The US anthrax outbreak has led to an unprecedented use of the antibiotic Cipro, but why not less precious drugs such as penicillin or doxycycline?

A primer describing the fundamental biology and basis of toxicity of five of the organisms most likely to be used as bioweapons.

resistant to vancomycin and now linezolid illustrates the urgent need for novel antibiotic design strategies.

oncogene could play an important role in the next generation of cancer treatments.

Editor's Note: A few months ago, a group from the University of Maryland tried to put a dollar amount on the value of ecosystems (R. Costanza et al., Nature, 387:253-60, 1997). They estimated that the annual average value of the Earth's natural goods and services was about $33 trillion. This is the value of ecosystems writ large, but one somewhat less extensive area of ecological research is understanding the value of biodiversity to the health of the whole ecosystem. Are there redundant spec

Sidebars Most-Cited Papers By Subject In Ecology/Environmental Sciences From 1981-94 Highly Cited Papers on Global Climate Change Published Since 1993 Ranked by total citations through 1995) Editor's Note: Ever since the 1992 Earth Summit conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the scientific community has sharpened its focus on biodiversity and global climate change and how it relates to all manner of disciplines, including biomedicine and public health. In this article from the September/Octo

Research Topic Editor's Note: In its continuing analysis of the citation record of ecology and environmental sciences, the newsletter Science Watch recently took a retrospective look at the rankings of papers in the field. Using a customized database--covering the years 1981 to 1993--of the most cited papers in the discipline, Peter D. Moore, a reader in ecology and chairman of human and environmental sciences in the Division of Life Sciences, King's College, London, looked for hot areas of ecol

PETER D. MOORE Department of Biology King's College London, U.K. Intensive exploitation of fish stocks in the Amazon basin has exhausted the supply of large fish and has led to increasing pressure being placed on smaller fish, such as the jaraqui. But there is an urgent need for coordinated management if yields are to be sustainable. A closed spawning season and protection during the subsequent weeks when the fish feed in the flooded forests is vital together with further protection of these f

Department of Biology King's College London, U.K. Because of the scarcity of accurate written records, it has rarely proved possible to trace the impact of the European colonists on North American woodlands in anything but general terms. The Allegheny Plateau, however, was colonized very late, and large stands of white pine and hemlock survived to the end of the last century. Written records and surveys in this area make it possible to follow woodland destruction and the spread of disturbance

To be effective as a control measure, the culling of a pest must exceed its capacity to regenerate. In North Australia, where feral donkeys are a serious pest of rangelands, a culling policy is being applied. Population studies have shown that 23 percent of the donkeys need to be removed each year to control density. Also, this figure must be exceeded if the population is to be reduced. D. Choquenot, "Rate of increase for populations of feral donkeys in northern Australia," Journal of Mammalog

The Scientist has asked a group of experts to comment periodically upon recent articles that they have found noteworthy. Their selections, presented herein every issue, are neither endorsements of content nor the result of systematic searching. Rather, the list represents personal choices of articles the columnists believe the scientific community as a whole may also find interesting. Reprints of any articles cited here may be ordered through The Genuine Article, 3501 Market St., Philadelphia,

Author: PETER D. MOORE Department of Biology King's College London, U.K. Analyses of lake sediments in Panama have provided evidence of the earliest recorded human impact on the forest environment of Central America. In layers dating to 11,000 years ago, there is a sudden appearance of carbon, together with phytoliths of weed species, such as Heliconia. These features indicate the onset of disturbed conditions that may well have been caused by human management of the contemporaneous low biomas