T he health care profession and patients continue to await solid evidence about the effects of shark or bovine cartilage in the treatment of angiogenesis-dependent disease states, Some evidence has accrued that shark cartilage may have efficacy in several common diseases, including but not limited to cancer. Zealots have made unsubstantiated claims about the benefits of therapy with shark and o...

Increasing fishing effort has caused declines in shark populations worldwide. Understanding biological and ecological characteristics of sharks is essential to effectively implement management measures, but to fully understand drivers of fishing pressure social factors must be considered through multidisciplinary and integrated approaches. The present study aimed to use fisher and trader knowle...

The concept of elasmobranch species using nursery areas was introduced in the early 1900s and has been an accepted aspect of shark biology and behavior for several decades. Despite several descriptions of how shark species use nursery areas and what types of regions nurseries may be found in, no explicit definition of what constitutes a shark nursery area has been presented. Here we evaluate th...

Quantifying shark distribution patterns and species-specific habitat associations in response to geographic and environmental drivers is critical to assessing risk of exposure to fishing, habitat degradation, and the effects of climate change. The present study examined shark distribution patterns, species-habitat associations, and marine reserve use with baited remote underwater video stations...

Florida’s commercial and recreational shark landings represent a significant portion of the total U.S. Atlantic shark landings (NMFS, 1993). Shark landings have increased significantly during the past decade because human consumption of shark meat has become increasingly acceptable and because, in Asian markets, the demand for shark fins is very high— as are the prices paid for them (NMFS, 1993...

Embryonic dorsal closure (DC) in Drosophila is a series of morphogenetic movements involving the bilateral dorsal movement of the epidermis (cell stretching) and dorsal suturing of the leading edge (LE) cells to enclose the viscera. The Syk family tyrosine kinase Shark plays a crucial role in this Jun amino-terminal kinase (JNK)-dependent process, where it acts upstream of JNK in LE cells. Usin...

Conservation and Management Measure 2008‐06 was implemented by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission in February 2009 and requires the Commission to work toward providing preliminary advice on the stock status of key shark species in 2010. While the need for shark assessments is thus well‐recognised, catch data necessary to support such assessments is, in many cases, insufficien...

The uses of shark collagen as a matrix for cell culture and as a substrate for zymography were investigated. Fibroblasts were cultured on a gel matrix of shark type I collagen at 30 degrees C. The collagen gel had contracted by 4 days of incubation. Individual fibroblasts were visible against the transparent background of the contracted collagen as long, lean star-shaped cells. The matrix metal...

The velvet belly lantern shark (Etmopterus spinax) is a common deep-sea shark that has been used, in the recent years, as a model for experimental studies on physiological control of shark luminescence. These studies demonstrated that, unlike any other luminous organism, the luminescence of this shark was under a dual control of hormones and neurotransmitters (or neuromodulators). This paper, b...

Shark diving tourism is a burgeoning, global industry. The growing perception that sharks can be worth more alive for tourism than dead in a fish market has become one of the leading contemporary arguments for shark conservation. However, there still exists concern that many aspects of shark-related tourism (e.g., provisioning) may alter natural behaviors and foraging areas, as well as pose a t...