BioScience articles from April 2006

BioScience archives from April 2006

Insect accounting.(Editorial)
April 1, 2006... Insects don't get enough respect. Yes, their depredations of structures and plants of all types, especially crops, are famed and feared: They were responsible for no less than three of the biblical plagues, and it is only a little over a...

Use of ID material unsupported.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2006... Most biologists argue that intelligent design (ID) theory, which has recently been judged a pretext for advancing religious belief (see www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342, pdf), has no place in the classroom. Yet Steven D. Verhey...

Correction.(Letters)(Correction notice)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2006... My article, "The Effect of Engaging Prior Learning on Student Attitudes toward Creationism and Evolution" (BioScience 55: 996-1003), included errors in the data reported and in some statistical comparisons. I take full responsibility for these...

Nelson's response to Black.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2006... Black correctly notes that many biologists have argued against teaching creationism in the science classroom. This may be changing. Alberts (2006) states: "I believe that intelligent design should be taught in college science classes.... It is...

When government ignores science, scientists should speak up.(Viewpoint)
April 1, 2006... Despite the post-World War II boom in science and technology, recent headlines suggest that science and scientists play less of a role in government policymaking than ever before. Consider, for example, the August 2005 postponement by the US...

Scientists should help frame the discussion.(Viewpoint)
April 1, 2006... James Karr's commentary "When Government Ignores Science, Scientists Should Speak Up" (BioScience 56: 287-288) makes some strong points concerning challenges every scientist faces as his or her results and conclusions are used in...

Clashing with Titans.
April 1, 2006... Near the 11,000-year-old bones of a native horse, University of Calgary researchers recently found a stone spear point still bearing traces of horse blood, powerful evidence that the animal had been killed by human hunters. The tracks of...

Strategies for teaching modeling to students.(Eye on Education)
April 1, 2006... Models are powerful tools for understanding systems and solving ecological problems, but they overwhelm many students when they are first presented in life science courses. Models are often perceived as irrelevant, mathematically complex, or...

Evolution after Dover.(Washington Watch)
April 1, 2006... The scene: a press conference featuring scientists and religious leaders. The date: 21 December 2005, the day after US District Court Judge John E. Jones III struck down the Dover, Pennsylvania, Area School District's inclusion of intelligent...

Integrating evolution and development: the need for bioinformatics in evo-devo.
April 1, 2006... This article is an overview of concepts relating to the integration of the genotype and phenotype. One of the major goals of evolutionary developmental biology, or evo-devo, is to understand the transformation of morphology in evolution. This...

The economic value of ecological services provided by insects.
April 1, 2006... In this article we focus on the vital ecological services provided by insects. We restrict our focus to services provided by "wild" insects; we do not include services from domesticated or mass-reared insect species. The four insect services...

The 3/4-power law is not universal: evolution of isometric, ontogenetic metabolic scaling in pelagic animals.
April 1, 2006... It is commonly assumed that metabolic rate scales with body mass to the 3/4 power. However, during ontogeny, the metabolic rate of pelagic (open-water) animals often scales isometrically (in a 1:I proportion) with body mass. This is a robust...

Is peer review a game of chance?(Professional Biologist)
April 1, 2006... Peer review is the standard that journals and granting agencies use to ensure the scientific quality of their publications and funded projects. The peer-review process continues to be criticized, but its actual effectiveness at ensuring quality...

Revisiting the deciduous forests of Eastern North America.(Biology in History)
April 1, 2006... Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America, written by E. Lucy Braun and published in 1950, included a map depicting "original" (virgin) forest pattern. Her classification of forest regions remains an influential reference, though it was shaped...

Flowing landscapes.
April 1, 2006... Riparia: Ecology, Conservation, and Management of Streamside Communities. Robert J. Naiman, Henri Decamps, and Michael E. McClain. Elsevier, Burlington, MA, 2005. 448 pp., illus. $79.95 (ISBN 0126633150 cloth). Riparia: Ecology,...

Do flies hold all the answers?
April 1, 2006... The Evolutionary Biology of Flies. David Yeates and Brian Wiegmann, eds. Columbia University Press, New York, 2005. 430 pp., illus. $89.50 (ISBN 0231127006 cloth). Anyone who's ever visited a feedlot knows about flies. With 120,000...

Habitat loss from the perspective of populations.
April 1, 2006... The Shrinking World: Ecological Consequences of Habitat Loss. Ilkka Hanski. International Ecology Institute, Oldendorf/Luhe, Germany, 2005. 307 pp. EUR 47.00 (ISSN 09322205 cloth). Ilkka Hanski, professor of ecology and systematics at the...

New titles.(Books)
April 1, 2006... Aquaculture in the 21st Century. Anita M. Kelly and Jeffrey Silverstein, eds. American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, MD, 2006. 643 pp., illus. $69.00 (ISBN 1888569719 paper). Enhancing Participation and Governance in Water Resources...

Exciting program updates for the AIBS annual meeting in May.(AIBS news)
April 1, 2006... "Biodiversity: The Interplay of Science, Valuation, and Policy" is the theme of the 2006 MBS annual meeting, to be held 24-25 May 2006 at the Westin Grand Hotel in Washington, DC. Plenary lectures and discussion groups of scientists, policy...

New AIBS Board members take office.(AIBS news)
April 1, 2006... AIBS welcomes three new Board members to the Spring 2006 AIBS Board meeting this May, chaired by 2006 President Kent E. Holsinger, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut. Douglas J. Futuyma, Department of...

AIBS names 2006 emerging public policy leaders.(AIBS news)
April 1, 2006... The AIBS Public Policy Office is pleased to announce that Cornell University PhD candidate Madhura Kulkarni and University of Maryland (Baltimore County) PhD candidate Christopher Hofmann were chosen from an impressive and highly competitive...

Revised NEON reports available online.(AIBS news)
April 1, 2006... The NEON Integrated Science and Education Plan (ISEP) and the NEON Networking and Informatics and Baseline Design (NIBD) have been delivered to NSF and are now posted in the documents section of the NEON Web site, www.neoninc.org. The ISEP...

Recent articles online at www.actionbioscience.org.(AIBS news)
April 1, 2006... Original article in English * "Flowering Plants: Keys to Earth's Evolution and Human Well-being" interview with Pamela Soltis, curator of the Laboratory of Molecular Systematics and Evolutionary Genetics, University of Florida, Gainesville...

Recent public policy reports online at www.aibs.org.(AIBS news)
April 1, 2006... Public Policy Report for 13 March 2006 * Budget roundup * The FY 2007 budget request for Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research * NOAA research programs in the president's FY 2007 budget * AIBS announces 2006...

Calendar of meetings.(Calendar)
April 1, 2006... April 3-5 National Academy of Sciences colloquium, Washington, DC; www.nasonline.org/sackler_crops 9-12 Society for Sedimentary Geology, Houston, TX; www. sepm.org/events/meetings/ meetingshome.htm 13-15 Southwestern Association...

Notes from the 2006 AAAS annual meeting.(BioBriefs)
April 1, 2006... SLASH-AND-CHAR IMPROVES AMAZONIAN SOIL Archaeologists venturing into Amazonia in the 1870s noted anomalous patches of dark fertile soil amid the highly weathered yellow oxisols that dominate the region. Until recently, few believed these...