Conserving nature's stage provides a foundation for safeguarding both geodiversity and biodiversity in protected and conserved areas

This article outlines the fundamental connections between geodiversity and biodiversity by providing a geoconservation perspective on the concept of 'conserving nature's stage' as a basis for safeguarding both geodiversity and biodiversity in the face of environmental and climate change. Conserving nature's stage – the physical environment in which species exist – provides a means of developing more integrated approaches to nature conservation, delivering benefits for both geodiversity and biodiversity conservation, and incorporating key principles of geoconservation in the management of protected and conserved areas.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Synthetic Gene Circuits: Design with Directed Evolution

Synthetic circuits offer great promise for generating insights into nature's underlying design principles or forward engineering novel biotechnology applications. However, construction of these circuits is not straightforward. Synthetic circuits generally consist of components optimized to function in their natural context, not in the context of the synthetic circuit. Combining mathematical modeling with directed evolution offers one promising means for addressing this problem. Modeling identifies mutational targets and limits the evolutionary search space for directed evolution, which alters circuit performance without the need for detailed biophysical information. This review examines strategies for integrating modeling and directed evolution and discusses the utility and limitations of available methods

BOOK REVIEW ON CITIES AS SUSTAINABLE ECOSYSTEMS: PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES. Authors: Peter Newman and Isabella Jennings

The book is a positive image of how cities can contribute not only to a better economic and social future but also a profoundly better ecological future. "Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems" shows how cities can begin to reintegrate into their bioregional environment and planned taking into account nature's organizing principles. Therefore, professor Peter Newman and Isabella Jennings reassess urban design by exploring flows of energy, materials, and information, along with the interactions between human and non-human parts of the system. "Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems" describes aspects of urban ecosystems, being a powerful model for urban redevelopmentSustainable Ecosystems, urban development, urban ecosystems

"Outside and In: Hegel on natural history"

The relation between nature and spirit in Hegel is not as simple as slogans such as "nature has no history" or a simple interior/exterior dichotonmy would suggest

Retrocausal Effects as a Consequence of Orthodox Quantum Mechanics Refined to Accommodate The Principle of Sufficient Reason

The principle of sufficient reason asserts that anything that happens does so for a reason: no definite state of affairs can come into being unless there is a sufficient reason why that particular thing should happen. This principle is usually attributed to Leibniz, although the first recorded Western philosopher to use it was Anaximander of Miletus. The demand that nature be rational, in the sense that it be compatible with the principle of sufficient reason, conflicts with a basic feature of contemporary orthodox physical theory, namely the notion that nature's response to the probing action of an observer is determined by pure chance, and hence on the basis of absolutely no reason at all. This appeal to pure chance can be deemed to have no rational fundamental place in reason-based Western science. It is argued here, on the basis of the other basic principles of quantum physics, that in a world that conforms to the principle of sufficient reason, the usual quantum statistical rules will naturally emerge at the pragmatic level, in cases where the reason behind nature's choice of response is unknown, but that the usual statistics can become biased in an empirically manifest way when the reason for the choice is empirically identifiable. It is shown here that if the statistical laws of quantum mechanics were to be biased in this way then the basically forward-in-time unfolding of empirical reality described by orthodox quantum mechanics would generate the appearances of backward-time-effects of the kind that have been reported in the scientific literature.Comment: v3: Added extra descriptive material and background comment

IP round-up: Recent decisions from the courts (September 2012)

This article discusses three trade mark cases: “Nutramarks, Inc v Nature’s Life NZ Ltd” [2012, NZHC 1134]; Le Cordon Bleu v Commissioner of Trade Marks” [2012, NZHC 724] and “Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland GMBH v AFT Pharmaceuticals Ltd [2012, NZHC 1051]