Gilead Sciences has become the first pharmaceutical company to set up a licensing agreement with the recently-established Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), in a move aimed toward increasing access in developing countries to drugs that treat HIV and Hepatitis B.
Energy efficiency analysis for different biomass-utilization scenarios would help make more informed decisions for developing future biomass-based transportation systems.
Ecologists have long hypothesized that fragmentation of tropical landscapes reduces avian nest success. However, this hypothesis has not been rigorously assessed because of the difficulty of finding large numbers of well-hidden nests in tropical forests.
Agronomic intensification has transformed many agricultural landscapes into expansive monocultures with little natural habitat. A pervasive concern is that such landscape simplification results in an increase in insect pest pressure, and thus an increased need for insecticides.
The Antarctic Peninsula is considered to be the last region of Antarctica to have been fully glaciated as a result of Cenozoic climatic cooling. As such, it was likely the last refugium for plants and animals that had inhabited the continent since it separated from the Gondwana supercontinent.
Exposure to endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), such as bisphenol A (BPA), may cause adverse health effects in wildlife and humans, but controversy remains as to what traits are most sensitive to EDCs and might serve as barometers of exposure.
The ladybird beetle, Coleomegilla maculata (DeGeer), is a common and abundant predator in many cropping systems. Its larvae and adults are predaceous, feeding on aphids, thrips, lepidopteran larvae and plant tissues, such as pollen.
Invasive species can displace natives, and thus identifying the traits that make aliens successful is crucial for predicting and preventing biodiversity loss. Pathogens may play an important role in the invasive process, facilitating colonization of their hosts in new continents and islands.
