The U.S. Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) has been a leader in weed science research covering topics ranging from the development and use of integrated weed management (IWM) tactics to basic mechanistic studies, including biotic resistance of desirable plant communities and herbicide resistance. ARS weed scientists have worked in agricultural and natural ecosystems, including agronomic and horticultural crops, pastures, forests, wild lands, aquatic habitats, wetlands, and riparian areas. Through strong partnerships with academia, state agencies, private industry, and numerous federal programs, ARS weed scientists have made contributions to discoveries in the newest fields of robotics and genetics, as well as the traditional and fundamental subjects of weed–crop competition and physiology and integration of weed control tactics and practices. Weed science at ARS is often overshadowed by other research topics; thus, few are aware of the long history of ARS weed science and its important contributions. This review is the result of a symposium held at the Weed Science Society of America’s 62nd Annual Meeting in 2022 that included 10 separate presentations in a virtual Weed Science Webinar Series. The overarching themes of management tactics (IWM, biological control, and automation), basic mechanisms (competition, invasive plant genetics, and herbicide resistance), and ecosystem impacts (invasive plant spread, climate change, conservation, and restoration) represent core ARS weed science research that is dynamic and efficacious and has been a significant component of the agency’s national and international efforts. This review highlights current studies and future directions that exemplify the science and collaborative relationships both within and outside ARS. Given the constraints of weeds and invasive plants on all aspects of food, feed, and fiber systems, there is an acknowledged need to face new challenges, including agriculture and natural resources sustainability, economic resilience and reliability, and societal health and well-being.

This paper examines factors associated with falling among approximately 3,100 individuals aged 65 and older who were participants in the 1994 National Population Health Survey (NPHS). The intent of the NPHS is to monitor the health of Canadians and risk factors that affect their health. Several factors were identified as increasing the risk of falling, such as advanced age, being female, certain medical conditions, medication use and impaired mobility. The results from this survey, conducted on a national level, confirm the findings of many studies utilizing smaller samples within individual communities. Continuation of the NPHS will aid in offering longitudinal data with respect to falls, and allow for establishing a temporal order prior to the fall event, in order to provide more definitive evidence with respect to risk factors for falls.

Whether ethics is too important to be left to the experts or so important that it must be is an age-old question. The emergence of clinical ethicists raises it again, as a question about professionalism. What role clinical ethicists should play in healthcare decision making – teacher, mediator, or consultant – is a question that has generated considerable debate but no consensus.

Hospital ethics committees have become widespread over the last 25 years, stimulated by the Quinlan decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court, the report of a President's Commission, and most recently by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO), which now man dates that each hospital seeking accreditation have a functioning process for the consideration of ethical issues in patient care. Laws and regulations in several states require that hospitals establish ethics committees, and some states stipulate that certain types of cases and disputes be taken to such committees. At least one state grants legal immunity to those who implement recommendations of an ethics committee.

Ceroplastes sinensis Del Guercio is a pest of commercial citrus in Australia and has been recorded from New Zealand, southern Europe, northern Africa, North America and Mexico. Its distribution is mainly temperate and it is more restricted climatically than previously believed. Uncertainty concerning the place of origin of C. sinensis has thwarted previous attempts at biological control. In the present study, a novel and cost-effective approach using cladistic estimates is demonstrated to determine the place of its origin. Cladistically derived phylogenies are commonplace for many organisms, but the method has not been used before to predict the area of origin of a cosmopolitan pest. Cladistic analysis of the wax scales predicts a native range for C. sinensis within Central or South America. This prediction appears to have been confirmed by the recent discovery of heavily parasitized individuals of C. sinensis in Argentina. The cladistic analysis also allows prediction of the geographical origin of three other widespread wax scale speries:Ceroplastes ceriferus (Fabricius) may be of Neotropical origin, C. rubens Maskell and C. rusci (Linnaeus) are probably native to the Afrotropical region. The approach used has wide implications because the native areas of many other economically important pests are still unknown or uncertain.

Susan Wolf, in an important article on hospital or institutional ethics committees (IECs) and due process, writes:

There are few data upon which to draw to disagree with Wolf's first claim about a due process “wasteland.” I suspect that it is mostly true, although one can observe, as I do, that Susan Wolf has omitted a great deal of evolution concerning ethics consultation in her article.

Ethical debate on human germ-line gene therapy is in a new stage. After an era when only individual convictions could be examined, technology is on a threshold of real possibilities. Germ-line gene therapy can conceivably be carried out in either of two practical ways: 1) insertion of a gene into a pre-embryo, which is the subject of this paper, or 2) insertion of a gene into the germ cells of an individual.

Transgenic animal research and pre-implantation embryo diagnosis have implications for human embryonic germ-line experiments to correct single gene disorders. When would such experiments be feasible and ethically acceptable? If further animal research supports it, we argue for a moral obligation to learn if human germ-line experiments are feasible and safe to attempt. The obligation is grounded in several social-ethical principles that lead society and researchers to set gods for studies that promisc to relieve and to prevent human suffering and premature death. These principles also shape the practices and restrictions of biomedical research.

In 1974 the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research considered many aspects of fetal research. The Commission received some detailed ethical, legal, and scientific analyses, invited public testimony, and recommended guidelines for biomedical research involving the human fetus. One of the authors of the present article (KJR) chaired the Commission. Many of its recommendations became federal regulations on fetal research issued in 1975.

These regulations explicitly govern only research “conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) or funded in whole or in part by a Department grant, contract, cooperative agreement or fellowship.” However, as Baron pointed out in his legal review, they effectively cover all federally funded institutions, regardless of the source of the funds the institution may be using for fetal research.