While considerable resources are invested in seasonal forecasts and early-warning systems for food security, not enough is known about El Niño’s impact on the fisheries and aquaculture sectors, even though its name was given in the 1600s by fishers off the coast of Peru. To remedy that, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is...
A new study from the University of Helsinki presents the current state of knowledge on the exposure and vulnerability of Indigenous Peoples to environmental pollution, reviewing the innumerable impacts that pollution poses on Indigenous communities from all over the world. “While the number of studies examining the impacts of environmental pollution upon Indigenous Peoples is...
Half a century ago, cassava was a simple staple crop for some smallholder farmers in Asia eking out a living in harsh landscapes. The hardy crop that Europeans brought from Latin America many centuries before was a dependable source of nutrition – as long as it was skillfully processed to remove the toxins from bitter...
Globalisation has revolutionised food production and consumption in recent decades and cultivation has become more efficient As a result, diets have diversified and food availability has increased in various parts of the globe. However, it has also led to a situation where the majority of the world population live in countries that are dependent on,...
In 2019, the global population without access to electricity dipped below 1 billion for the first time. This progress has however been uneven, both across and within different regions. A new International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) study shows that to ensure universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern electricity services by 2030 in...
Genetic research throughout Europe shows evidence of drastic population changes near the end of the Neolithic period, as shown by the arrival of ancestry related to pastoralists from the Pontic-Caspian steppe. But the timing of this change and the arrival and mixture process of these peoples, particularly in Central Europe, is little understood. In a...
From medical equipment shortages to panic-buying, the links in supply chains are breaking but will serve as valuable learning lessons for the future, said Ednilson Bernardes, professor and program coordinator of the Global Supply Chain Management program, West Virginia University John Chambers College of Business and Economics. A Brazilian Air Force veteran, Bernardes worked for the world’s third largest aircraft...
Hundreds of Aboriginal men who became native mounted police in colonial Australia carried a significant burden of responsibility for law and order for white settlers in Queensland and other settlements. A long-running ARC-funded archaeology project has turned the lens on the recruitment to the Queensland Native Mounted Police and their part in the violent ‘frontier...
Every train car in “La Bestia” – The Beast – is a world unto itself, with all the good and evil that entails. Ariel saw the worst of this world when he witnessed, helplessly, as eight people raped one of his fellow train passengers, a young girl, in July 2019. Ariel – not his real...
Fear and blame appear to be fast becoming Americans’ defining emotions around COVID-19. Headlines seem to offer either worst-case estimates or government leaders’ mutual accusations. Amid the bewildering figures and contradictory political narratives, it is important to recall that numbers and governments are abstractions – whereas people actually live with and through disease. By fixating...
