BioScience articles from July 2008

BioScience archives from July 2008

Penguins in Peril.(Editorial)
July 1, 2008... Global circulation models have long predicted that greenhouse warming would be greatest in polar regions, and abundant data confirm strong warming there. Not surprisingly, in recent decades there have been pronounced effects on wildlife in...

Group selection is dead! Long live group selection?(Viewpoint)
July 1, 2008... We live in interesting times. Two well-known biologists--E. O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins--and some of their well-known colleagues, who used to employ broadly similar selection models, now deeply disagree over the role of group selection in the...

How ecofriendly are wind farms?
July 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Paul Cryan was surprised and curious. Cryan had been studying bats since 1990, but only in 2003 did he learn that bats were being killed at wind energy farms. Cryan wanted to know why the bats, whose visual and...

On antartic ice: life at low diversity: nematodes are tiny, soil-dwelling animals that play a major role in Antarctic ecosystems. Identifying the genes involved in their responses to environmental changes, past and present, may contribute to understanding the carbon cycle.
July 1, 2008... Colorado State University soil biologist Diana Wall has been working in Antarctica since 1989 and says her excitement has never waned. "We fly into the Dry Valleys in a helicopter, and when you land, there is this vast expanse of soil and...

A new Farm Bill, research structure at USDA.(Washington Watch)(United States Department of Agriculture)(Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008)(National Institute of Food and Agriculture)
July 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The significant challenges facing national food, fiber, and bioenergy systems call for a robust agricultural research system, whether for addressing food safety, security, and availability; thwarting disruptions to...

High-speed developments in avian genomics.(21st Century Directions in Biology)(Report)
July 1, 2008... Until recently, definitions of avian genome structure and function were based solely on our knowledge of the chicken genome. The expansion of genomie studies to include nonmodel avian species allows us not only to refine those definitions but...

Penguins as marine sentinels.(Report)
July 1, 2008... From the tropics to Antarctica, penguins depend on predictable regions of high ocean productivity where their prey aggregate. Increases in precipitation and reductions in sea ice associated with climate warming are affecting penguins. The...

Controls on annual forest carbon storage: lessons from the past and predictions for the future.(Report)
July 1, 2008... The temperate forests of North America may play an important role in future carbon (C) sequestration strategies. New, multiyear, ecosystem-scale C cycling studies are providing a process-level understanding of the factors controlling annual...

"The calamity of so long life": life histories, contaminants, and potential emerging threats to long-lived vertebrates.(Report)
July 1, 2008... Persistent contaminants are ubiquitous in the environment, often present at concentrations that may jeopardize reproductive fitness only after long periods of exposure. As the duration of exposure is largely regulated by life span, long-lived...

Biodiversity congruence and conservation strategies: a national test.(Report)
July 1, 2008... Understanding patterns of biodiversity is essential to developing conservation strategies and monitoring conservation goals, and severe data constraints make surrogate indicators necessary. We used a comprehensive data set of 6959 species of...

Long-term agricultural research: a research, education, and extension imperative.(Forum)(Report)
July 1, 2008... For agriculture to meet goals that include profitability, environmental integrity, and the production of ecosystem services beyond food, fuel, and fiber requires a comprehensive, systems-level research approach that is long-term and...

The US ethanol and biofuels boom: its origins, current status, and future prospects.(Forum)(Report)
July 1, 2008... This article explains why we are experiencing a boom in ethanol and other biofuels, the current status of biofuels, and prospects for the future under different policy regimes. I argue that today's boom is in a sense an unintended consequence...

Genetic literacy of undergraduate non-science majors and the impact of introductory biology and genetics courses.(Education)(Report)
July 1, 2008... With the advancement of genetic information and technologies, there is an increasing need for a genetically literate public. This study looks critically at student learning and at the current instruction of genetics in introductory non-science...

Plant culture and the culture of the United States.(Fruits and Plains: The Horticultural Transformation of America)(Book review)
July 1, 2008... Fruits and Plains: The Horticultural Transformation of America. Philip J. Pauly. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2008. 352 pp., illus. $39.95 (ISBN 9780674026636 cloth). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the 1988 reprint of U. P....

WASP social evolution: but don't ask "why"?(The Evolution of Social Wasps)(Book review)
July 1, 2008... The Evolution of Social Wasps. James H. Hunt. Oxford University Press, New York, 2007. 280 pp., illus. $44.50 (ISBN 9780195307979 paper). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] James Hunt's recent book The Evolution of Social Wasps is an unusual...

Uniting environmentalism and entrepreneurship.(A Contract with the Earth)(Book review)
July 1, 2008... A Contract with the Earth. Newt Gingrich and Terry L. Maple. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2007. 256 pp., illus. $20.00 (ISBN 9780801887802 cloth). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Newt Gingrich, long known to have a soft spot for...

Ne titles.(Books)(Buyers guide)
July 1, 2008... Because the Cat Purrs: How We Relate to Other Species and Why It Matters. Janet Lembke. Skyhorse Publishing, New York, 2008. 238 pp., illus. $22.95 (ISBN 9781602392359 cloth). Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy, and Culture. Alan Sokal....

SWS members attend AIBS policy, media workshops.(AIBS news)(Society for Wetland Scientists, American Institute of Biological Sciences)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... As part of the recent annual meeting of the Society for Wetland Scientists (SWS) in Washington, DC, the AIBS Public Policy Office conducted two workshops for meeting participants. The SWS is an AIBS member society and participant-level...

AIBS opposes antiscience legislation in Louisiana.(AIBS news)(American Institute of Biological Sciences)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... On 3 June 2008, AIBS leant its voice to the chorus of scientific and educational organizations opposing passage of Louisiana Senate Bill (SB) 733, the so-called Louisiana Science Education Act. The measure, introduced by state Senator Ben...

NEON in the field: a visit to the mid-Atlantic domain.(AIBS news)(National Ecological Observatory Network)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... From 22 to 24 April 2008, staff and consultants from the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) visited the candidate core site for the mid-Atlantic domain, located at the Smithsonian National Zoo's Conservation Research Center in Front...

Recent articles online at www.actionbioscience.org.(AIBS news)
July 1, 2008... Original Interviews * "The Threat of Global Warming," with James E. Hanson, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies * "The Water We Drink: Warning!" with Robert Morris, physician,...

Calendar of meetings.(Calendar)(Calendar)
July 1, 2008... July 13-17 Society for Conservation Biology, Chattanooga, TN; www.conbio.org/activities/meetings/2008 13-18 Society of Nematologists, Brisbane, Australia; www.nematologists.org 13-19 American Bryological...

A wide range of hearing.(Bio Briefs)
July 1, 2008... COMING IN LOUD AND CLEAR A recent study by scientists working in Panama may afford a new appreciation of our limited auditory range. If human ears could detect the ultrasonic frequencies bats use to echolocate, then going outdoors at night...