BioScience articles from December 2008

BioScience archives from December 2008

New year, new administration, new opportunities.(Editorial)
December 1, 2008... The economy took a nose-dive in the fall of 2008, with all indicators showing a flee fall: inflation at nearly 6 percent--its highest level in 17 years--unemployment at 6 percent, no net job growth in the private sector for most of 2008,...

From here to biosecurity: advice for an incoming administration.(Viewpoint)
December 1, 2008... Not so long ago, "biosecurity" was neither a word nor a concept. Nor was it a goal of governments, a cornerstone of industrial and academic ventures, a distractor of investigational intentions, or a prod to community protest. Biosecurity, in...

Troubling waters: one of the world's richest deltas has been radically replumbed, its ecosystem is collapsing, and Californians are realizing their water supply is tapped out. Despite decades of efforts--and some positive trends--solutions may not be any closer. Downstream, the San Francisco Bay looks good by comparison.
December 1, 2008... The largest estuary on the western coasts of the Americas carves dominant features on the face of California. The San Francisco Bay and, especially, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta also figure prominently in lives and livelihoods throughout...

The cost of conservation: the National Wildlife Refuge System.(Washington Watch)
December 1, 2008... More than a century ago, the federal government established the National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) to conserve fish, wildlife, and plants, as well as their habitats; today the NWRS manages more than 40 million hectares of federal land on...

Meeting the challenges of aquatic vertebrate ecotoxicology.(21st Century Directions in Biology)(Report)
December 1, 2008... The field of ecotoxicology uses biomarkers to assess the health of populations of sentinel organisms and to determine risk associated with environmental chemicals. The tools of modern biology are being used to develop promising new suites of...

Alligator tales: new lessons about environmental contaminants from a sentinel species.(Report)
December 1, 2008... Wildlife species have been recognized as sentinels of environmental health for decades. In fact, ecological data on various wildlife populations provided the impetus for banning some organochlorine pesticides over the last few decades....

Of mice and men (and mosquitofish): antiandrogens and androgens in the environment.(Report)
December 1, 2008... Androgens are hormones produced by the gonads and other endocrine organs of vertebrates. Testosterone, along with its metabolite dihydrotestosterone, is critical for the differentiation of the fetal male reproductive tract from an indifferent...

Roach, sex, and gender-bending chemicals: the feminization of wild fish in English rivers.(Report)
December 1, 2008... Feminization of the male roach, Rutilus rutilus, a freshwater, group-spawning fish, is widespread in English rivers; among the causative agents are natural and synthetic steroidal estrogens and chemicals that mimic estrogens. In feminized male...

Commonality in signaling of endocrine disruption from snail to human.(Report)
December 1, 2008... Several nuclear receptors have recently been identified as mediators of endocrine disruption as well as steroid hormone receptors. The ubiquitous environmental contaminant tributyltin chloride (TBT) is a ligand for retinoid X receptor (RXR) in...

"Livewood": geomorphic and ecological functions of living trees in river channels.(Forum)(Report)
December 1, 2008... Although the geomorphic and ecological importance of large wood in streams and rivers is well recognized, most studies consider only dead wood in channels. However, we have observed that living parts of trees are often found within active...

Biology concept inventories: overview, status, and next steps.(Education)(Report)
December 1, 2008... Faculty from numerous science disciplines have used concept inventories to focus their efforts on a few core concepts and ways of thinking in introductory courses. These inventories also help faculty recognize students' misconceptions and...

So long, it's been good to know you.(The Ecology and Behavior of Amphibians)(Book review)
December 1, 2008... The Ecology and Behavior of Amphibians. Kentwood D. Wells. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2007. 1148 pp., illus. $75.00 (ISBN 9780226893341 cloth). Having recently encountered the absurd criterion of whether a book will fit in a...

Not so innocent: methodology and metaphysics of evolution.(Doubting Darwin?: Creationist Designs on Evolution)(Book review)
December 1, 2008... Doubting Darwin? Creationist Designs on Evolution. Sahotra Sarkar. Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA, 2007. 232 pp., illus. $64.95 (ISBN 9781405154901 cloth). Sahotra Sarkar has set a difficult task for himself: to assess intelligent design...

