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…
Parasite anyone?
European Congress of Tropical Diseases/1st Mediterranean Travel Medicine meeting Monday Sept 7 2009 We are in Verona, home of Juliet & Romeo & apparently Pinocchio, if the street sellers are any indication. My companion is tucking warily into her first swordfish meal, a confirmed meat eater up until now. She remarks that her uncle had…
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…
Australia tries to look on the bright side after Ashes defeat
Outside a few parts of the world (largely those once colonies of Great Britain) the game of cricket remains largely a mystery. Even more so, the enigmatically named Ashes, the prize competed for in a Test series between England and Australia. But the Ashes epitomise a sporting rivalry, and often a clash of cultures, between England and…
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…
Artemisinin yields boosted
Artemisinin is currently the most effective drug we have against malaria, a disease which kills a child every 30 secs, and which we in Europe need to remember was only finally eliminated from Europe in the 1950’s….. and with climate change may well be back, and not just in travellers. Artemisinin works on the parasite and…
Food security: food is not just an energy source, it keeps you healthy
The UK news services may now be focused on swine flu and the death toll of our soldiers, but food security (access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life) has not gone away. We all have to face up to it. AS I fight the daily battle with wasps…who, in…
Water reform needed to feed Asia
Image: IWMI. Groundwater irrigation in West Bengal Last night, I watched a new BBC documentary on the challenges to food production in a world of changing climate and increasing population. The programme featured growing water shortages in parts of India (where drought has hit again this year), and how Western countries importing food from India…