Management of Pacific Salmon has been an issue for years. To determine whether management goals are working, knowledge of historical populations can prove quite useful. In a recent study published in Ecology, Deanne C. Drake, Robert J. Naiman, and James M. Helfield, all of the University of Washington, paired annual tree ring growth with catch data to determine what salmon stocks looked like 200 years ago.

Born in freshwater lakes and rivers, salmon swim to the ocean where they feed and matu

A totally new and highly controversial theory on the origin of life on earth, is set to cause a storm in the science world and has implications for the existence of life on other planets. Research* by Professor William Martin of the University of Dusseldorf and Dr Michael Russell of the Scottish Environmental Research Centre in Glasgow, claims that living systems originated from inorganic incubators – small compartments in iron sulphide rocks. The new theory radically departs from existing perception

Many areas, including North America’s deserts, under severe threat

According to the most comprehensive global analysis ever conducted, wilderness areas still cover close to half the Earth’s land, but contain only a tiny percentage of the world’s population. More than 200 international scientists contributed to the analysis, which will be published in the book, Wilderness: Earth’s Last Wild Places, (University of Chicago Press, 2003).

The 37 wilderness areas identified in th

Heart disease is the most frequent, costly and severe complication of diabetes, affecting more than 70 percent of diabetic patients. There are geographic and ethnic differences in the risk of diabetic heart disease that cannot be fully explained by differences in conventional heart disease risk factors. Using a simple blood test, researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have identified a gene that determines which diabetes patients are at greater risk for developing heart disease. U

The direct injection of unwanted carbon dioxide deep into the ocean is one suggested strategy to help control rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and mitigate the effects of global warming. But, like the problems associated with the long-term storage of nuclear waste, finding a safe place to sequester the carbon may be more difficult than scientists first anticipated.

Because the atmosphere interacts with the oceans, the net uptake of carbon dioxide and the oceans’ sequestration capac

Research may assist in the development of more effective vaccines and ability to boost immune systems of susceptible patients, such as the elderly

A key discovery about the immune system’s skill to fight off harmful disease-causing germs may lead to the ability to boost the immune systems of the elderly and otherwise susceptible, and offer more effective vaccines for the flu or AIDS, according to a study published in the November 29 issue of Science.

“This research is o