Brazilian soap operas and birth control – a strong link
A bit of CNN news on how Brazil's soap opera are linked to a dramatic drop in birth rates in Brazil, was brought to my attention by fellow ‘handpicked’ blogger Mark Palmer, as I’m the Brazilian blogger at CABI. Although the CNN news is reporting a new study result on the subject, this is actually…
Trees on farms – area twice the size of the Amazon
Image: World Agroforestry Centre Almost half of the world's farmland has at least 10% tree cover, according to scientists from the World Agroforestry Centre, indicating that farmers, particularly in the developing world, are far less destructive to carbon-storing forests than previously believed. This is the first study to use detailed satellite imagery to quantify the…
Lost Land of the Volcano
Last night on BBC television in the UK was the first of three programmes of the BBC’s jungle expedition, natural history discovery programmes “Lost Land of the ….” in this Volcano. This time the series, was filmed in the forests of the remote tropical island of New Guinea, primarily exploring the area around the giant…
Current science on Arctic warming and its global effects
Over the past few decades, the Arctic has warmed at about twice the rate of the rest of the globe. This has resulted in destabilisation of important Arctic systems, including sea ice, the Greenland Ice Sheet, mountain glaciers and aspects of the Arctic carbon cycle. A peer-reviewed report dealing with the subject was produced by…
Camping to fight climate change – the heat is on
If you go to Blackheath, London, today you will witness environmental protestors camping and campaigning to get those in power to step up their act and stop global warming and climate change. Another camp gathering is being organised in Bangladesh to take place in October. Youth delegates pledged to keep global warming high on the…
Water Tops Climate Change as Global Priority – according to survey
Less than 1% of surface water is useable water in rivers, lakes and ponds; less than 3% is in glaciers and polar ice caps, which means around 97% of the world’s water is in the sea, is salty and unusable. Over 65% of the cells in our bodies is water, which means we just cannot…
We caught malignant malaria from chimpanzees — but when exactly?
Image: CDC/ James Gathany, Dr. Frank Collins, University of Notre Dame A couple of weeks ago I came across a news item entitled 'Scientists report original source of malaria', with a sub-headline to the effect that it jumped to humans from chimpanzees, possibly through a single mosquito. Reading the story indicated that it actually referred…
Matt Damon and Water.org – working toward global access to safe water
Matt Damon (actor and H2O Africa co-founder) and Gary White (WaterPartners executive director and co-founder) have announced the launch of a new organisation – Water.org – which is focused on improving access to safe water and sanitation in the developing world. Water.org will help the nearly 890 million people without safe water and the…
Can protected areas prevent Amazon dieback due to climate change?
The Amazon rainforest has been subject to many scientific studies on climate change impacts especially considering its extensive, wide-ranging biodiversity, and huge reserves of carbon and water. At the Copenhagen climate change congress back in April it was suggested that we may already have passed a tipping point and that the Amazon rainforest is on…
Algal biofuels heading for market?
Whilst leafing through a recent issue of Science magazine I was interested to read a news item that highlighted ExxonMobil's entry into the biofuels arena. ExxonMobil, the last major oil company to move into biofuels, has announced that it intends to spend $600 million over 5-6 years to develop biofuels from algae. Half the money from…