5 October 2015 (AFP) – Thirty-one percent of cacti, some 500 species, face extinction due to human encroachment, according to the first global assessment of the prickly plants, published Monday. The finding places the cactus among the most threatened taxonomic groups on Earth, ahead of mammals and birds and just behind corals, according to the […]
By Mareesa Nicosia13 September 2015 Five Points, California (The Atlantic) – It’s 7:50 on a hot, dry August morning when the buses rumble past a barren field— normally filled with broccoli this time of year — and creak to a stop in front of a flat-topped school, dust blooming up from under their wheels. Children […]
By David Mcfadden10 August 2015 KINGSTON, Jamaica (Associated Press) – The picture-perfect beaches and turquoise waters that people expect on their visits to the Caribbean are increasingly being fouled by mats of decaying seaweed that attract biting sand fleas and smell like rotten eggs. Clumps of the brownish seaweed known as sargassum have long washed […]
By Adam Voiland28 July 2015 (NASA) – A new analysis of 35 years of meteorological data confirms fire seasons have become longer. Fire season, which varies in timing and duration based on location, is defined as the time of year when wildfires are most likely to ignite, spread, and affect resources. In the map above, […]
By Tim Johnson19 June 2015 (McClatchy) – As a result of warming temperatures, Mexico’s tallest volcano, Pico de Orizaba, is performing an all-natural striptease, the ice patches near its summit melting away to bare rock. The same process is taking place in the permafrost of Russia, the ice fields of the Yukon and the glaciers […]
10 June 2015 (The Marine Mammal Center) – California sea lions aren’t the only pinnipeds in crisis this year. Guadalupe fur seals, a threatened species, seem to be struggling with the same food availability issues and have stranded along our coast at five times the record yearly rate. With their diminutive snouts, extra-long front flippers […]
Paris, 21 May 2015 (AFP) – The gap between the rich and poor in most of the world’s advanced economies is at record levels, according to an OECD study that also found glaring differences between men and women. In most of the 34 countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development the income gap […]
20 March 2015 (UNESCO) – Any consideration of the quality and quantity of available water supplies in the region must examine groundwater, which is critical to several economic sectors. Experts estimate that groundwater irrigation contributes US$10 to US$12 billion per year to the Asian economy. When also including earnings from groundwater sales for irrigation, that […]
By Robert Sanders27 January 2015 BERKELEY (UC Berkeley) – Archaeologists continue to debate the reasons for the collapse of many Central American cities and states, from Teotihuacan in Mexico to the Yucatan Maya, and climate change is considered one of the major causes. UC Berkeley study sheds new light on this question, providing evidence that […]
By Jeremy Hance28 January 2015 (mongabay.com) – The world’s migrating monarch butterfly population has bounced back slightly from its record low last year, but the new numbers are still the second smallest on record. According to WWF-Mexico and the Mexican government, butterflies covered 2.79 acres (1.13 hectares) in nine colonies this year in the Mexican […]
