Calorimetry goes afield

It is shown in this speculative paper that modern biological calorimetry ne ed not to be laboratory bound but may go afield in cases where biological s ystems are fixed in their place (e.g. plants), have strong interactions wit h their environment or fall victim of artefacts when they are isolated from their natural connections for longer periods(e.g. insect colonies). On the other hand, often it is interesting to perform broad screening tests direc tly in situ. This survey presents chip calorimeters developed recently for the latter purpose and very simple camping box instruments for large or loc ally bound systems. Applications for different biological problems are disc ussed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B,V. All rights reserved.