Conservation conversations. How do you teach students, researchers, and government officials throughout the world how to protect species from extinction in an accessible, culturally sensitive way? If you're Richard Primack, who has literally written the book on conservation biology, you do it by going native.

The CAS biology professor is author of the first-ever textbook in his field, Essentials of Conservation Biology, recently issued in its second edition. "Even societies that rely heavily on their natural resources for income are now confronting the destruction of the environment," he says. "Yet each country has its own perspective on how to solve environmental problems, and they are suspicious of outsiders telling them what to think and do."

Accordingly, he designed his book to be useful to both scholars and practitioners by stressing the active role that local people and governments play in protecting biological diversity and by making it available in other languages.

Primack has collaborated with scientists worldwide to incorporate regional examples, case studies, photographs, and other materials into these translations. In his 20-year career as a conservation biologist, Primack has found that each society is proud of its own accomplishments and unique species, and responds more when local examples are used.

With sections entitled "Love Alone Cannot Save the Giant Panda" and "The World's Least Favorite Animal Needs Assistance: The Decline of Sharks," Primack's book has been translated into German, Japanese, Chinese, and Indonesian. Korean, French, Vietnamese, and South Asian versions are due out within a year, and translations in Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Hungarian, Arabic, Italian, and Polish are in the early stages.

Conservation biology examines the human impact on natural systems, synthesizing such fields as anthropology, ecological economics, park management, geography, environmental ethics, and law -- as well as the traditional biology disciplines of ecology, genetics, and taxonomy.

"Conservation biologists aren't passive scientific observers," he notes. "We deal with immediate, real-world issues, and judge ourselves to be successful only when measurable progress has been made in protecting and restoring biological diversity."

Making strides in motion analysis. While Sargent College's Barreca Motion Analysis Lab has always contained state-of-the-art equipment, the laboratory contains the only force-measuring treadmill in the Boston area. "This Gaitway System treadmill is a completely new type of machine," says Carole Tucker, assistant professor of physical therapy. "It allows us to easily and quickly measure movement, such as forces, movement patterns, and muscle activation."

Tucker and colleague Sara Brown, clinical assistant professor of physical therapy, use steps and strides to study injury and recovery in BU athletes. "We want to see if quantifying changes in movement, such as forces, movement patterns, and muscle activation, could help improve or alter the way we rehabilitate athletes," says Tucker.

Last year the team took baseline measures of almost 100 athletes from a variety of teams. This year it will study those athletes recovering from injuries. By comparing baseline measures to postinjury measures, Tucker says, researchers will be able to see a number of changes. "You can see changes in symmetry and static alignment, whether or not they are limping, differences in the center of pressure, or whether they toe out more on one side than the other."

Trainers often know instinctively when an athlete is ready to get back into action -- but sometimes instincts are wrong, Tucker says. "We're developing an objective measure. Instead of guessing whether an athlete is limping, the limp can be quantified by comparing baseline measures. Essentially, we're trying to come up with better measures of functional outcome." Tucker adds that there are a lot of master's level students working on the project as independent study. "This project makes biomechanics real for them," she says.