BioScience articles from March 2002

BioScience archives from March 2002

Scientific societies and bioterrorism. (Editorial).(Brief Article)(Editorial)
March 1, 2002... The 21st century began with acts of unprecedented terrorism. The fatalities associated with the malign distribution of anthrax-laced letters, like the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, caused understandable and widespread...

Letters.
March 1, 2002... The Strange Economics of Sustainability The field of economics has made great strides in recent years to include other disciplinary findings on human nature and biophysical reality. Nevertheless, the core teaching and research foundation of...

Biosphere 2: Turning an experiment into a research station. (Feature).
March 1, 2002... Ramesh Murthy gazes up at a stand of cottonwood trees growing in the high Sonoran Desert 35 miles northeast of Tucson, Arizona. Planted as 6-inch stumps, the 20 to 25-foot-tall trees offer shade from the warm midday sun. Rather than growing...

A sea change for US ocean policy? (Washington Watch).
March 1, 2002... For the first time in over 30 years, not one but two panels of experts are reviewing US oceans policy. In July 2000, Congress enacted the Oceans Act of 2000 to develop and implement "a coherent, comprehensive, and long-range national policy to...

Biogeographic patterns and conservation in the South American Cerrado: A tropical savanna hotspot. (Articles).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... THE CERRADO, WHICH INCLUDES BOTH FOREST AND SAVANNA HABITATS, IS THE SECOND LARGEST SOUTH AMERICAN BIOME, AND AMONG THE MOST THREATENED ON THE CONTINENT Tropical savannas cover between 15 and 24.6 x [10.sup.6] square kilometers...

Indicators of ecological stress and their extent in the population of northeastern lakes: A regional-scale assessment. (Articles).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... ALTHOUGH STRESSORS SUCH AS NONNATIVE FISH INTRODUCTIONS, MERCURY CONTAMINATION, AND SHORELINE ALTERATION ARE NOT GENERALLY CONSIDERED SUBJECTS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, THEY ARE AS WIDESPREAD AS EUTROPHICATION, AND MORE EXTENSIVE THAN...

Extrapolation in ecological risk assessment: Balancing pragmatism and precaution in chemical controls legislation. (Articles).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... EXTRAPOLATION Is A PRACTICAL NECESSITY IN ECOLOGICAL RISK ASSESSMENT, BUT THERE IS MUCH ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT IN THE EXTRAPOLATION PROCESS Many national and international regulatory bodies require assessment of the ecological risks of...

Biosphere 2 as voyage of discovery: The serendipity from inside. (Forum).
March 1, 2002... There is currently an ongoing discourse about "the two cultures of ecology," a discourse not in fact limited to ecology but involving many biologic disciplines: the analytic culture and the integrative culture (Holing 1998). In a number of...

Putting food production in context: Toward a postmechanistic agricultural ethic. (Thinking of Biology).
March 1, 2002... Agriculture is a defining characteristic of human civilization. Its development as a means of providing sustenance marked the transition from a nomadic existence to an urban lifestyle. And no other human activity has transformed so much of the...

Workshop Biology: Demonstrating the effectiveness of active learning in an introductory Biology course. (Education).
March 1, 2002... The University of Oregon's Workshop Biology curriculum is one of many experimental approaches to teaching introductory college-level science that emerged during the last decade (Lawson et al. 1990, Ebert-May et al. 1997, Laws 1997, McNeal and...

Twentieth-century classic books and benchmark publications in biology. (Special Book Article).
March 1, 2002... There is a rich body of scientific books and articles that have contributed to the education and training of biologists during the past century. Academics and other contributors to science journals have attempted--with mixed success--to...

Optimists, pessimists, and science. (Special Book Article).
March 1, 2002... Are things getting better or worse? Are the advances in our environmental understanding and ethics translating into improved relations with nature faster than population numbers are rising, new technologies are being deployed, and economies are...

Exposition on skepticism. (Books).
March 1, 2002... The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World. Bjorn Lomborg. Cambridge University Press, New York, 2001. 540 pp., $28.00 (ISBN 0-521-010683 paper). Bjorn Lomborg discusses a wide range of topics in his book and...

Sex, politics, and sustainability. (Books).
March 1, 2002... Why Sex Matters: A Darwinian Look at Human Behavior. Bobbi S. Low. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2001. 432 pp., illus. $18.95 (ISBN 0-691-08975-2 paper). Evolutionary biologist and anthropologist Bobbi Low has written a...

Radical solutions to old problems. (Books).
March 1, 2002... The Poverty of the Linnaean Hierarchy: A Philosophical Study of Biological Taxonomy. Marc Ereshefsky. Cambridge University Press, New York, 2001. 316 pp., illus. $65.00 (ISBN 0-521-781701 hard cover). In his book, Ereshefsky's goals are...

A golden economy of nature. (Books).
March 1, 2002... The Economy of Nature, 5th ed. Robert E. Ricklefs. WH Freeman, New York, NY, 2000. 550 pp., illus. $92.30 (ISBN 0-716-73883X cloth). In 1982, I purchased my first copy of a Ricklefs general ecology textbook, which I was advised was the...

Wolf reintroductions: Are more needed? (Books).
March 1, 2002... Wolves and Human Communities: Biology, Politics, and Ethics. Virginia A. Sharpe, Bryan Norton, and Strachan Donnelley, editors. Island Press, Washington DC, 2001. 321 pp., $65.00 (ISBN 1-55963-828-1 cloth). Pity the wolf and those who wish...

AIBS News.
March 1, 2002... AIBS Welcomes Three New Member Societies The AIBS Board of Directors voted to welcome the Natural Areas Association, the American Malacological Society, and the Orthopterists' Society into the AIBS federation, bringing the total number of...

Calendar of meetings.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... March 3-8 Second Gordon Research Conference on Floral Science: Biology, Chemistry, and Evolution, Ventura, CA; Web site: www.grc.org 17-21 41st Annual Meeting of the Society of Toxicology, Nashville, TN; Web site: www....

Science in 2001: Walking whales. (BioBriefs).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... One of the more interesting stories in archaeology this year was a set of discoveries that threw into question the evolutionary heritage of whales. Whales are so unlike other living mammals that it has been difficult for scientists to identify...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
March 1, 2002... Several words in Paul Ehrlich's article ("Human Natures, Nature Conservation, and Environmental Ethics") in the January 2002 issue of BioScience were inadvertently omitted. The omission is highlighted below. Cultural evolution in this...