Month: October 2010

  • Turtles and Dugongs

    The “turtle and dugong capital of the world”, the northern Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait region, faces increased pressure under climate change from human actions such as fishing, hunting, onshore development and pollution. The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for…

  • Fraud and Conspiracy found at a Syracuse-based Environmental Firm

    A federal jury in Utica, New York has found Syracuse-based Certified Environmental Services, Inc (CES), two of its managers, and one of its employees guilty of conspiracy and fraud relating to violations of the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act was put in place by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect citizens from…

  • Ending Hunger in Africa

    As hunger and drought spread across Africa, there’s a huge focus on increasing yields of staple crops, such as maize, wheat, cassava, and rice. Although these crops are important for improving food security, they cannot cure malnutrition alone. There is no one-size fits all or single crop solution to solving global hunger, alleviating poverty, or…

  • Tropics in decline – WWF 2010 Living Planet report

    New analysis shows populations of tropical species are plummeting and humanity’s demands on natural resources are sky-rocketing to 50 per cent more than the earth can sustain, reveals the 2010 edition of WWF’s Living Planet Report – the leading survey of the planet’s health. The biennial report, produced in collaboration with the Zoological Society of…

  • Growing Population and Climate

    Changes in population growth and composition, including aging and urbanization, could significantly affect global emissions of carbon dioxide over the next 40 years. The research, appearing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was conducted by an international team of scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the International Institute for…

  • Fat Distribution Controlled by Genetics

    People become overweight in different ways. Some will develop a beer gut (apple-shaped) while some will have the fat go to their rear and thighs (pear-shaped). Two new major studies have identified a set of genes that determine where the fat goes in obese people. The team of international researchers also identified genes that determine…

  • Poverty forces Roma people to scavenge toxic e-waste

    Roma communities in France, currently the subject of a controversial crackdown by the Sarkozy administration, are being forced to scavenge growing volumes of potentially dangerous e-waste in a bid to escape poverty, an Ecologist investigation has revealed.

  • Hurricane Paula menaces Mexico and Cuba

    Mexico evacuated tourists and residents from islands off the Yucatan peninsula on Tuesday as Hurricane Paula, a Category 2 storm, was on track to sideswipe Mexico’s Caribbean resorts before heading toward Cuba. Packing winds of 100 miles per hour, the storm was expected to brush past the Yucatan coast, home to hundreds of resorts, before…

  • Plastic Solar Cells

    Physicists at Rutgers University in New Jersey have discovered new properties in a material that could result in efficient and inexpensive plastic solar cells for electricity production. The discovery, posted online and slated for publication in an upcoming issue of the journal Nature Materials, reveals that energy carrying particles generated by packets of light can…

  • Massive logjam in Borneo blocks Malaysia’s longest river

    A massive 50-km-long (30-mi) logjam has blocked the Rajang river in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, bringing river traffic to a standstill and posing a threat to riverbank communities, reports Malaysian state media. The Rajang, Malaysia’s longest river, is presently unnavigable, according to Bernama.