Carbon offsets – whats the deal?
At the UNWTO Conference on Climate Change and Tourism I attended in Davos, Switzerland last week, participants were requested to offset the carbon dioxide emissions of their travel and accommodation. Not an unreasonable request given the subject matter of the conference, and the fact that the conference itself was free to attend. But as reported…
Not mush-room for fungi in school
The British Mycological Society runs an excellent website called Fungi4Schools. Not a school lunches initiative as you might expect, it’s a resource for teachers who are looking for ways to introduce information about fungi in all their many forms to students of all ages. A quick investigation of the UK National Curriculum, and I’ll admit…
Pine beetles continue marching east
If this press release is anything to go by, hard times in Canadian forestry are about to get harder. The Mountain Pine Beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) has been chomping its way through the lodgepole pines of British Columbia since a shortage of cold winters has allowed it to spread unchecked. The beetles spread the deadly "blue-stain"…
Sympathy for the devil
Scientists working on trying to control the facial tumour disease which threaten to wipe out the Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) have increased their understanding the disease. The Tasmanian devil is the largest carnivorous marsupial remaining and is now found only on the island of Tasmania, having been exterminated from the Australian mainland. The disease that…
World tourism leaders tackle climate change
Earlier this week, some 600 representatives from over 100 countries, representing all sectors of the tourism industry (public and private sector, NGOs and governments) met in the idyllic Swiss resort of Davos to debate the global challenge of climate change as it affects and is affected by tourism, at the 2nd International Conference on Climate…
The Blandford Fly is not confined to Blandford (and other interesting facts about blackflies)
Although the weather has become quite autumnal in the last week or so, the mosquitoes which have been flying around my house in the evenings in unusually high numbers in recent weeks (fortunately without biting me much) have not yet disappeared, and have reminded me of an interesting article1 that I came across earlier in…
BSE: Twenty years old
Twenty years ago, a paper appeared in the Veterinary Record recording a new disease in dairy cattle. The syndrome had been seen in cattle in England for a couple of years but with the publication of the paper by Wells and others, the disease was described and named, and the new term bovine spongiform encephalopathy…
Can Bt Maize Beat Down Mycotoxins?
Reducing fumonisin through Bt could have significant benefits in developing countries, especially where unprocessed maize is a key part of the diet
Bruno, Bruce and the Penan
More than 10 years ago I came across a magazine article about Bruno Manser, a Swiss activist, who had gone to live among a nomadic tribe in Borneo called the Penan. I was fascinated by the way he had become part of the tribe to understand how they lived within the forests of Sarawak. At…
The final Steve Irwin croc paper
Published today online, and freely available to all at PLoS ONE is Steve Irwin’s final paper. This paper is a must read for all, especially those interested in animal navigation. The study aims “to record and interpret the movements of translocated large male estuarine crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) after their release and to investigate their homing…