BioScience articles from October 2004

BioScience archives from October 2004

Onward NEON.(Editorial)
October 1, 2004... On 15 September 2004, AIBS--In partnership with a score of scientists, engineers,, and educators--entered into a 2-year cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to coordinate the creation of a final design and plan for...

Here and there or everywhere?(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2004... Whether or not the notion that "everything is everywhere" is "taken for granted by most" (Fenchel and Finlay 2004) remains to be seen, but one cannot deny that the proposition has had stifling effects on microbial community ecology in the last...

EthoSource: storing, sharing, and combining behavioral data.(Viewpoint)
October 1, 2004... To date, the phenomenal growth of bioinformatics and computational biology has largely focused on the organization, storage, and analysis of sequences of As, Cs, Gs, and %, corresponding to nucleotides of DNA. However, most forms of biological...

Close encounters of the deep-sea kind.
October 1, 2004... Cruising the deep sea is like cruising the personal ads in search of that special someone--the finding isn't easy. But whether you're a topside human or a below-deck deep-sea octopus, knowing where the hotspots are greatly increases your chance...

Are foreign scientists good for the US scientific workforce?(Washington Watch)
October 1, 2004... Many in the scientific community have expressed concerns that post-9/11 delays in visa processing are deterring foreign students and scientists from studying or working in the United States (see the April 2004 Washington Watch column,...

A new approach to combat invasive species: project-based training for graduate students.(Eye on Education)
October 1, 2004... Biologists cannot solve the problem of invasive species by themselves. Doing that requires a coordinated effort between scientists, policymakers, and others in the community. Unfortunately, the skills necessary to address complex environmental...

Enhancement of carbon sequestration in US soils.
October 1, 2004... Improved practices in agriculture, forestry, and land management could be used to increase soil carbon and thereby significantly reduce the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Understanding biological and edaphic processes that...

Water resources: agricultural and environmental issues.
October 1, 2004... The increasing demands placed on file global water supply threaten biodiversity and the supply of water for food production and other vital human needs. Water shortages already exist in many regions, with more than one billion people without...

Bridging troubled waters: biological invasions, transoceanic shipping, and the Laurentian Great Lakes.
October 1, 2004... Release of contaminated ballast water b v transoceanic ships has been implicated in more than 70% of faunal nonindigenous species (NIS) introductions to the Great Lakes since the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959. Contrary to...

The potential distribution of zebra mussels in the United States.(Biologist's Toolbox)(Cover Story)
October 1, 2004... The range expansion of zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) in North America has been rapid and costly in both economic and ecological terms. Joint social, political, and scientific ventures such as the 100th Meridian Initiative aim to reduce...

A three-tiered approach to enhance undergraduate education in bioethics.(Education)
October 1, 2004... The systematic integration of ethics into undergraduate programs is a key component to improving the understanding of ethical issues in science for a broad audience. We propose a three-tiered approach to integrating ethics and social issues...

Ecology, evolution, and the genome: a "whole-elephant" reader's guide.(Special Book Section)
October 1, 2004... 2005 will mark the 20th anniversary of the first meetings held to discuss the revolutionary idea of sequencing the entire human genome, heralding the beginning of genomics as we know it today. To date, the primary motivations for conducting and...

Can Nineveh repent again?
October 1, 2004... One with Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future. Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich. Island Press, Washington, DC, 2004. 376 pp. $27.00 (ISBN 1559638796 cloth). The subtitle of this volume by Paul and Anne Ehrlich--Politics,...

Making themselves at home.
October 1, 2004... Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution. E John Olding-Smee, Kevin N. Laland, and Marcus W. Feldman. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2003. 468 pp., illus. $75.00 (ISBN 0691044384 cloth). Niche Construction: The...

Diving for chocolate.
October 1, 2004... The Biology of Traditions: Models and Evidence. Dorothy M. Fragaszy and Susan Perry, eds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2003. 474 pp., illus. $95.00 (ISBN 0521815975 cloth). How do we identify animal traditions?...

The evolution of conservation thought and practice.
October 1, 2004... Reconstructing Conservation: Finding Common Ground. Ben A. Minteer and Robert E. Manning, eds. Island Press, Washington, DC, 2003. 417 pp. $27.50 (ISBN 1559633557 paper). Most biologists are little aware of the rejuvenating but often...

From land and lake and air: the ecological breadth of Harvard forest.
October 1, 2004... Forests in Time: The Environmental Consequences of 1,000 Years of Change in New England. David E Foster and John D. Abet, eds. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2004. 496 pp. $45.00 (ISBN 0300092350 cloth). Little more than 20 years...

Flycatcher explains it all.
October 1, 2004... The Sandwalk Adventures. Jay Hosler. Active Synapse, Columbus, OH, 2003. 159 pp., illus. $20.00 (ISBN 0967725518 paper). Toward the end of his life, Charles Darwin, author of the Origin of Species, found himself explaining the rudiments of...

New titles.
October 1, 2004... Agroforestry and Biodiversity Conservation in Tropical Landscapes. Gotz Schroth, Gustavo A. B. da Fonesca, Celia A. Harvey, Claude Gascon, Heraldo L. Lasconcelos, and Anne Marie N. Izac, eds. Island Press, Washington DC, 2004. 523 pp., illus....

AIBS opens NEON office, calls for committee nominations.(AIBS news)
October 1, 2004... Under the recently announced two-year, $6 million cooperative agreement between the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) and the National Science Foundation (see the editorial on page 883), the NEON Design Consortium and Project...

Launch of AIBS bimonthly education report.(AIBS news)
October 1, 2004... The AIBS Education Office has launched a bimonthly education report to give AIBS member organizations information on education initiatives, updates in biology education, and announcements about upcoming events. The reports are posted on the...

Mentoring SEEDS students at the ESA annual meeting.(AIBS news)
October 1, 2004... Yasmeen Qadim' asil, AIBS diversity and outreach programs assistant and a graduate student in biology at Howard University, attended the 89th annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), held 1-6 August 2004 in Portland, Oregon....

Former AIBS president Peter Raven awarded ANZAAS Medal for scientific achievement.(AIBS news)
October 1, 2004... On 14 August, Peter H. Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis and former president of AIBS, received the ANZAAS Medal, the prestigious scientific award of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of...

Recent articles online at www.actionbioscience.org.(AIBS news)
October 1, 2004... Original articles in English * "Looking for Life on Mars and Beyond," by Abigail A. Salyers, professor of microbiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and former president of the American Society of Microbiology *...

Recent public policy reports online at www.aibs.org.(AIBS news)
October 1, 2004... Public Policy Report for 13 September 2004 * NIH proposal would require all NIH-funded research to be published freely online * House approves increase for education department science program * Pro-intelligent design article...

Calendar of meetings.(Calendar)
October 1, 2004... October 13-16 Natural Areas Association Conference, Chicago, IL; Web site: www.conferences.uiuc.edu/conferences/conference.asp?ID=303 15-18 54th Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of Canada, with the Acadian Entomological...

Feast or famine skews sex ratios.(Out of Africa)
October 1, 2004... A recent study sheds new light on the debate over the 30-year-old Trivers-Willard hypothesis, which suggests a novel reproductive strategy in mammals. The analysis by Elissa Cameron, formerly of the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and...

Scientists fear Ebola outbreak in Congo's great apes.(Out of Africa)
October 1, 2004... In early August, the World Health Organization announced the end of a three-month outbreak of the Ebola virus in southern Sudan. Seven of the 17 people infected died from hemorrhagic fever, an increase in survivorship that implies lessons have...