Lee Hood took to mountain climbing naturally, while he was growing up in rural Montana. The technical climbing he still practises consists generally of “going up vertical cliff faces.” His hobby could be an apt metaphor for a career in biology marked by unorthodox approaches to daunting problems. In the 1960s, Hood became the first biologist to seriously bridge the gap between biology and techn...

Children born in societies with a heavy social burden of HIV/AIDS, poor health and nutrition, and limited stimulation face additional challenges to flourishing before they turn six compared to children in societies that are not characterized by these environmental strains. Particularly, multiply-stressed caregivers, affected by HIV/AIDS and poverty, might have a limited capacity to provide care...

We suggest an empirical approach for determining critical loads for inorganic N deposition in wetfall to the central Rocky Mountains. We define "critical loads" as a deposition amount above which natural resources can be negatively affected. The arithmetic average from 1992 to 1996 of annual inorganic N deposition in wetfall at the eight NADP sites located at elevations greater than 2,500 m in ...

Local users are now the main source of electronic waste in Africa, but illegal imports of old computers, televisions, and other electronics devices from Europe, Asia, and North America still make their way there. That's the finding of Where Are WEEE in Africa?, a new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report about waste electronic and electrical A large portion of these imports are of ...

We present an efficient algorithm for visual modeling table mountains (mesas) using erosion simulation. The method uses techniques from Computer Graphics to closely model the phenomenon, without relying on physically correct modeling. Our main goal is to devise an efficient algorithm that is geologically inspired and simulates visually plausible results in a reasonable time with certain user co...

Aim A global meta-analysis was used to elucidate a mechanistic understanding of elevational species richness patterns of bats by examining both regional and local climatic factors, spatial constraints, sampling and interpolation. Based on these results, I propose the first climatic model for elevational gradients in species richness, and test it using preliminary bat data for two previously une...

Major fluxes of sulphur and dissolved inorganic nitrogen were estimated in Central European mountain ecosystems of the Bohemian Forest (forest lakes) and Tatra Mountains (alpine lakes) over the industrial period. Sulphur outputs from these ecosystems were comparable to inputs during a period of relatively stable atmospheric deposition (10-35 mmol m-2 yr-1) around the 1930s. Atmospheric inputs o...

1. The Mountains of Europe 1.1.Key Values of the Mountains 2. Sustainable Mountain Development: A New Priority 2.1.Defining Sustainable Mountain Development 2.2.Priorities from the European Intergovernmental Consultation 2.3.Priorities from the European Nongovernmental Consultation 3. Activities Connected with Sustainable Mountain Development in Europe 3.1.Initiatives Within Pan-European Instit...

A new gamasid mite species belonging to the genus Arctoseius Thor, 1930 is described from Russia. Arctoseius koltschaki sp. n. is distributed in the plain and mountain tundras from Khibiny Mountains to Chukotka on the north and to West Sayan Mountains on the south. A diagnosis and a key for identification of species comprising the multidentatus species-group (Arctoseius multidentatus Evans, 195...

Alpine regions are moving into the focus of scientific attention: chapter 13 of Agenda 21 is dedicated to mountains, 2002 was declared «International Year of the Mountain» and German Geographers' Day 2003 was entitled «Alpine World Mountain World: Islands, Bridges, Borders». The sustainable preservation of alpine regions represents a global issue, because a tenth of the world's population lives...