Deep seabed mining: Can an acceptable regime ever be found?

Abstract

Fourteen years of effort by the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea and its predecessors have so far failed to produce a generally acceptable regime for deep seabed mining. The present Draft Convention does contain ingenious solutions to the problems created by the unique characteristics of seabed resources, the lack of existing international law governing their exploitation, the influence of the navigation provisions, and the need to reconcile the financial requirements of miners with the expectations of developing countries. It is a remarkable achievement in view of the negotiating obstacles that had to be overcome, but the regime is cumbersome and expensive. Further improvements in the interest of simplification will have to be made if it is to be workable.     

Managing Plant Resources: How Intensive Can it be?

Previous studies have shown there is a wide spectrum of incipient management practices between gathering and agriculture, that include resources commonly considered “wild.” Based on the study of 20 species used as foodstuffs in the community of Santa María Tecomavaca (Mexico), we evaluated nonagricultural management forms such as gathering, incipient nonselective management, incipient selective management and occasional ex situ cultivation to learn if they represent a gradient in the intensity of manipulation of a resource. The way in which the intensity of manipulation of a resource can vary as a function of cultural importance and the species’ biology was also analyzed. Using an index that measures the intensity of management of a resource, it has been established that the degree of intensity depends on: the specialization of the practices directed to the environment as well as to the individuals; the number of persons performing these practices; and the number of different practices taking place. The degree of management intensity is also a consequence of the joint action of cultural importance and of species’ biology.

Can the axial ligand strength be monitored through spectroscopic measurements?

 The influence of the properties of the axial ligands in heme proteins on the electronic structure of the iron(III) ion has been studied through angular overlap calculations. In particular, a correlation between (a) ligand field parameters and spectroscopic data and (b) the reduction potentials of the iron ion is proposed. The results of this approach are discussed with respect to their relevance for the biological function of different heme proteins. Received and accepted: 7 May 1996     

Can we ever identify the Urmetazoan?

Unraveling the root of the metazoan tree of life has been adifficult task since the time of Haeckel and the invention ofphylogenetics. Even considerable amounts of recent moleculardata have not provided a generally accepted answer. Here, wereview the major problems of this phylogenetic conundrum andprovide some directions for solving it.     

Male care in primates: does it ever reflect paternity?

Female mammals have internal fertilization, long gestation, and lactation. These basic facts of reproductive biology have important social consequences. Internal fertilization (accompanied by sperm competition) forces males either to face considerable uncertainty about paternity or to invest heavily in mate guarding. Long gestation increases the benefits of mate desertion for males. And because only females lactate, males have relatively less to contribute to rearing the young. Hence, it is not surprising that male mammals rarely assist their mates in caring for their young: Direct infant care by males occurs in fewer than 5 percent of all mammalian species.^1,2 In fact, many mammalian mothers attack males, even possible father of their offspring.³     

Can iron be teratogenic?

Several kinds of evidence indicate that elevated iron during the 3–8 week embryonic (organogenesis) period of human gestation may be teratogenic. (1) In the embryonic period, the natural maternal absorption of food iron is 30% below the estimated daily iron loss. (2) As compared with maternal serum, embryonic fetal coelomic fluid contains only one-fourth as much iron but nearly six times the quantity of the iron withholding protein, ferritin. (3) In the embryonic period, intraplacental oxygen pressure is 2–3 times lower than in the subsequent fetal growth period. (4) Iron is a strong inducer of emesis which peaks in the embryonic period. (5) In a murine gestation model, iron was neurotoxic at a sharp peak of 8–9 days. Thus it would be prudent, in human pregnancy, to delay any needed iron supplementation until the embryonic period has been completed.     

Can microbes be patented?

Native microorganisms in their original form cannot be patented. However, microbes like yeasts, bacteria, protozoa, unicellular algae, fungi, actinomycetes and viruses can be patented if they have been genetically modified. The process and the product obtained can also be patented.     

Learning to forage in a regenerating patchy environment: Can it fail to be optimal?

The behaviour of animals foraging along closed traplines of regenerating patches of food has been simulated using a learning rule that determines when an animal should leave the patch at which it is currently feeding to search for another one. The rule causes the animal to stay at the patch as long as it is feeding faster than it remembers doing. The foraging behaviour of one animal, and of two or more animals together, feeding in traplines containing patches of the same and of differing types has been simulated, and in all cases the foraging behaviour generated by the rule allowed the animals to exploit the food very efficiently. The learning model is also responsible for indirect social interactions among animals sharing the same trapline because the feeding of each animal reduces the availability of food for the others. This causes a population of animals to disperse themselves, on average, among patches of food according to the ideal free distribution. The relationship between the learning model and conventional optimal foraging models is examined and it is shown that it is pointless to try to account for learned behaviour in the context of optimal foraging theory.