If Antarctica's shallow waters keep warming, as scientists predict, communities of invertebrates found nowhere else on the planet--including brittle stars, sea lilies, and giant ribbon worms--may vanish as fast-moving, shell-cracking predators invade their habitats.

• Climate Change and Invasibility of the Antarctic Benthos -- Full text of Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. paper by Aronson et al.
  [Posted with permission from the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, Volume 38 © 2007 by Annual Reviews.]
• Information from the Ecological Society of America -- from EurekAlert!

A new, knee-mounted device harvests energy from the end of a walker’s step, in the same way that hybrid-electric cars recycle power from braking.

• Biomechanical Energy Harvesting: Generating Electricity During Walking with Minimal User Effort [Abstract] -- Abstract of Science paper by Donelan et al.
• Images and videos of the energy harvester -- from EurekAlert
• Device Gives New Meaning to "Power Walking" -- ScienceNOW article by Devin Powell

For female lark buntings, male attractiveness is a fickle thing, apparently changing from year to year. For male lark buntings, that means that reproductive success depends on whatever traits are in vogue among females for that season -- a pattern that could drive genetic variation in the species.

• Adaptive Plasticity in Female Mate Choice Dampens Sexual Selection on Male Ornaments in the Lark Bunting [Abstract] -- Abstract of Science paper by Alexis S. Chaine and Bruce E. Lyon
• Images and videos of lark buntings -- from EurekAlert

New data make the case for polar ice at the height of the Cretaceous hothouse 90 million years ago -- and raise questions about some assumptions of climate modeling.

• More Climate Wackiness in the Cretaceous Supergreenhouse? -- Science News Article by Richard Kerr
• Isotopic Evidence for Glaciation During the Cretaceous Supergreenhouse [Abstract] -- Abstract of Science paper by A. Bornemann et al.
• Science Podcast, including interview on the story with Science's Richard Kerr