Whales – wanted dead or alive?
Whales are featuring heavily in science and environmental news at the moment, as the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission proceeds in Santiago, Chile. As always, feelings have been running high in both the pro- and anti-whaling camps. In the first vote of the meeting, Greenland has been denied the right to catch 10…
Did you ask for a glass of wine…?
A glass of wine calls for romance, sophistication and pleasure…the unravelling of complex flavours in the mouth. Yes, a simple glass of wine might elevate us from our daily stresses into higher states of mind allowing for a cheerful and relaxed mood to arise instead. Imagine you are getting home after one of those days,…
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…
The taste of deliciousness
Taste was the theme of the 5th Tomato Conference held in the Netherlands. Most of us would identify salty, sweet, sour and bitter as tastes, but may be unaware of the fifth basic taste: umami. Described by Dr Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University 100 years ago, umami is a dominant flavour in meat…
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…