Thousands of marine species could be at risk if a new United Nations high-seas biodiversity treaty, now being negotiated in New York, does not include measures to address the management of all fish species in international waters, not just the commercial species, warns an analysis by American, Dutch, Swiss and French researchers. “Of the 4,018...
Researchers from Sweden, Germany, Brazil and the USA have developed a financial mechanism to support the protection of the world’s natural heritage. In a recent study, they developed three different design options for an intergovernmental biodiversity financing mechanism. Asking what would happen if money was given to countries for providing protected areas, they simulated where...
Climate change could negatively impact banana cultivation in some of the world’s most important producing and exporting countries, a study has revealed. Bananas are recognised as the most important fruit crop – providing food, nutrition and income for millions in both rural and urban areas across the globe. While many reports have looked at the...
No drug can cure a paradox. That basic truth is at the heart of a new Stanford-led study highlighting how poverty traps make it impossible to eradicate a potentially deadly disease with current approaches. The study, published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, looks at why years of mass drug administration in Senegal...
Europe has enough solar and wind resources to meet its electricity demand entirely from renewable sources. A new study by researchers at the Institute for Transformative Sustainability Research (IASS) in Potsdam shows that many regions and municipalities could meet their electricity demand using electricity systems based exclusively on renewables. However, their development would exacerbate land...
Grito in Spanish can mean “to cry.” For example, the cries of despair of María del Pilar Hurtado’s son in a video that circulated throughout the Colombian media this summer. In the video, the boy kicks and screams next to his mother’s lifeless body in the town of Tierralta (Córdoba) in Colombia’s northern Caribbean region....
By analysing 138 experiments, researchers have mapped the potential of today’s plants and trees to store extra carbon by the end of the century. The results show trees and plants could remove six years of current emissions by 2100, but only if no further deforestation occurs. The study, led by Stanford University and the Autonomous...
Connected areas of high-quality forest running through oil palm plantations could help support increased levels of biodiversity, new research suggests. There is growing pressure to reduce the consumption of palm oil due to concerns over deforestation. However, the research team, led by the University of York, says promoting more sustainable palm oil is a better...
In India, children that belong to disadvantaged castes face a much higher likelihood of not living past their fifth birthday than their counterparts in non-deprived castes. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) researchers examined the association between castes and under-five mortality in an effort to help reduce the burden of under-five deaths in the...
Stone tools uncovered in Mongolia by an international team of archaeologists indicate that modern humans traveled across the Eurasian steppe about 45,000 years ago, according to a new University of California, Davis, study. The date is about 10,000 years earlier than archaeologists previously believed. The site also points to a new location for where modern...
