Archive for February 22nd, 2012

Encroaching deserts threaten life along Tibet’s longest river

AlertNet: Rising temperatures, reduced rainfall and excessive numbers of grazing animals are worsening desertification and drying up grasslands in western Tibet, says a Chinese geologist who has explored one of the region's uncharted rivers. Yang Yong said he had observed desertification in parts of the upper reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River, and believes this could be caused by climate change as well as human activity. The Yarlung Zangbo (also called the Yarlung Tsangpo) is Tibet's largest river,...

How to engage with farmers over GM crops

SciDev.Net: Farmers are more likely to use GM crops if they are involved in crop development in the right way, say Obidimma Ezezika and Justin Mabeya. The rapid uptake of genetically modified (GM) crops in developing countries poses a dilemma for agri-biotech programmes: when and how should researchers engage farmers in the process of developing crops? If farmers are engaged too early, they are likely to develop high expectations that the projects may not be able to meet. Engaging them too late may lead to...

Species data to go online in open access initiative

SciDev.Net: Research on new species from biodiversity hotspots in the developing world, published in a range of journals, may soon become freely available online as soon as they are published, thanks to a project launched last week. The project is a joint initiative between Pensoft Publishers in Bulgaria, and the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) -- a free and collaborative website that aims to document every living species on the planet. Pensoft has developed software that extracts information about individual...

Russian Heatwave Made More Likely by Climate Change

Guardian: The extreme Russian heatwave of 2010 was made three times more likely because of man-made climate change, according to a study led by climate scientists and number-crunched by home PC users. But the size of the event was mostly within natural limits, said the scientists, laying to rest a controversy last year over whether the extreme weather was natural or human-induced. A woman digs out potatoes from her former garden, ravaged by one of the hundreds of wildfires sparked during the 2010 Russian...

United Kingdom: Farmers warn food prices could go up because of drought

Telegraph: Peter Kendall, President of the National Farmers Union, said ongoing drought in the South East and Anglia, the "bread basket of Britain', will cut yields and force up prices. "As sure as night follows day if it doesn't rain, food prices will go up. I can guarantee you that,' he said. "If there is less water across bigger areas of northern Europe food will cost more money.' Drought-afflicted areas need 120 per cent of normal rainfall between now and March to avoid drought but the Met Office...

Predator-prey relationships make possible the rich biodiversity of complex ecosystems

ScienceDaily: As scientists warn that Earth is on the brink of a period of mass extinctions, they are struggling to identify ecosystem responses to environmental change. But to truly understand these responses, more information is needed about how Earth's staggering diversity of species originated. Curiously, a vexing modeling mystery has stymied research on this topic: mathematical models have told us that complex ecosystems, such as jungles, deserts and coral reefs, in which species coexist and interact with...

Europe will vote to keep Canadian tar sands out

New Scientist: BAD year for Canada's tar sands. The US rejected the Keystone XL pipeline that would have carried fuel south, and now the European Union is poised to label tar bitumen more polluting than other forms of oil. That would rule out selling it to Europe. The EU's Fuel Quality Directive will cut the greenhouse gas emissions generated by transport fuel - from production to use - by 6 per cent by the end of 2020. Suppliers will have to label fuels according to their total greenhouse-gas footprint, and current...