Publications by authors named "George Middendorf"

Understanding tropical biology is important for solving complex problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and zoonotic pandemics, but biology curricula view research mostly via a temperate-zone lens. Integrating tropical research into biology education is urgently needed to tackle these issues.

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This essay proposes African-based ethical solutions to profound human problems and a working African model to address those problems. The model promotes sustainability through advanced agroecological and information communication technologies. The essay's first section reviews the ethical ground of that model in the work of the Senegalese scholar, Cheikh Anta Diop.

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We discuss how academically-based interdisciplinary teams can address the extreme challenges of the world's poorest by increasing access to the basic necessities of life. The essay's first part illustrates the evolving commitment of research universities to develop ethical solutions for populations whose survival is at risk and whose quality of life is deeply impaired. The second part proposes a rationale for university responsibility to solve the problems of impoverished populations at a geographical remove.

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We propose consideration of at least two possible evolutionary paths for the emergence of intelligent life with the potential for technical civilization. The first is the path via encephalization of homeothermic animals; the second is the path to swarm intelligence of so-called superorganisms, in particular the social insects. The path to each appears to be facilitated by environmental change: homeothermic animals by decreased climatic temperature and for swarm intelligence by increased oxygen levels.

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Fruit of the blackberry, Rubus pennsylvanicus Poir. (Rosaceae), were examined to determine variation in maturation characteristics. Maturation timing and rate varied greatly among individual fruits, resulting in a bi-colored fruiting display comprised largely of two maturation stages, pre-ripe (salmon and scarlet) and ripe (dark brown and black).

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