At first glance, it looks like a beautiful addition to the water: a floating fern with small, bright green leaves. But when Robert Speight saw just a few sprigs of the plant on Caddo Lake for the first time late last year, his heart sank. “When I saw it here,” Speight says, “I knew we were in for a long, tough battle.” Click here to read more.

Fossils of sardine-size fish that swam in ancient oceans are the earliest examples of vertebrates with teeth that grow from their jawbones, according to new a new study. The fish, which lived 420 million years ago, are a "very modest" beginning for the jaw-and-tooth pattern widespread in nature today, said study co-author Philippe Janvier, a paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France. "It's really the first evidence that we have of the earliest bony fishes—the earliest ancestors of all the fishes that have the[ir] bones and teeth implanted in the bones of the jaw," Janvier said. Modern bony fish such as cod, herring, and coelacanths have this tooth arrangement. So do tetrapods—four-limbed creatures such as frogs, crocodiles, and humans, which are all descendants of bony fishes. When a bony fish or a tetrapod loses a tooth, a new one grows from the bone below the void, whereas other jawed vertebrates, such as sharks, have teeth that grow from inside their gums. Sharks have skeletons of cartilage instead of bone. Click here to read more.

Concrete word came Wednesday about the president’s commitment to that collaboration, that progress, those efforts, and those - well - commitments. He said he will veto the Water Resources Development Act of 2007, a bill that would authorize Congress to spend money erecting a permanent electronic barrier that would keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes. Every region these days, it seems, has its own fish that spawns tales of horror from wildlife officials, sportsmen and environmentalists. Out east, the snakehead - given the nickname "Frankenfish" - has conjured images of local fishing holes being cleaned out by a nasty, voracious predator. For the Great Lakes, it’s the Asian carp that has hearts going a-pitter-patter. The fish has a nasty reputation for leaping out of the water and at boats. This might sound like the stuff of slapstick until you learn that it’s resulted in people being seriously injured. But, the most frightening thing about the fish is that it spreads quickly, establishes itself easily and replaces native species wherever it goes. If it were to get loose in the Great Lakes, it’s expected that in many places it would supplant whitefish, lake trout, perch and walleye. That means putting the Great Lakes’ $4 billion fishing industry in greater peril than it’s already in. The fish spread up the Mississippi River, and is now found in a canal that connects the Great Lakes to the Mississippi. What prevents its spread further is a temporary electronic barrier erected in 2002. Click here to read more. Special thanks to Joshua from Okemos, MI, for the link to this story. Joshua continues to send us links to important stories about the Great Lakes. Thanks, Joshua !!