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A 1980s laboratory. 

 Photograph by M. Rioux, 

 MBL Archives. 



development actually to look and see the tip moving and extending. These 

 research collaborations are possible here because of the unusual mixture of 

 people who might not normally even meet each other, let alone talk and 

 exchange technical ideas. 



Indeed, this sort of cooperation makes the MBL what it is, a sort of 

 extended "laboratory without walls, " to borrow Albert Szent-Gyorgyi's term. 

 While scientists elsewhere in the world are sometimes cautioned not to 

 discuss their work in order to avoid being scooped or to avoid priority 

 disputes, the MBL has always thrived on open exchange among a growing 

 group of scientists and students. Back in their academic winter homes, a 

 neurobiologist or embiyologist may be able to talk witli only one or two 

 other people who care about the same general questions. As Yale cell 

 biologist J. P. Trinkaus put it recently, one demendously exciting thing 

 about summers at the MBL is that so many of the top people in neuro- 

 physiology; cell, molecular, and development biology; and a few other fields 

 are gathered together. The researcher is bound to find someone who 

 understands and will share ideas while walking down the hall, to the beach, 

 or to the library. As neurophysiologist Robert Barlow points out, "If some- 



