The Environment and Trade Agreements: Should the WTO Become More Actively Involved

The article first explores several basic arguments concerning whether the World Trade Organization (WTO) should require member states to adopt environmental standards as major components of international trade agreements. Section II provides a brief background on the debate surrounding environmental aspects of trade agreements and their relationship to development. Section III discusses the benefits and problems associated with enforcing environmental standards through the WTO. Section IV provides arguments for the incorporation of environmental standards in trade agreements through the WTO

Large Magnetic Fields and Motions of OH Masers in W75 N

We report on a second epoch of VLBA observations of the 1665 and 1667 MHz OH masers in the massive star-forming region W75 N. We find evidence to confirm the existence of very strong (~40 mG) magnetic fields near source VLA 2. The masers near VLA 2 are dynamically distinct and include a very bright spot apparently moving at 50 km/s relative to those around VLA 1. This fast-moving spot may be an example of a rare class of OH masers seen in outflows in star-forming regions. Due to the variability of these masers and the rapidity of their motions, tracking these motions will require multiple observations over a significantly shorter time baseline than obtained here. Proper motions of the masers near VLA 1 are more suggestive of streaming along magnetized shocks rather than Keplerian rotation in a disk. The motions of the easternmost cluster of masers in W75 N (B) may be tracing slow expansion around an unseen exciting source.Comment: 7 pages including 4 figures (2 color) & 3 tables, to appear in Ap

Climate change and an invasive, tropical milkweed: an ecological trap for monarch butterflies

© 2018 by the Ecological Society of America While it is well established that climate change affects species distributions and abundances, the impacts of climate change on species interactions has not been extensively studied. This is particularly important for specialists whose interactions are tightly linked, such as between the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) and the plant genus Asclepias, on which it depends. We used open-top chambers (OTCs) to increase temperatures in experimental plots and placed either nonnative Asclepias curassavica or native A. incarnata in each plot along with monarch larvae. We found, under current climatic conditions, adult monarchs had higher survival and mass when feeding on A. curassavica. However, under future conditions, monarchs fared much worse on A. curassavica. The decrease in adult survival and mass was associated with increasing cardenolide concentrations under warmer temperatures. Increased temperatures alone reduced monarch forewing length. Cardenolide concentrations in A. curassavica may have transitioned from beneficial to detrimental as temperature increased. Thus, the increasing cardenolide concentrations may have pushed the larvae over a tipping point into an ecological trap; whereby past environmental cues associated with increased fitness give misleading information. Given the ubiquity of specialist plant–herbivore interactions, the potential for such ecological traps to emerge as temperatures increase may have far-reaching consequences

A Primer On International Environmental Law: Sustainability As A Principle Of International Law And Custom

International environmental law draws from two important sources: international treaties and conventions\u27 and customary international law

SSIPTools: Software and Methodology for Surface Site Interaction Point (SSIP) Approach and Applications.

We present the SSIPTools suite of programs. SSIPTools is a collection of software modules enabling the use of the Surface Site Interaction Point (SSIP) molecular descriptors, used for the modeling of noncovalent interactions in neutral organic molecules. It contains an implementation of the workflow for the generation of the SSIP descriptors, as well as the Functional Group Interaction Profiles (FGIPs) and Solvent Similarity Indexes (SSIs) applications, based on the SSIMPLE (Surface Site Interaction model for the Properties of Liquids at Equilibria) approach.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/M506485/1

The Sex and Race Specific Relationship between Anthropometry and Body Fat Composition Determined from Computed Tomography: Evidence from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis.

BackgroundFew studies have investigated the relationship of anthropometric measurements with computed tomography (CT) body fat composition, and even fewer determined if these relationships differ by sex and race.MethodsCT scans from 1,851 participants in the population based Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis were assessed for visceral and subcutaneous fat areas by semi-automated segmentation of body compartments. Regression models were used to investigate relationships for anthropometry with visceral and subcutaneous fat separately by sex and race/ethnicity.ResultsParticipants were 50% female, 41% Caucasian, 13% Asian, 21% African American, and 25% Hispanic. For visceral fat, the positive relationship with weight (p = 0.028), waist circumference (p<0.001), waist to hip ratio (p<0.001), and waist to height ratio (p = 0.05) differed by sex, with a steeper slope for men. That is, across the range of these anthropometric measures the rise in visceral fat is faster for men than for women. Additionally, there were differences by race/ethnicity in the relationship with height (p<0.001), weight (p<0.001), waist circumference (p<0.001), hip circumference (p = 0.006), and waist to hip ratio (p = 0.001) with the Hispanic group having shallower slopes. For subcutaneous fat, interaction by sex was found for all anthropometric indices at p<0.05, but not for race/ethnicity.ConclusionThe relationship between anthropometry and underlying adiposity differs by sex and race/ethnicity. When anthropometry is used as a proxy for visceral fat in research, sex-specific models should be used

Phytochemical changes in milkweed induced by elevated CO2 alter wing morphology but not toxin sequestration in monarch butterflies

Environmental change has the potential to influence trophic interactions by altering the defensive phenotype of prey.Here, we examine the effects of a pervasive environmental change driver, elevated atmospheric concentrations of CO2 (eCO2), on toxin sequestration and flight morphology of a specialist herbivore.We fed monarch butterfly larvae, Danaus plexippus, foliage from four milkweed, Asclepias, species of varying chemical defence profiles grown under either ambient or eCO2. We also infected a subset of these herbivores with a protozoan parasite, Ophryocystis elektroscirrha, to understand how infection and environmental change combine to alter herbivore defences. We measured changes in phytochemistry induced by eCO2 and assessed cardenolide, toxic steroid, sequestration and wing morphology of butterflies.Monarchs compensated for lower plant cardenolide concentrations under eCO2 by increasing cardenolide sequestration rate, maintaining similar cardenolide composition and concentrations in their wings under both CO2 treatments. We suggest that these increases in sequestration rate are a by‐product of compensatory feeding aimed at maintaining a nutritional target in response to declining dietary quality under eCO2.Monarch wings were more suitable for sustained flight (more elongated) when reared on plants grown under eCO2 or when reared on Asclepias syriaca or Asclepias incarnata rather than on Asclepias curassavica or Asclepias speciosa. Parasite infection engendered wings less suitable for sustained flight (wings became rounder) on three of four milkweed species. Wing loading (associated with powered flight) was higher on A. syriaca than on other milkweeds, whereas wing density was lower on A. curassavica. Monarchs that fed on high cardenolide milkweed developed rounder, thinner wings, which are less efficient at gliding flight.Ingesting foliage from milkweed high in cardenolides may provide protection from enemies through sequestration yet come at a cost to monarchs manifested as lower quality flight phenotypes: rounder, thinner wings with lower wing loading values.Small changes in morphology may have important consequences for enemy evasion and migration success in many animals. Energetic costs associated with alterations in defence and morphology may, therefore, have important consequences for trophic interactions in a changing world.A plain language summary is available for this article.Plain Language SummaryPeer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148239/1/fec13270-sup-0006-TableS2.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148239/2/fec13270-sup-0003-FigS2.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148239/3/fec13270-sup-0004-FigS3.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148239/4/fec13270-sup-0002-FigS1.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148239/5/fec13270-sup-0008-TableS4.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148239/6/fec13270-sup-0005-TableS1.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148239/7/fec13270-sup-0009-AppendixS1.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148239/8/fec13270_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148239/9/fec13270-sup-0001-Summary.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148239/10/fec13270.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148239/11/fec13270-sup-0007-TableS3.pd