By Victoria GillScience reporter, BBC News The wild ancestors of common domestic fruit trees are in danger of becoming extinct, scientists have warned. Researchers have published a “red list” of threatened species that grow in the forests of Central Asia. These disease-resistant and climate-tolerant fruit trees could play a role in our future food security. […]
From Calculated Risk: The first graph shows weekly claims and continued claims since 1971. The four-week moving average is at 623,500, off 35,250 from the peak 4 weeks ago. Continued claims are now at 6.35 million – an all time record. … Weekly Unemployment Claims Decline; Record Continued Claims Technorati Tags: financial collapse
Poor regulation of the international wildlife trade has increased the vulnerability of the U.S. to outbreaks of disease and alien invasive species, report researchers writing in Science. Analyzing Law Enforcement Management Information System (LEMIS) data gathered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 2000 through 2006, Katherine Smith of Brown University and colleagues found […]
Chimp populations continue to decline in Africa. A new survey of our closest relatives in the Cote D’Ivoire found that the population fell from an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 individuals to a paltry 800 to 1,200, a decline that took place in less than twenty years. Perhaps most troubling about this new survey is Cote […]
By Gregor Peter Schmitz and Gabor Steingart The financial crisis in the US has triggered a social crisis of historic dimensions. Soup kitchens are suddenly in great demand and tent cities are popping up in the shadow of glistening office towers. Even drug dealers are feeling the pinch. … In the United States, the economic […]
The ecosystem of the Cape Gannet, a protected bird species, has gone haywire. As a result of overfishing, the birds are no longer able to find enough food to rear their young. Pelicans, kelp gulls and seals are becoming increasing threats – the lack of fish means that these predators are attacking Cape Gannet chicks […]
There are now 46000 pieces of plastic per square kilometre of the world’s oceans killing a million seabirds and 100000 marine mammals each year. Worse still there seems to be nothing we can do to clean it up. So how do we turn the tide? By Richard Grant Way out in the Pacific Ocean, in […]
Traditional fruit orchards are vanishing from England’s landscape – with serious consequences for wildlife, conservationists have warned. The National Trust says 60% have disappeared since the 1950s, putting local varieties of apples, cherries, pears, plums and damsons under threat. It is launching a £536,000 drive to reverse the decline of the orchards. Their trees provide […]
By Azadeh Ansari (CNN) — The indigenous people of Alaska have stood firm against some of the most extreme weather conditions on Earth for thousands of years. But now, flooding blamed on climate change is forcing at least one Eskimo village to move to safer ground. Authorities have ordered about 340 residents of the tiny […]
Climate change robs Uru Chipaya of lifeline that had sustained them for millennia By Rory Carroll and Andres Schipani in Santa Ana de Chipaya Its members belong to what is thought to be the oldest surviving culture in the Andes, a tribe that has survived for 4,000 years on the barren plains of the Bolivian […]
