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Few countries have put as much pressure on their universities to attract business funding as the UK but this is now having a growing effect on their operations. Nigel Williams reports.

The British government and pharmaceutical companies have ramped up action against the increasing threat from animal activists but some are still concerned they have not gone far enough to protect researchers. Nigel Williams reports.

The British government has blocked entry to a key American animal rights campaigner but there are growing concerns about local developments. Nigel Williams reports.

Genetic testing is set to enter mainstream healthcare and further population research but needs new regulation according to a European report, writes Nigel Williams.

A new study suggests that the management of crop rotation may be of key importance in determining the environmental impact of introducing genetically modified crops alongside conventional crops. But caution within Europe about these crops remains in the face of pressure from outside. Nigel Williams reports.

A new report seeks to strengthen the cooperation between states with an interest in Antarctica in the face of growing commercial interests in the potential of polar organisms, writes Nigel Williams .

One Long Argument, the title of one of Ernst Mayr's later popular books on evolution, in many ways sums up the core of his intellectual life. Mayr, a leading evolutionary biologist over many years of the past century, who died aged 100 last month, was an explorer, naturalist, ornithologist, philosopher, historian of science and Harvard academic.Like Darwin, he was studying medicine when his focus was diverted to natural history. In his 20s he grasped opportunities for tropical expeditions and his travels shaped his life. His achievements were the result of being profoundly enthralled by the wonders of nature and applying his sharp inquisitive mind to finding logical answers, supported by scientific research.Mayr was a birdwatcher from childhood, influenced by his father, Otto. At 10, he could identify many species around the southern German town of Kempten. But the most significant event that year was his sighting of a pair of red-crested pochards, not recorded in Germany since 1846. He recalled that his life would have been completely different had it not been for those ducks.They brought him to the attention of Professor Erwin Stresemann, curator of birds at the Berlin Natural History Museum; Mayr was invited to work there during vacations, classifying tropical bird specimens. He recalled it was like being ‘given the keys to heaven.’An ornithology doctorate followed in 1925, and he became the museum's curator in 1926. At the 1927 International Zoological Congress at Budapest, he met the banker Lord Walter Rothschild, who had a private museum at Tring, in southern England. Rothschild was assembling the world's most comprehensive bird collection, and Mayr did not hesitate when offered the job of New Guinea staff naturalist. His 1928–29 experiences there included journeys through six unexplored mountain ranges.He was then invited to lead a 1929–30 expedition to the Solomon Islands, sponsored by the American philanthropist Harry Payne Whitney. This made important contributions to biology, discovered scores of species and filled a hall at New York's Museum of Natural History.View Large Image | View Hi-Res Image | Download PowerPoint SlideIn the early 1930s Mayr was briefly curator of Rothschild's Tring collection and might well have stayed in England. But when the banker plunged into financial crisis, 280,000 of his bird skins were sold to the New York museum. This was Mayr's base for 21 years – as the Whitney-Rothschild collection's associate curator from 1932 to 1944, and curator to 1953.View Large Image | View Hi-Res Image | Download PowerPoint SlideHis early work guided Theodosius Dobzhansky's Genetics and the Origin of Species (1937), which founded the synthetic theory of evolution. With Julian Huxley and George Gaylord Simpson, he helped incorporate new discoveries by naturalists and population geneticists into the framework of Darwinian theory.Harvard was important to the second half of his life, he was professor of zoology from 1953 to 1975 and also directed the university's Museum of Comparative Zoology from 1961 to 1970. His interest in evolutionary biology, and the history and philosophy of biology grew. His Animal Species and Evolution (1963) had new views on the nature of species.His later years were dominated by continuing his argument into the development of a philosophy of biology. Mayr was acutely aware of the distinction between biological principles and those of the physical sciences. As physical science had an increasing input into the workings of biology his plangent voice grew stronger. His one long argument, backed by a lifetime of solid practical work, is sure to endure. “I'm an old-time fighter for Darwinism,” he told the Harvard University Gazette in 1991. “I say: ‘Please tell me what is wrong with Darwinism. I don't see anything wrong.’”

The recent tsunami in the Indian Ocean is the latest and most devastating natural disaster to highlight the value of mangrove forest and other natural defences in protecting vulnerable coastal communities. Nigel Williams reports.

The European Commission has plans to double its major research budget with much greater focus on basic research. Nigel Williams reports.

Summary In spite of global fisheries gloom, North Sea cod shows some glimmer of increase. Nigel Williams reports.