BioScience articles from September 2005

BioScience archives from September 2005

A hit where it hurts.(Editorial)
September 1, 2005... Biologists of many persuasions are now grappling with the difficult problem of identifying the effects of climate change on species of all types. The direct effects of shifting temperature regimes are in principle the simplest to detect, and...

Reproductive modes in frogs: correction.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2005... Our article "Reproductive Modes in Frogs and Their Unexpected Diversity in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil" (Bio-Science 55 (3): 207-217) contains an error. In the fourth column of table 1, p. 213, we list the number of reproductive modes present...

The Golden Rice controversy: useless science or unfounded criticism?(Viewpoint)
September 1, 2005... Earlier this year, scientists disclosed in the journal Nature Biotechnology the development of a new Golden Rice, a genetically engineered form of the crop capable of producing 23 times more provitamin A (beta-carotene) than a prototype...

Cholera's life aquatic.
September 1, 2005... A masked ball in progress... suddenly, the gayest of the harlequins collapsed, cold in the limbs, and, underneath his mask, violet-blue in the face. Laughter died out, dancing ceased, and in a short while carriage loads of people were hurried...

Politics and peer review.(Washington Watch)
September 1, 2005... Scientists, nongovernmental organizations, and even politicians have warned for years that federal policymakers are politicizing science to achieve political goals. Surveys show that many scientists in some federal agencies feel that scientific...

A biosocial approach for analyzing environmental conflicts: a case study of horseshoe crab allocation.
September 1, 2005... Ambiguous legislation, insufficient science, jurisdictional disputes, and conflicting values of stakeholders have contributed to the increasing frequency of natural resource conflicts. The allocation of horseshoe crabs in Delaware Bay and Cape...

Forecasting regional to global plant migration in response to climate change.
September 1, 2005... The rate of future climate change is likely to exceed the migration rates of most plant species. The replacement of dominant species by locally rare species may require decades, and extinctions may occur when plant species cannot migrate fast...

Is an unprecedented Dothistroma needle blight epidemic related to climate change?
September 1, 2005... Dothistroma needle blight, caused by the fungus Dothistroma septosporum, is a major pest of pine plantations in the Southern Hemisphere, where both the host and the pathogen have been introduced. In northern temperate forests where the pest and...

Successfully curating smaller herbaria and natural history collections in academic settings.(Professional Biologist)
September 1, 2005... Although most natural history museums and herbaria are small (fewer than 50,000 specimens), digital and online technologies are greatly increasing their value to society. By generating and disseminating new knowledge, these smaller facilities...

The origins of the Nile perch in Lake Victoria.(Biology in History)
September 1, 2005... The ways in which economic, social, and political forces lead to species introductions are an important, if overlooked, aspect of ecology and conservation. The normative Nile perch (Lates niloticus) in Lake Victoria, and the ecological changes...

Toward a new environmental insurgency.(Fall Focus on Books)
September 1, 2005... The US environmental movement is in the throes of self-examination--some would say self-mortification--triggered by the results of the 2004 presidential election and the publication of a controversial pamphlet, The Death of Environmentalism...

A time to reap.(Fall Focus on Books)
September 1, 2005... Poets and sages throughout the centuries have been moved to speak about the mystery of time and the poignancy of its passage, yet until recently, books about biological time and the biological clocks that record it have been scarce. Over the...

Walking back through evolutionary time.
September 1, 2005... The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution. Richard Dawkins. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 2004. 673 pp., illus. $28.00 (ISBN 0618005838 cloth). Richard Dawkins, the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding at...

Gaia out of equilibrium?
September 1, 2005... Scientists Debate Gaia: The Next Century. Stephen H. Schneider, James R. Miller, Eileen Crist, and Penelope J. Boston, eds. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004. 377 pp., illus. $50.00 (ISBN 0262194988 cloth). Since its appearance, the Gaia...

Life: the short(er) version.
September 1, 2005... Evolution. Douglas J. Futuyma. Sinauer, Sunderland, MA, 2005. 603 pp., illus. $89.95 (ISBN 0878931872 cloth). As all evolutionists know, Douglas J. Futuyma, a professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is the author of a...

The genetics of groups, for group reading.
September 1, 2005... Genetic Structure and Selection in Subdivided Populations. Francois Rousset. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2004. 288 pp. $85.00 (0691088160 cloth). In the first half of the 20th century, the eminent founders of quantitative...

An ecosystem of superlatives.
September 1, 2005... Under Antarctic Ice: The Photographs of Norbert Wu. Text by Jim Mastro, photographic notes by Norbert Wu. University of California Press, Berkeley, 2004. 176 pp., illus. $39.95 (ISBN 0520235045 cloth). This book presents the reader with a...

Simpler, but still not simple.
September 1, 2005... Complex Worlds from Simpler Nervous Systems. Frederick R. Prete, ed. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004. 436 pp., illus. $40.00 (ISBN 0262661748 paper). Not many years ago I gave a talk to an audience, consisting largely of engineers, on what...

New titles.(Fall Focus on Books)
September 1, 2005... Aquatic Food Webs: An Ecosystem Approach. Andrea Belgrano, Ursula M. Scharler, Jennifer Dunne, and Robert E. Ulanowicz, eds. Oxford University Press, New York, 2005. 272 pp., illus. $74.50 (ISBN 019856483X paper). Bacterial Ion Channels...

Mary McKenna, AIBS Human Resources Committee chair, addresses Gates scholars.(AIBS news)
September 1, 2005... On 14 July, Mary McKenna, a professor at Howard University and chair of the AIBS Human Resources Committee, addressed scholars at the Gates Millennium Scholars Graduate School Institute (www.gmsp.org). The Gates Millennium Scholars Program is...

AIBS participates in ECO-hosted career skills workshop.(AIBS news)
September 1, 2005... The Environmental Careers Organization (ECO) places over 200 university students and recent graduates in summer internships with government agencies, nonprofit groups, and private companies across the country. On 25 July, ECO hosted a career...

AIBS responds to intelligent design movement.(AIBS news)
September 1, 2005... The AIBS Public Policy Office has stepped up its public response to the intelligent design movement following some headline-making comments by President Bush and a high-profile vote by the Kansas State Board of Education. In August, the...

Recent articles online at www.actionbioscience.org.(AIBS news)
September 1, 2005... Original article in English * "Evolution's Importance to Society," interview with Massimo Pigliucci, Department of Ecology and Evolution, State University of New York at Stony Brook Spanish translations of previously posted articles...

Recent Public Policy Reports online at www.aibs.org.(AIBS news)
September 1, 2005... Public Policy Report for 1 August 2005 * Congress approves FY 2006 interior and environment appropriations House considers NIH reauthorization * NASA reauthorization moves forward * Senate confirms Olsen for NSF deputy * New...

Calendar of meetings.(Calendar)
September 1, 2005... September 11-15 American Fisheries Society, Anchorage, AK; www.fisheries. org/html/index.shtml 21-24 Natural Areas Association, Lincoln, NE; www.naturalarea. org 22-25 Organization of Biological Field Stations, Franklin, NC;...

No backing down on evolution.(BioBriefs)
September 1, 2005... A school board vote of confidence for evolution and a rallying right song for evolutionary biologists were among the bonuses of the Evolution 2005 conference held 10-14 June in Alaska. The meeting, which was jointly sponsored by the Society for...