New and old tools in biodiversity exploration

Imaging zinc: old and new tools.

As recently as 20 years ago, all zinc in biological systems was believed to be tightly bound to proteins, and the idea of imaging zinc was considered heretical. Beginning with Maske's research with dithizonate staining of the hippocampus in the 1950s, however, zinc-sensitive dyes have indicated that, in mammalian cells, free zinc can exist in at least three separate pools. These pools include v...

Online Graph Exploration: New Results on Old and New Algorithms

We study the problem of exploring an unknown undirected connected graph. Beginning in some start vertex, a searcher must visit each node of the graph by traversing edges. Upon visiting a vertex for the first time, the searcher learns all incident edges and their respective traversal costs. The goal is to find a tour of minimum total cost. Kalyanasundaram and Pruhs [23] proposed a sophisticated ...

Incentive Measures an Exploration of Tools and Methodologies for Valuation of Biodiversity and Biodiversity Resources and Functions

In paragraph 12 of this decision, the Conference of the Parties requested the Executive Secretary to “explore, in cooperation with the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and relevant international organizations, existing methodologies for valuation of biodiversity and biodiversity resources and functions, as well as other tools for priori...

New Species in the Old World: Europe as a Frontier in Biodiversity Exploration, a Test Bed for 21st Century Taxonomy

The number of described species on the planet is about 1.9 million, with ca. 17,000 new species described annually, mostly from the tropics. However, taxonomy is usually described as a science in crisis, lacking manpower and funding, a politically acknowledged problem known as the Taxonomic Impediment. Using data from the Fauna Europaea database and the Zoological Record, we show that contrary ...

New tools for an old disease.