493-6245-8. Boca Raton,
CRC Press, 1983.
"Sexually transmitted diseases", chapter in Sex and Your Health ed J Bevan,
ISBN0-85533-571-8. London, Mitchell Beazley, 1985.
"Las Enfermedades de Transmisión Sexual y Otras que las Imitan", chapter in El Sexo y la Salud ed J Bevan,
ISBN84-320-4570-5. Barcelona, Editorial Planeta, 1985.
"Witnessing the birth of the microscope", photoessay in Millennium yearbook of science and the future,
ISBN0-85229-703-3. Chicago,
Encyclopædia Britannica, 2000.
"Eighteenth-century scientific publishing", chapter in Scientific books, libraries and collectors,
ISBN1-85928-233-4. London, Thornton & Tully, 2000.
"Hidden secrets in the Royal Society archive", chapter 3 in Biological collections and biodiversity, eds BS Rushton, P Hackney and CR Tyrie,
ISBN1-84103-005-8. Otley, Westbury Academic and Scientific Publishing, 2001.
"Human behaviour and the changing pattern of disease", chapter in The changing face of disease, implications for society,
ISBN0-415-32280-4. London and Boca Raton,
CRC Press, 2004.
"Microscopy in early neurology" [in] Whitaker, Harry; Smith, C. U. M. & Finger, Stan, (editors) Brain, Mind and Medicine: essays in 18th century neuroscience,
ISBN0387709665.
Springer, 2007.
"Did Physics matter to the Pioneers of Microscopy?" [in] Advances in Imaging and Electron Physics 158: 27-87, Editor Professor Peter W Hawkes,
ISBN9780128171776. New York:
Academic Press, 2009.
"Culturing Meat for the Future: Anti-death versus anti-life", [in] Tandy, Charles (editor) Death And Anti-Death, Volume 7,
ISBN9781934297056. Palo Alto:
Ria University Press, 2010.
"The Future of Food" [in] Faculty of Medicine Study manual, (two volumes). Japan:
Z-kai Inc., Shizuoka, 2019.
^ Amiot, R., Buffetaut, E., Lécuyer, C., Wang, X., Boudad, L., Ding, Z., ... & Zhou, Z. (2010). Oxygen isotope evidence for semi-aquatic habits among spinosaurid theropods. Geology, 38(2), 139-142.
^ Ibrahim, N., Maganuco, S., Dal Sasso, C., Fabbri, M., Auditore, M., Bindellini, G., ... & Pierce, S. E. (2020). Tail-propelled aquatic locomotion in a theropod dinosaur. Nature, 581(7806), 67-70.
^ Beevor, T., Quigley, A., Smith, R. E., Smyth, R. S., Ibrahim, N., Zouhri, S., & Martill, D. M. (2021). Taphonomic evidence supports an aquatic lifestyle for Spinosaurus Cretaceous Research, 117, 104627.
.
^Ji, Q.; Wu, X.; Cheng, Y.; Ten, F.; Ji, Y. (2016). "Fish-hunting ankylosaurs (Dinosauria, Ornithischia) from the Cretaceous of China". Journal of Geology. 40 (2): 183–190.
doi:
10.3969/j.issn.1674-3636.2016.02.183.