• Although there is a worldwide surge of interest in conservation, many justifications rest on shaky or ephemeral grounds. • Arguments for conservation of biodiversity often include strong ethical or aesthetic components which are superficially attractive but depend on potentially changeable social circumstances. • Economic justifications based on undiscovered potential are susceptible to chang...

A previous study highlighted the effect of vocal technique on the singing voice accuracy of trained singers. The intervals' precision between the notes of the tune was altered when the singers used Western operatic singing technique. In order better to understand these results, we have recorded two different melodies sung with two different vocal techniques. A large panel of trained singers (n ...

Terry L. Erwin is Curator of Coleoptera at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, in Washington, D.C. and editor-in-chief of ZooKeys. He generated significant controversy in 1982—which continues to this day—when he published an estimate of 30 million species on Earth, which was substantially more than the nearly one million described species. He was born 1 December 194...