19 April 2015

Volume 370Issue 1666

• About the cover
  

  

  Cover image
  Through his ‘superior lenses’, Leeuwenhoek observed structures, forms and life so vanishingly small as to defy belief, opening a door on a world that would capture curious minds for more than three and a half centuries. A draper from Delft with no formal education – in his 40s before his scientific career started – he was the first whose reputation was built in the pages of Philosophical Transactions. The lenses he developed for his trade would be the forerunner of many tools down the ages that allow living form to be unravelled, eventually yielding the processes and fabric of life itself. (Credit: ‘Animacules I: homage to A van Leeuwenhoek’ by Odra Noel; www.odranoel.eu.)

• Front matter (PDF)
• Back matter (PDF)
• Ed board (PDF)

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