All posts from February 2010

The awareness of the need to protect endangered species has grown widely in the past few decades. The decimation of species throughout the world due to both natural and man-made conditions has pushed many species to the brink of extinction. While there are many efforts underway to protect and revive the species on the endangered list today, the struggle of many species to survive is still uncertain. This week’s book of the week, Selected vertebrate endangered species of the seacoast of the United States (1980), published by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, outlines some of the species that were facing this battle for survival thirty years ago.

The United Nations has been marking years for special observation since 1959. Since then, international relief agencies have rallied around Human Rights (1968), Apartheid (1978/79), Literacy (1994), and other issues that pose a global threat to sustained peace and prosperity. This year, the United Nations has named 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity. The message is pretty simple. Individual lives are dependent on a healthy network of life. Human activity in the form of industry and commerce poses a threat to the health of that network.

As you may know, BHL recently acquired tens of thousands additional titles by ingesting open access texts supplied by the Internet Archive. Read the original announcement here.One title in particular stands out as one of those works that really highlights the passage of time, the evolution of scientific thought, and associative leaps we take for granted is Robert Lee Bates’ 1923 investigation “The effects of cigar and cigarette smoking on certain psychological and physiological functions”.