Concepts that Click

Take another look at the cover. Isn't the similarity in appearance of the St. Louis Great Flood of 1993 (left panel) and a stained section of a breast cancer biopsy (right panel) remarkable? More spectacular still are the deep concepts that link these images: the nature of ecosystems, how these systems malfunction, and what we can do to recover them. In this issue, back-to-back features address these ideas, which are very much of our time.

Could and should money be spent on maintaining ecosystems to prevent the devastation illustrated on the cover image or by Hurricane Katrina, or the Asian tsunami? This and other facets of the valuation and restoration of natural capital, which sit on the fault line between economics and ecology, are discussed on page 38 . Can we, as one champion puts it, develop "economics as if ecology mattered, ecology as if people mattered?" Put another way, perhaps we can't afford not to restore ecosystems.

A very different sort of ecosystem is explored in the complementary feature on page 30 . In place of an assemblage of organisms interacting in an environment, it's a collection of cells collaborating to form a tumor. But there are shared principles. The steady-state conditions of normal tissue are robust enough to prevent tumor breakthrough. Enter environmental degradation through wounding, infection, or inflammation, however, and the balance is tipped in favor of the tumor, causing ecological (read clinical) disaster. Still, this new view of cancer development opens up the possibility of treatments aimed at factors extrinsic to the tumor cells to restore a normal environment.

Another potential kind of conceptual ecological disaster is the superabundance of life sciences data. It's a treasure trove to be mined for information, but it isn't necessarily widely accessible or comprehensible. What steps can be taken to make it so? The White Paper on page 24 argues for the long-term support and integration of databases and for the fostering of specialized biocurators, a new class of scientist that we profile in the Careers section ( p. 82 ). On page 46 we look at the latest developments in data visualization. These cool new tools describe meaningful trends and patterns in information, making it much more 'gettable' for nonexperts. And for the readers with a sense of history, check out the scribbled schema from the first ever DNA database, circa 1980 ( p. 108 ).

A concept that clicks with everyone is the acknowledgment of excellence. So it is with great pleasure that we present this year's Life Science Industry Awards. These awards are especially prized because they are selected by active scientists - you, our readers. They recognize the important, sometimes remarkable role the products and services from the life science industry play in the development of your science. Turn to page 85 to see whose day you've made. The winners will be feted in a glamorous ceremony in Washington, DC, on the third of the month. For full coverage, including interviews, photographs, and videos, visit the special Web site www.the-scientist.com/lsia06 .

Science and glamour? Now there's a concept that really clicks!