On the shoulders of giants

  1. Adrian R. Ferré-D'Amaré
  1. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-8012, USA
  1. Corresponding author: adrian.ferre{at}nih.gov

This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.

Isaac Newton popularized the saying that we see further by standing on the shoulders of giants. As valid as this is, it has been my experience that how and in which directions we choose to look are most strongly influenced by mentors during our formative years. I had the privilege to be introduced to the scientific method and to experimental science during childhood by two formidable mentors. The first was my father (Ricardo Ferré-D'Amaré), an engineer turned anthropologist, who starting with my curiosity about some seashells I found on a vacation at the beach, taught me about the Linnean system. From there, he deftly guided my growing interest in malacology to an early passion for all things mollusk, and eventually, to marine biology and ecology. My other early mentor was Ricardo Klimek, a distinguished chemical oceanographer and limnologist, who taught me about experimentation in the physical sciences. On one of …

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