The birds and the bees, from the flower's point of view.(Understanding Flowers and Flowering: An Integrated Approach)(Book review)
December 1, 2008... Understanding Flowers and Flowering: An Integrated Approach. Beverly Glover. Oxford University Press, New York, 2007. 256 pp., illus. $75.00 (ISBN 9780198565963 paper). Understanding Flowers and Flowering has the ambitious goal of unifying...

New titles.(BOOKS)
December 1, 2008... Bears: A Brief History. Bernd Brunner. Trans. Lori Lantz. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2007. 272 pp., illus. $15.00 (ISBN 9780300143126 paper). C[O.sub.2] Rising: The World's Greatest Environmental Challenge. Tyler Volk. MIT...

PPO talks with graduate students.(AIBS news)(preferred provider organization)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... In September, AIBS Public Policy Director Robert Gropp traveled to the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he met with students and faculty in the Environmental Studies Department. Gropp gave a seminar that illustrated how professional...

Randy Moore receives 2008 Evolution Education Award.(AIBS news)
December 1, 2008... The National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) presented Randy Moore, a professor of biology at the University of Minnesota, with the 2008 Evolution Education Award during the NABT annual conference that was held 15-18 October in Memphis,...

USGS Coalition reception recognizes congressional leaders.(AIBS news)(United States Geological Survey)(Norman D. Dicks and Ralph Regula)
December 1, 2008... On 15 September, the US Geological Survey (USGS) Coalition held its fifth annual Capitol Hill reception. Representatives Norman D. Dicks (D--WA) and Ralph Regula (R--OH) were presented with the first USGS Coalition Leadership Award in...

Scientists brief policymakers on climate change and ecosystems.(AIBS news)
December 1, 2008... With an ever-increasing number of reports showing that climate change will affect human health, economic and national security, and agricultural and natural resource management, policymakers are paying more attention to the issue of climate...

AIBS at the NSDL annual meeting.(AIBS news)(American Institute of Biological Sciences and National Science Digital Library)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Partners of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) met in Washington, DC, 30 September-2 October to discuss new directions. The eight-year-old National Science Foundation initiative was designed to leverage online educational STEM...

Attention graduate students: AIBS accepting applications for the 2009 EPPLA.(AIBS news)(American Institute of Biological Sciences)(Emerging Public Policy Leadership Award)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... MBS is now accepting applications for the 2009 MBS Emerging Public Policy Leadership Award (EPPLA). The EPPLA program, established by AIBS in 2003, enables graduate students in the biological sciences to receive firsthand experience in the...

AIBS Diversity Awards for 2009: call for nominations.(AIBS news)(American Institute of Biological Sciences)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... AIBS is now accepting applications and nominations for two awards geared toward promoting the participation of underrepresented minorities in the sciences. The AIBS Diversity Scholars Award, which recognizes an outstanding minority...

Recent executive director's blog entries online at www.blogs.aibs.org/richardogrady.(AIBS news)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... * Countdown to November 4th elections * Comment period open for National Academies forthcoming report: A New Biology for the 21st Century * AIBS adds YouTube channel to its free online collection of lectures and interviews *...

Recent Spanish translations of articles online at www.actionbioscience.org.(AIBS news)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... * "Las Mitocondrias y el Envejecimiento" [Mitochondria and Aging], interview with Douglas C. Wallace, University of California, Irvine * "Hacia un replanteamiento de los combustibles fosiles" [Rethinking Fossil Fuels], interview with James...

Recent public policy reports online at www.aibs.org.(AIBS news)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Public Policy Report for 27 October 2008 * NAS announces committee, meeting: Century of biology report * NSC Alliance surveys collections about effects of economy * NOAA and NIH heads step down in anticipation of "change" *...

Calendar of meetings.(National Council for Science and the Environment, Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology and National Shellfisheries Association)(Brief article)(Calendar)
December 1, 2008... December 8-10 National Council for Science and the Environment, Washington, DC; www.ncseonline. org/conference/biodiversity January 2009 3-8 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, Boston; www.sicb.org/meetings/ 2009 ...

[Cartoon].(Cartoon)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "This is a great discovery, but our grant still gives us three more years to discover it."

White-nose syndrome threatens bats.(BioBriefs)
December 1, 2008... Scientists from federal and state wildlife agencies, universities, and conservation groups have launched a major research effort to understand, identify, and counter a mysterious ailment that has killed perhaps a half-million insect-eating bats...