Building a new world
Lawrence Alderson is the author of The Quest to Conserve Rare Breeds, to be published by CABI in August 2020. Dealing with the immediate and urgent challenges posed by Covid-19 understandably dominates the news channels. It demands priority. A threat of such global severity has not been encountered in living memory, unless you can remember…
Preparing for a pandemic
Now is not the ideal time to be giving Health Emergency Preparedness and Response its first reading. Co-edited by Chloe Sellwood, NHS England’s National Lead for Pandemic Influenza (for which read: any serious infectious disease), the idea for this book sprang up during the 2009-10 Swine Flu pandemic, and came to fruition following the 2014-15…
Butterflies and climate change
This article was originally posted on Ray Cannon’s Nature Notes. We have heard a great deal about climate change in the last year, with protests by Extinction Rebellion activists in London and the incredible teenager, Greta Thunberg reading the riot act to delegates at the UN, condemning world leaders for failing to act on global…
Mystery Organs of the Stick Insects: Solving A Century-Old Anatomical Puzzle
One would think that scientists had already figured out everything there is to know about animal anatomy, considering how long we have been dissecting and describing. However, several mysteries from the past remain unsolved, either because they were forgotten or because more advanced methods were needed to figure them out.
Religious Tourism: What is it and why is it so important?
Religious tourism is one of the earliest forms of tourism and is a fast growing market. Here, Peter Wiltshier, Consultant Researcher Community & Tourism Development NZ at Research Consultancy NZ, New Zealand, explains what it is and why it is so important.
Four animals and insects that humans can’t live without
When people start to think about the ecosystem and nature as a whole, many don't fully grasp the importance of relying on other species. Everything on earth is connected, whether we realize it or not.
Cotton harvest picture special
The power of the image paints a picture that speaks a thousand words and that is certainly the case with these fantastic images taken by photographer Asim Hafeez. Asim was commissioned by CABI to document the process of harvesting cotton in Pakistan – the country’s largest industrial sector – where more than 500,000 farmers…
The story of the rare book on plant diseases that returned ‘home’ to China after a 72 year absence
Photo: The 1942 text by Professor Wang Ming-Chih, returned to China after more than 70 years Lesley Ragab thought she knew CABI’s stock of more than 24,000 books and 2,000 journals like the back of her hand after serving as librarian at the organisation’s Egham, UK, office for over 20 years. That was until she stumbled…
CABI board member pens Economist blog on US$80bn agricultural investment shortfall
CABI board member Dr Prem Warrior says we must plug a US$80bn global shortfall in agricultural innovation if the world is to be ‘smart’ to the demands of feeding 10 billion people by 2050 and meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Dr Warrior writes in The Economist Intelligence Unit blog that the challenge is not…
Dr Rob Reeder goes ‘bananas’ about pests and diseases on the Urban Farm Podcast
Plant pathologist Dr Rob Reeder has this week spoken to Greg Peterson of the US-based Urban Farm Podcast about how the global supply of bananas (particularly the Cavendish variety) could be put at risk from a three-pronged attack of pests and diseases. In the podcast, Dr Reeder reveals the reasons why the fungus known as…