Ten Minute Sabbatical

ABOVE: composite from: © istock.com, Homunkulus28 ; © alamy.com, MARK GARLICK, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Click the puzzle for a full-size, interactive version.
Note: The answer grid will include every letter of the alphabet.

Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon

When something like this happens the specimens that survive are crazy important for future research. You can buy new equipment or build new buildings, but you can’t get back individual specimens.
—Anton Vlaschenko, a conservation biologist at the Ukrainian Bat Rehabilitation Center, speaking to Science about protecting valuable specimens, collections, and data from destruction as the Russian invasion of that country continued (March 9)

ACROSS

7. Joint affliction suffered by Benjamin Franklin
8. Anesthetic used in childbirth
9. Hamster kin on an exercise wheel
10. Region of India where you might see...
11. ... a striped young feline (2 wds.)
13. Top, as a predator
15. Fluids in IV bags
17. Clusters of melaninized cells
19. Porifera sample
21. Structure; bony and hard or fleshy and soft
22. Eight-legger, typically
23. Member of group 8 on the periodic table

DOWN

1. Park dear to John Muir
2. Not susceptible to decay
3. Single bacterium, e.g.
4. Land between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers
5. South American “supergrain”
6. Coffee nickname from an Indonesian island...
12. ... and its alkaloid
14. Particle subject to the Pauli exclusion principle
16. Sunflower kin with a bruise-healing reputation
18. Shape-shifting loch denizen of Scottish lore
20. Stoma, to a botanist
21. Egg cases of a locust; seed vessels of a legume

Having unleashed the war, Russia doomed itself to international isolation, to the position of a pariah country. This means that we, scientists, will no longer be able to do our job normally: After all, conducting scientific research is unthinkable without full cooperation with colleagues from other countries.
—An open letter, posted to the website of a Russian independent science publication called Troitskiy Variant in late February and signed by more than 7,000 Russians before being taken down (The New York Times, March 12)