Search, bioprospecting, and biodiversity conservation

To what extent can private-sector bioprospecting incentives be relied upon for the protection of biological diversity? The literature contains dramatically different estimates of these incentives from trivial to quite large. We resolve this controversy by isolating the fundamental source of the discrepancy and then providing empirically defensible estimates based on that analysis. Results demonstrate that the bioprospecting incentive is unlikely to generate much private-sector conservation. Thus, other mechanisms are likely required to preserve the public good of biodiversity.Bioprospecting, biodiversity, conservation, efficient search, information

Effects of Spending on New York Counties Six Year Graduation Rate

This study set out to find out more about the costs and benefits of educational spending. This was goal was then split into the steps of: reviewing previous literature, developing a model, and testing the model. The main difficulties associated with this were in finding appropriate substitutes for the theoretical variables. Due to the limited availability of data, this study focused on the six-year high school graduation rate of New York State Counties, class size, income, and spending per student as variables. These variables represented educational level, a portion of the efficiency of spending, the parent’s ability to help educate their children, and both the short and long-term spending of schools respectively. The results were that spending per students was not significant. This was likely due to the low variability between counties, potential errors in data collection, and the multicollinearity associated with combining multiple variables in the theoretical model. Class size was found to require income to be in the model in order be significant. This points to income potentially containing part of the short-term and/or long-term spending component of the theoretical model, making income a poor substitute. The suggestions for future studies are to: avoid the poor substitutes found by this study, reduce the level of aggregation by looking at either a school or district level, as well as looking through the theories for other substitutes to use and acquiring more data if possible

COSMOS 2044: Lung morphology study, experiment K-7-28

Researchers examined the effect of microgravity during spaceflight on lung tissue. The ultrastructure of the left lungs of 5 Czechoslovakian Wister rats flown on the 13 day, 19+ hour Cosmos 2044 mission was examined and compared to 5 vivarium and 5 synchronous controls at 1-g conditions, and 5 rats exposed to 14 days of tail suspension. Pulmonary hemorrage and alveolar adema of unknown origin occurred to a greater extent in the flight, tail-suspended, and synchronous control animals, and in the dorsal regions of the lung when compared with the vivarium controls. The cause of these changes, which are possibly due to an increase in pulmonary vascular pressure, requires further investigation

Chern-Simons Origin of Superstring Integrability

We derive the AdS5×S5 Green-Schwarz superstring from four-dimensional Beltrami-Chern-Simons theory reduced on a manifold with singular boundary conditions. In this construction, the Lax connection and spectral parameter of the integrable superstring have a simple geometric origin in four dimensions as gauge connection and reduction coordinate. Kappa symmetry arises as a certain class of singular gauge transformations, while the worldsheet metric comes from complex-structure-changing Beltrami differentials. Our approach offers the possibility of investigating integrable holography using traditional field theory methods

Defence of Clot-Bey'smode of Performing Lithotomy.

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Does he love me, or love me not?

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