Can genetically modified mosquitoes prevent disease in the US?
A British company, Oxitec, has come up with a plan to control the bugs and combat dengue fever. Its scientists have designed genetically modified mosquitoes that have one mission - to kill off the rest of their species.
But is the plan too radical for its own good? Read more…
North Carolina Sea Level Rises Despite State Senators
Could nature be mocking North Carolina’s law-makers? Less than two weeks after the state’s senate passed a bill banning state agencies from reporting that sea-level rise is accelerating, research has shown that the coast between North Carolina and Massachusetts is experiencing the fastest sea-level rise in the world.
…“Many people mistakenly think that the rate of sea-level rise is the same everywhere as glaciers and ice caps melt,” says Marcia McNutt, director of the US Geological Survey. But variations in currents and land movements can cause large regional differences. The hotspot is consistent with the slowing measured in Atlantic Ocean circulation, which may be tied to changes in water temperature, salinity and density.
North Carolina’s senators, however, have tried to stop state-funded researchers from releasing similar reports. The law approved by the senate on 12 June banned scientists in state agencies from using exponential extrapolation to predict sea-level rise, requiring instead that they stick to linear projections based on historical data.
Following international opprobrium, the state’s House of Representatives rejected the bill on 19 June. However, a compromise between the house and the senate forbids state agencies from basing any laws or plans on exponential extrapolations for the next three to four years, while the state conducts a new sea-level study.
According to local media, the bill was the handiwork of industry lobbyists and coastal municipalities who feared that investors and property developers would be scared off by predictions of high sea-level rises.
The new Happy Planet Index results show the extent to which 151 countries across the globe produce long, happy and sustainable lives for the people that live in them. The overall index scores rank countries based on their efficiency, how many long and happy lives each produces per unit of environmental output.
'Rambo' plant set to blossom as Africa's top crop
Scientists say the long-neglected cassava root becomes even more productive in hotter temperatures and could be the best bet for African farmers threatened by climate change.
Scientists from the Colombia-based International Centre for Tropical Agriculture praised cassava as the “rambo of the food crops” after publishing findings Monday in the scientific journal Tropical Plant Biology.
The study said starch-rich cassava thrived in tests using a combination of climate prediction and crop suitability models also tried on potato, maize, bean, banana, millet and sorghum.
The scientists found that with expected temperature increases of up to 2° C, cassava production in East Africa would increase 10% and it would find more hospitable climes in southern Africa. — Sapa-AP
Classic Maya Civilization Collapse Related to Modest Rainfall Reductions, Research Suggests
A new study reports that the disintegration of the Maya Civilization may have been related to relatively modest reductions in rainfall.
The study was led by Professors Martín Medina-Elizalde of the Yucatan Center for Scientific Research in Mexico and Eelco Rohling of the University of Southampton in the UK. Professor Rohling says: “Our results show rather modest rainfall reductions between times when the Classic Maya Civilization flourished and its collapse — between AD 800-950. These reductions amount to only 25 to 40 per cent in annual rainfall. But they were large enough for evaporation to become dominant over rainfall, and open water availability was rapidly reduced. The data suggest that the main cause was a decrease in summer storm activity.”
Rainforest Plant Combats Multi-Resistant Bacterial Strains
Aggressive infections in hospitals are an increasing health problem worldwide. The development of bacterial resistance is alarming. Now a young Danish scientist has found a natural substance in a Chilean rainforest plant that effectively supports the effect of traditional treatment with antibiotics. Read more…
Peering from a decoy, a hunter lifts his head above the water of the Indus River. The Indus is the primary source of freshwater for most of Pakistan, a fast-growing nation of more than 170 million people.
Photograph by Randy Olson, National Geographic
In addition, Cowan said, laboratory studies of those sick fish “are beginning to trickle out that show that chronic exposure to oil and dispersant causes everything from impacts to the genome to compromised immune systems. Similar findings … are being found in shrimps and crabs in the same locations.”
While Murawski is cautious about saying there’s a connection, Cowan, who has been studying fish in the gulf for 25 years, said, “I absolutely believe these things are connected to the spill.” USF study finds more sick fish in oil spill area than rest of Gulf of Mexico
“They are already much lower in diversity, and have lost species that would have been potentially vulnerable. But the species that remain are relatively adaptable, have broad ranges and have adapted to quite rapid changes in rainfall.
“So, overall, the remaining system - although it may be poorer to some extent - may be much more resilient to the pressures from climate change in this century.” Africa’s rainforests ‘more resilient’ to climate change
Ecuador appeals court rules against Chevron in oil case
An Ecuadorean appeals court has upheld a ruling that Chevron should pay damages totalling $18.2bn (£11.5bn) over Amazon oil pollution.
Chevron said the judgement was “illegitimate” and “a fraud”.
Texaco, which merged with Chevron in 2001, was accused of dumping toxic materials in the Ecuadorean Amazon.
The original ruling ordered Chevron to pay $8.6bn in damages, which was more than doubled after the company failed to make a public apology.
“We ratify the ruling of February 14 2011 in all its parts, including the sentence for moral reparation,” the court in the Amazonian city of Lago Agrio said in its ruling, according to Reuters.
Organic Agriculture May Be Outgrowing Its Ideals
“People are now buying from a global commodity market, and they have to be skeptical even when the label says ‘organic’ — that doesn’t tell people all they need to know,” said Frederick L. Kirschenmann, a distinguished fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. He said some large farms that have qualified as organic employed environmentally damaging practices, like planting only one crop, which is bad for soil health, or overtaxing local freshwater supplies.
Many growers and even environmental groups in Mexico defend the export-driven organic farming, even as they acknowledge that more than a third of the aquifers in southern Baja are categorized as overexploited by the Mexican water authority. With sophisticated irrigation systems and shade houses, they say, farmers are becoming more skilled at conserving water. They are focusing new farms in “microclimates” near underexploited aquifers, such as in the shadow of a mountain, said Fernando Frías, a water specialist with the environmental group Pronatura Noroeste.
They also point out that the organic business has transformed what was once a poor area of subsistence farms and where even the low-paying jobs in the tourist hotels and restaurants in nearby Cabo San Lucas have become scarcer during the recession.
To carry the Agriculture Department’s organic label on their produce, farms in the United States and abroad must comply with a long list of standards that prohibit the use of synthetic fertilizers, hormones and pesticides, for example. But the checklist makes few specific demands for what would broadly be called environmental sustainability, even though the 1990 law that created the standards was intended to promote ecological balance and biodiversity as well as soil and water health.
Experts agree that in general organic farms tend to be less damaging to the environment than conventional farms. In the past, however, “organic agriculture used to be sustainable agriculture, but now that is not always the case,” said Michael Bomford, a scientist at Kentucky State University who specializes in sustainable agriculture. He added that intense organic agriculture had also put stress on aquifers in California.
