The shareholders of Exxon Mobil Corp. have asked the energy giant to publicly disclose how the fight against climate change could affect the company’s bottom line. The initiative was supported by more than 62 percent of shareholders who voted — a big leap from last year, when there was 38 percent support for a similar …
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/16/15810524/senate-ahca-explain-please. If anyone ought to be able to explain the American Healthcare Act, it should be senior Republican senators. Vox asked them what the bill is meant to do. Their responses are wildly varied and totally lacking in detail. An important and frightening story! http://www.conservativehome.com/highlights/2017/06/outsiders-are-not-always-good-and-governments-are-not-always-bad.html. A book review of the rise of the outsiders, and …
A comprehensive survey of science teachers at middle and high schools across the US, conducted by the journal “Science”, finds that teachers generally devote a paltry 1 to 2 hours to the topic of climate change, and despite the fact 97 per cent of experts agree climate change is mainly human-caused, many teachers still “teach …
Continue reading ‘Learning about climate change, (1 of 2 posts on climate change)’ »
Global wildlife populations are set to fall by more than two-thirds since 1970 by the end of the decade, warns the Living Planet report by WWF and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). The assessment of more than 14,000 populations of 3706 species of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles from around the world reveals …
“We seem intent on blinding ourselves, ripping out the smoke detectors even as the house begins to burn”. (Bill McKibben, founder of climate change campaign 350.org, in Wired magazine, February 2017) And this is from Tom Engelhardt, who produces Tomgram: “The the most unforgivable of crime of all , is about to be wrought by …
Continue reading ‘Ripping out the smoke detectors even as the house begins to burn’ »
Researchers at the Arizona State University Institute of Human Origins have found that our species’ first ancestors began to climb down from trees to retrieve snacks they had dropped. Anatomical evidence from the 6-million-year-old fossilized remains of Sahelanthropus peinaó—which was unearthed earlier this year in South Africa and is now believed to be the last …
Last night I was gazing at the bright sliver of tropic moon in the evening sky, reflecting on the fact that that moon, and somewhere on Earth a similar reflection of the sun upon it, have been in existence for nigh on three billion years, month in, month out. Our earliest ancestors witnessed the same …
The world’s biggest palm oil agribusiness is destroying rainforests in Indonesia to make way for palm plantations — even though it’s against the law. Last month, one of Wilmar International’s suppliers was caught bulldozing crucial rainforest in the Leuser Ecosystem, an important. wildlife habitat and the last place on earth where you can find endangered …
Water re-use means we are all consuming a cocktail of other people’s leftover medicines, but measuring their impact is almost impossible. A recent analysis of streams in the US detected an entire pharmacy: diabetic meds, muscle relaxants, opioids, antibiotics, antidepressants and more. Drugs have even been found in crops irrigated by treated waste water. It …
The thought of terrorists using drones haunts security officials in Europe and elsewhere. The Dutch are training hunting birds like the eagle to help combat the security threats posed by the proliferation of off-the-shelf drones — unmanned aerial vehicles — of the type that can pose risks to aircraft. The fear is that these drones could …
Genetic and stem cell technologies are on the cusp of letting us clone even infertile endangered animals when intact DNA is available. And some extinct species could be brought back by tweaking the genome of a living close relative. It should also be possible to engineer lost traits into a population. Some targeted animals are …
Continue reading ‘Some good news, and then some not-so-good news, for 2017’ »
There is a computerised melody- making software , developed at the University of California, Santa Cruz, called ALYSIA, that is unusual in taking lyrics as its starting point and adding an automated tune. The system matches the metre of the melody with that of the lyrics. The originators hope to create a system capable of …
Thanks to genetic modification a new strain of wheat is being grown in greenhouses, with yields up by 15 to 20 per cent, a team at Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, UK, recently announced. The researchers have asked the government for permission to carry out field trials in the spring. If the plants produce anything like a …
Continue reading ‘Some hopeful news for this day of the year’ »
Indiscriminate fertiliser use hurts the soil itself, turning it acidic and salty, suppressing the symbiotic relationships between fungi and plant roots, sometimes turning beneficial bacteria against each other. Long-term use of fertilisers risks turning even fertile soil to desert. What can be done? One possible solution is being pursued by Carlos Monreal of Carleton University in Ottawa, …
Continue reading ‘Depleting the soil (no.2): promising news’ »
We are losing soil at a rate of 30 soccer fields a minute. If we don’t slow the decline, all farmable soil could be gone in 60 years. Soil grows 95 per cent of our food and sustains human life in other more surprising ways, so this is a huge problem. “Many would argue soil …
