Living on the edge – A kind of madness!!!
Although we’re enjoying and praising the few sunny days we’ve been experiencing, in Oxfordshire lately, some of us will still remember the downpour and flooding, we experienced recently and, even more recently, in Illinois, USA. I for one remember being a mix of excited and scared about driving through the river which suddenly appeared on…
Will the world fight poverty and eradicate hunger?
The FAO Summit on World Food Security-2008, held at Rome from the 3-5 of June, represented an opportunity for the world leaders to discuss high food prices, climate change and bioenergy. Solutions to the “food crisis” focused on the increase in land productivity through the use of traditional breeding lines and GMOs. While biotech crops…
Getting married? Got butterflies?
While awareness of invasive species and the impact they have on the natural environment is a hot topic, I recently read an article, on a warm and related topic if you will, about butterfly releases at weddings: ‘Are butterfly releases at weddings a conservation concern or opportunity?’ by T. R. New. And it got me…
Claire Beverley
Dr. Claire Beverley Editor, Content Development (Crop Protection) My interest in biological control developed when I worked as an Assistant Entomologist for Horticulture Research International, after completing a degree in Applied Biology. Originally taken on for 3 months to collect data for a cucumber trial, my stint in the entomology department lasted 3 years! And…
Google Earth: Disappearing Forests
Most people who work at CABI know that I am a bit of a geek, especially when it comes to statistics and data visualisation, but now even more so since the release of the Google Earth API and thematic mapping. Anyway, back to the point, I was doing a search for new "environmental science" projects…
Forests in Flux
Forests play an integral role in the Earth’s climate, and each forest type – tropical, temperate and boreal – has varying impacts on the climate, serving to both cool and warm the Earth. Credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller, National Science Foundation. Last Friday Science published their special issue entitled ‘Forests in Flux’. The issue focuses on…
Is this really the future of food?
A few weeks ago we were discussing beer – or rather the lack of it expected as a result of climate change. This week, Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden has unveiled a new superfood. Even less appealing than no beer, this rather unappetising dish is the Swedish equivalent of tempeh and was brewed up…
Come up and look at my genes
While most geneticists may have a hard time convincing non-scientists to look at DNA gels, a company is offering DNA art portraits which allow customers to show off their own DNA bands to anyone. The “DNA portraits” point to bands which the company says are associated with particular characteristics as follows: “• Sport: Show off…
Could new biofuel crops become invasive?
According to a blog I read in the New York Times (NYT) online this could be the case. Following evidence that biofuel crops compete with food crops, defenders of farm grown crops say the eventual goal is to shift away from sources like maize toward plants harvested for their cellulose, which would end…
Perhaps some dinosaurs died of malaria
Back in January I wrote about the book ‘What bugged the dinosaurs? Insects, Disease and Death in the Cretaceous‘, by George and Roberta Poinar (click here to read what I said then). We have now obtained a copy for indexing for CAB Abstracts, and I have had a chance to take a quick look at…