History and future of animal welfare science

It is suggested that Mench give credit to the books that started the farm animal welfare movement--Harrison's (1964) Animal Machines and, arriving 1 year later, Huxley's (1965) Brave New Victuals. Huxley covered the use of chemicals on the land and “factory fanning, ”a phrase coined by Harrison. They both discussed the rearing of animals indoors in huge numbers, closely confined, artificially lit, mechanically supplied with food, and treated with drugs and hormones to prevent disease and to speed growth. Are intensive methods necessarily cruel to animals? Are agricultural and industrial chemical residues contaminating the environment? What is the influence of new methods on the quality of food and what are the effects on the human organism? These were relevant questions back then, and almost 30 years later Harrison (1988, 1993) wondered how much real progress has been made in answering them.     

Equity of our future oceans: practices and outcomes in marine science research

Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries - The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aspire to a society where ways to improve inclusivity and diversity of equity are actively explored....     

The replicability crisis in science and protected area research: Poor practices and potential solutions

The reliability of some published research from well-funded disciplines of medicine and psychology has been brought into question. This is because some researchers failed to achieve consistent results after replicating published studies using the same methodology. Researchers have referred to this as the ‘replicability in science crisis’ and have identified several practices contributing to unreliable science. Protected area and other conservation researchers are unlikely to be immune from these poor practices given they use the same scientific approaches as other disciplines. Fortunately, there are solutions to the poor practices contributing to unreliable science. In this paper I identify those poor practices and describe solutions as identified by researchers from a range of disciplines. These solutions are transferable to protected area science and related conservation disciplines. Most solutions are not costly or demanding to implement. Adopting these solutions can improve the reliability of both published and unpublished research.     

新农科背景下分子生物学实验课创新性教学的探索与实践

新农科建设是面向新农业、新乡村、新农民和新生态发展而推出的深化高等农林教育改革的新思路和新举措。根据新农科的要求,如何将农林产业发展中的新技术和新方法及时引入实验课程教学,推进专业教育和创新创业教育的融合,是当前本科实验教学改革的必由之路。鉴于此,中南林业科技大学生命科学与技术学院根据分子生物学实验课程的教学要求和特点,结合教师科研成果,从实验项目、教学环节及考核方式等方面进行了探索和实践,极大地提升了学生的综合素质和创新能力,也为其他课程的创新实验教学提供了借鉴作用。     

Human genome research and the public interest: progress notes from an American science policy experiment.

This essay reviews the efforts of the U.S. Human Genome Project to anticipate and address the ethical, legal, and social implications of new advances in human genetics. Since 1990, approximately $10 million has been awarded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy, in support of 65 research, education, and public discussion projects. These projects address four major areas of need: (1) the need for both client-centered assessments of new genetic services and for improved knowledge of the psychosocial and ethnocultural factors that shape clients' clinical genetic experiences; (2) the need for clear professional policies regarding human-subject research, clinical practice standards, and public health goals in human genetics; (3) the need for social policy protection against unfair access to and use of personal genetic information; and (4) the need for improved public and professional understanding and discussion of these issues. The Human Genome Project's goal is to have defined, by 1995, policy options and programs capable of addressing these needs.     

Weed species diversity and community composition in cropping practices at two intensity levels – a six-year experiment

Alternative cropping practices can be expected to increase the diversity and change the species composition of weed communities. In a six-year field experiment we compared species diversity and species composition in the weed community of cereal fields cultivated by conventional and by low-input cropping methods. In the conventional cropping both mineral fertilizers and herbicides were applied but in the low-input cropping the fertlizer was manure and herbicides were avoided altogether. The level of nitrogen fertilization was higher in conventional cropping. A five-year crop rotation comprising rye, oat-pea, barley and two-year grasslands was used in both cropping methods. We found that the species pool was larger (42 vs 35 species) and the average number of species higher (20.2 vs 13.1 species) in low-input than in conventional cropping. This was the case both in the data pooled across crops and in each crop separately. Herbicides affected species diversity and species composition more than did nitrogen fertilization. Species susceptible to the herbicides applied declined in abundance, which resulted in more skewed dominance patterns in the communities of conventional fields than in those of low-input fields. The crop affected the species composition of weed communities more than did the cropping method. Our results suggest that weed species diversity could be promoted by using low-intensity cropping practices.