New record of Encyrtids (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea)

List of one hundred and one (52) new country records are given. 1-1 species for Algeria, Australia, Bahamas, Burma, Cameroon, Costa-Rica, Colombia, Congo, Jordan, Oman, Pakistan, Honduras, Kuwait, New Zealand, Malaysia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tajikistan, Venezuela, Uganda; 2-2 species for Brazil, India, Israel, Kenya, Malawi, Sudan, Thailand, Togo, USA; 3-3 species for Egypt and Iran; 4-4 species for China and Palestin

What would be outcome of a Big Crunch?

I suggest the existence of a still undiscovered interaction: repulsion between matter and antimatter. The simplest and the most elegant candidate for such a force is gravitational repulsion between particles and antiparticles. I argue that such a force may give birth to a new Universe; by transforming an eventual Big Crunch of our universe, to an event similar to Big Bang. In fact, when a collapsing Universe is reduced to a supermassive black hole of a small size, a very strong field of the conjectured force may create particle-antiparticle pairs from the surrounding vacuum. The amount of the antimatter created from the physical vacuum is equal to the decrease of mass of "black hole Universe" and violently repelled from it. When the size of the black hole is sufficiently small the creation of antimatter may become so huge and fast, that matter of our Universe may disappear in a fraction of the Planck time. So fast transformation of matter to antimatter may look like a Big Bang with the initial size about 30 orders of magnitude greater than the Planck length, questioning the need for inflation. In addition, a Big Crunch, of a Universe dominated by matter, leads to a new Universe dominated by antimatter, and vice versa; without need to invoke CP violation as explanation of matter-antimatter asymmetry. Simply, our present day Universe is dominated by matter, because the previous Universe was dominated by antimatter

Higher establishment success in specialized parasitoids: support for the existence of trade-offs in the evolution of specialization

Most animals do not feed on all the resources available to them, but the mechanisms behind the evolution of dietary specialization are still debated. A central but unanswered question is whether specialists generally gain fitness advantages on their resource compared to generalists, experiencing a trade-off between the ability to use a broad range of resources and the fitness reached on each single one.Empirical tests so far suffered from difficulties in measuring fitness; they were restricted to few species, and results were equivocal. This lack of support for the importance of trade-offs gave rise to theories explaining the evolution of specialization without such trade-offs.Using a large dataset of intentional biological control introductions of 254 species of parasitoids from 15 families to locations outside their native range, we show that establishment success, a measure of total fitness, is higher in specialized species. This result holds when controlling for possible confounding factors such as the number of introduced individuals (propagule pressure).The outcome of this study provides robust evidence that dietary specialization implies fitness advantages in an entire species-rich taxon, indicating that trade-offs might be widely involved in the evolution of specialization

Do we live in the universe successively dominated by matter and antimatter?

We wonder if a cyclic universe may be dominated alternatively by matter and antimatter. Such a scenario demands a mechanism for transformation of matter to antimatter (or antimatter to matter) during the final stage of a big crunch. By giving an example, we have shown that in principle such a mechanism is possible. Our mechanism is based on a hypothetical repulsion between matter and antimatter, existing at least deep inside the horizon of a black hole. When universe is reduced to a supermassive black hole of a small size, a very strong field of the conjectured force might create (through a Schwinger type mechanism) particle-antiparticle pairs from the quantum vacuum. The amount of antimatter created from the vacuum is equal to the decrease of mass of the black hole and violently repelled from it. When the size of the black hole is sufficiently small, the creation of antimatter may become so fast, that matter of our Universe might be transformed to antimatter in a fraction of second. Such a fast conversion of matter into antimatter may look as a Big Bang. Our mechanism prevents a singularity; a new cycle might start with an initial size more than 30 orders of magnitude greater than the Planck length, suggesting that there is no need for inflationary scenario in Cosmology. In addition, there is no need to invoke CP violation for explanation of matter-antimatter asymmetry. Simply, our present day Universe is dominated by matter, because the previous universe was dominated by antimatter

Completion Dissection or Observation for Sentinel-Node Metastasis in Melanoma.

Sentinel-lymph-node biopsy is associated with increased melanoma-specific survival (i.e., survival until death from melanoma) among patients with node-positive intermediate-thickness melanomas (1.2 to 3.5 mm). The value of completion lymph-node dissection for patients with sentinel-node metastases is not clear. In an international trial, we randomly assigned patients with sentinel-node metastases detected by means of standard pathological assessment or a multimarker molecular assay to immediate completion lymph-node dissection (dissection group) or nodal observation with ultrasonography (observation group). The primary end point was melanoma-specific survival. Secondary end points included disease-free survival and the cumulative rate of nonsentinel-node metastasis. Immediate completion lymph-node dissection was not associated with increased melanoma-specific survival among 1934 patients with data that could be evaluated in an intention-to-treat analysis or among 1755 patients in the per-protocol analysis. In the per-protocol analysis, the mean (±SE) 3-year rate of melanoma-specific survival was similar in the dissection group and the observation group (86±1.3% and 86±1.2%, respectively; P=0.42 by the log-rank test) at a median follow-up of 43 months. The rate of disease-free survival was slightly higher in the dissection group than in the observation group (68±1.7% and 63±1.7%, respectively; P=0.05 by the log-rank test) at 3 years, based on an increased rate of disease control in the regional nodes at 3 years (92±1.0% vs. 77±1.5%; P<0.001 by the log-rank test); these results must be interpreted with caution. Nonsentinel-node metastases, identified in 11.5% of the patients in the dissection group, were a strong, independent prognostic factor for recurrence (hazard ratio, 1.78; P=0.005). Lymphedema was observed in 24.1% of the patients in the dissection group and in 6.3% of those in the observation group. Immediate completion lymph-node dissection increased the rate of regional disease control and provided prognostic information but did not increase melanoma-specific survival among patients with melanoma and sentinel-node metastases. (Funded by the National Cancer Institute and others; MSLT-II ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00297895 .)