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The article focuses on the effect of fish size limits on fisheries management. It notes that some fish species grow slowly, mature earlier, and lay fewer eggs than in the previous years in some areas indicating the lesser value of these species when compared to their larger counterpart. It attributes shrinking fish to seawater temperature changes and food resource decline.

The article reports on the cancellation of the anthrax vaccine study, that would use dozens of baboons, by the administrators at Oklahoma State University (OSU) in support for animal-rights movements in Stillwater, Oklohama. It notes the consideration of OSU president Burns Higgins on the study as controversial. Some OSU faculty members suggest the influence of Madeleine Pickens, the wife of OSU benefactor T. Boone Pickens, on the decision of the university. Furthermore, OSU vice-president of research Stephen Mckever remarks the violent acts committed by animal-rights groups.

The article discusses the implications of the discovery of chicken bones containing Polynesian DNA on the theory that South Pacific seafarers have visited the Americas long before Christopher Columbus did. The chicken bones were dug up in Chile and were found to be from 1304 and 1424 AD, which is before the arrival of the Europeans in South America. Analysts are cautious about the discovery because it only provides circumstantial evidence of large-scale transoceanic Polynesian migration.

The article focuses on the damages brought by Hurricane Sandy at the New York University (NYU) Langone Medical Center in Manhattan, New York City. It states that the patients were evacuated from Tisch Hospital. It says that much of the Langone had flooded with water damage and freezer outages affecting the laboratories of 30-50 principal investigators. Moreover, a leak spilled diesel inside the animal facility making all the mice drowned or died from inhaling diesel fumes.

The article reports on the class-action lawsuit filed by executive Brian Egan against Telomerase Activation Sciences Inc. (TA Sciences) in New York for an alleged deceptive practices to promote herbal extract for ageing. It says that the lawsuit threatens to put telomeres science in a trial. Moreover, Noel Patton of TA Sciences negates Egan's accusation that blames the firm's TA-65 pill from Astragalus membranaceus herb for the cancer of the latter.

The article reports on the announcement of U.S. President Barack Obama of the full membership of his bioethics advisory council. The panel revealed by Obama includes six scientists and two lawyers with a wide range of expertise and viewpoints. Bioethicist Thomas Murray of the Hastings Center notes the potential of individuals placed in government to be in a better position to assure that the bioethics commission's reports get some traction.

The article focuses on increasing interest of scientists to study cancer genomics by analyzing tumor cells obtained directly from patients. It mentions that scientists have been for decades, using cancer cell cultures as a basis of cancer biology and drug treatments and discusses the criticism of the new method of analyzing cancer cells. Researchers opine that primary cells are more expensive and stress that all cancer types can be grown indefinitely in laboratories.

The article reports on the move of the U.S. government to amend the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). It notes the comment of environmental policy expert Terry Davis on the need to revise the bill. It also notes the announcement of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Lisa Jackson on the list of chemicals of concern. Moreover, it features the confirmation by American Chemistry Council vice president for regulatory council Mike Walls on the agency's support for the move.

The article reports on the lawsuit that Myriad Genetics Inc. of Salt Lake City, Utah is facing which elicits gene-patent issues. The case sprang up when the Public Patent Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union summoned Myriad for its unconstitutional act in patenting genes BRCA1 and BRCA2. As such, the Association of University Technology Managers and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) have suggested "non-exclusive" patents as far as gene diagnostics is concerned.

The article reports on the move by the National Institute of Health (NIH) to approve the use of human embryonic stem cells in federally funded research in the U.S.

The article reports on the fraud committed by H. M. Krishna Murthy who fabricated and falsified research results related to protein crystallography, as found by an investigation conducted by the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The university found that the researcher falsified data supporting 11 protein structures. Related issues are further discussed.

The article reports on the immortalization of the 2.25 billion base pairs of DNA from pandas by Chinese scientists in China. It examines the sigificance of panda DNA immortalization on the funding for the next panda genome research. Furthermore, Jenny Graves, a geneticist at the Australian National University, remarks the benefit of a genomics projects to researchers.

A biomechanically parsimonious hypothesis for the evolution of flapping flight in terrestrial vertebrates suggests progression within an arboreal context from jumping to directed aerial descent, gliding with control via appendicular motions, and ultimately to powered flight. The more than 30 phylogenetically independent lineages of arboreal vertebrate gliders lend strong indirect support to the ecological feasibility of such a trajectory. Insect flight evolution likely followed a similar sequence, but is unresolved paleontologically. Recently described falling behaviors in arboreal ants provide the first evidence demonstrating the biomechanical capacity for directed aerial descent in the complete absence of wings. Intentional control of body trajectories as animals fall from heights (and usually from vegetation) likely characterizes many more taxa than is currently recognized. Understanding the sensory and biomechanical mechanisms used by extant gliding animals to control and orient their descent is central to deciphering pathways involved in flight evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Morphology influences the rate at which foraging bees visit nectar flowers, the quantity of nectar they must consume to fuel their activities, and, consequently, the profitability of flower species. Because feeding time is a major determinant of visitation rate, I used a biomechanical model to examine how energy intake rate (E) varies with sucrose concentration, body mass (M), and proboscis length in orchid bees (Apidae: Euglossini). Under geometric scaling, the optimal sugar concentration (Smax) should be largely independent of body size, and E proportional to M1.0. In a comparative study of 30 orchid bee species ranging from 50 to 800 mg, Smax fell between 35% and 40% w/w, but E proportional to M0.54, significantly less than model predictions. Proboscis length and radius scale geometrically with body mass, but proboscis length exhibits substantial size-independent variation, particularly in small bees. One cost of a long proboscis is a reduction in both E and Smax in accordance with the scaling model. This finding highlights a difference between the lapping mechanism used by bumblebees and the suction mechanism used by orchid bees. A field study confirms that orchid bees harvest nectars with between 34% and 42% sucrose, independent of body size.

Energy flux during nectar feeding is maximized at an intermediate sugar concentration, the value of which depends on the morphology of the feeding apparatus and the modality of fluid feeding. Biomechanical models predict that a shift from capillary-based lapping to suction feeding will lead to a decrease in this optimal sugar concentration. Here, I demonstrate that the four major genera of orchid bees (Apidae: Euglossini) are suction feeders and provide experimental evidence that the feeding optimum for one species, Euglossa imperialis, falls below the optimum for bee taxa that lap.