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The article discusses the scientific publishing contributions of North America to the Nature Index database in 2014. Topics cited include the region's article and weight fractional count, the pattern of top five institutions' relative subject area distribution and collaborativeness and top three country collaborations, the initiative of the Canadian government to launch the Canadian High Arctic Research Station, and percentage of life science research in the U.S.

Without accurate taxonomic identification, research carried out in academic and applied branches of life sciences is effectively worthless. In the present note the role of taxonomy and taxonomists in modern science is highlighted with the help of suitable examples. Yet, taxonomy is generally neglected or avoided due to the mistaken belief that it is a disused branch of life sciences. On the contrary, taxonomy needs to be encouraged and taxonomic research and knowledge require to be more thoroughly applied for the correct identification of biological material as used in both academic and applied research for the welfare of society and humankind. Certain policies and factors responsible for the gradual decline in quality of Indian taxonomic research, and pushing taxonomy and taxonomic expertise towards extinction are identified. Some suggestions for the furthering of taxonomy in Indian universities and institutions are also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I propose we abandon the unit concept of “the evolutionary synthesis”. There was much more to evolutionary studies in the 1920s and 1930s than is suggested in our commonplace narratives of this object in history. Instead, four organising threads capture much of evolutionary studies at this time. First, the nature of species and the process of speciation were dominating, unifying subjects. Second, research into these subjects developed along four main lines, or problem complexes: variation, divergence, isolation, and selection. Some calls for ‹synthesis’ focused on these problem complexes (sometimes on one of these; other times, all). In these calls, comprehensive and pluralist compendia of plausibly relevant elements were preferred over reaching consensus about the value of particular formulae. Third, increasing confidence in the study of common problems coincided with methodological and epistemic changes associated with experimental taxonomy. Finally, the surge of interest in species problems and speciation in the 1930s is intimately tied to larger trends, especially a shifting balance in the life sciences towards process-based biologies and away from object-based naturalist disciplines. Advocates of synthesis in evolution supported, and were adapting to, these larger trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author focuses on different ecological aspects of origin and existence of life by reviewing the book "Scissors and Silks, Flowers and Trees, and Geraniums Ruined by the War: Virginia Woolf's Ecological Critique of Science in Mrs. Dalloway." It is suggested that to study life, we must consider three things, which are, the orderly sequence of external nature, the living organism and changes which take place in it, and the continuous adjustment between the two sets of phenomena which constitutes life. According to some researchers' point of view, knowing the power and the effect of fire, water, air, stars, the heaven and all other bodies that surround us as distinctly, we might put them in the same way to all the uses for which they are appropriate and therefore make ourselves masters and possessors of nature. Both the religious and the medical establishment aim to control the individual freedoms with their dictates on how to live and how both nature and organism should interact with each other so that a balance of life can be maintained.

The article presents views of Mole and Ground Sloth on various aspects of life-science research. It discusses irregularities in the scientific literature do so out of bitterness or spite, angered by the apparent ease with which some scientists publish work. It further explains about the perception that scientific fraud lying about scientific results for personal gain.

This article presents information about lab management courses for group leaders in scientific researches. Being a group leader is probably one of the hardest and most challenging jobs the natural sciences have to offer. Therefore, funding organizations, such as the HHMI and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund in the U.S., the Medical Research Council in London, Great Britain, and the European Molecular Biology Organization, have begun to offer lab-management courses to junior scientists. These courses are designed to help researchers prepare for a life as a group leader and to teach junior investigators how to increase the efficiency of their lab.

This article focuses on electronic publishing in life sciences. By collecting abstracts of a large number of articles and presenting them in a readily screened manner, Medicine and PubMed have already shown the way forward. The popularity of this free, current and increasingly complete compilation of material led to a proposal that there should be a single site where the lull text of all papers in a certain area of research could be searched at no cost. E-BioMed, the first attempt to establish such a system, was brought to the attention of a wide community by David Lipmann from the National Institutes of Health, and Pat Brown from Stanford University, at a Banhury conference at the end of 1998.

At present, it seems that technology in many areas assumes a priority secondary to the need for manpower. Technology to answer many of the questions raised in this document already exists, amplifying the need for personnel to take optimal advantage of that technology. Nonetheless, the foregoing reports emphasize that in many areas of skin biology which are unique to that organ system there is a significant need for development of animal models and a vigorous search outside of ordinary laboratory animals for models of skin disease in a natural animal population.

The article offers information on the instructions of the journal "Reports of the National Center for Science Education" (RNCSE) for authors of contributions related to the evolution of biological sciences. It mentions that the manuscripts should be electronically prepared which contain scholarly writing and formal essays highlighting detailed topics on biological science to be submitted to the journal via http://ncse.com. It adds that citations should be limited to author, date and page.

The article focuses on the call of the 25-member National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) for extra review of dual-use research in the U.S. The NSABB, a panel launched to assist the U.S. government prevent terrorists from misusing life sciences research, recommended that institutions and journals must adopt formal procedures to prescreen the publication of findings from such dual-use projects. In a meeting, the panel unanimously approved recommendations from one of its working groups asking authors, institutional reviewers and journal editors to execute a risk-benefit analysis before determining whether to publish results of dual-use research and in how much detail.

The article offers information about Politics and the Life Sciences as an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal with a global audience. It is owned and published by the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences, edited in the U.S. by the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, which will be gaining online accessibility in libraries worldwide in 2007. It includes evolutionary and laboratory insights into political behavior and political analysis of life-sciences research.

The article focuses on various reports, published in the July 1, 2000 issue of the journal EMBO reports. EMBO Reports will provide monthly coverage of topics that one feels is needed and will be enjoyed by scientists. It will contain material on the impact that politics, society and the financial world have on the environment in which sciences, particularly the life sciences, are performed. Together with reports on topics that created excitement at workshops held worldwide, the journal hopes that the review section will become a significant aid to finding important papers both in specialty and cognate areas.

Reports on the support by the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) to launch a global web repository for literature in life sciences, in cooperation with the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH). Database called, E-Biomed proposed by Harold Varmus of the NIH; Comments by Frank Gannon, executive director of EMBO; How EMBO's vision of the repository is different from that of E-Biomed.

Presents news briefs related to the biosciences. Selection of Robert Hoffman as Assistant Secretary for Research of the Smithsonian Institution; How the Edmund Niles Huyck Preserve and Biological Research Station is offering research grants to researchers of ecology; Naming of Marge Holland as the director of the public affairs office of the Ecological Society of America; Others.