DNA barcodes: Creative new uses span health, fraud, smuggling, history, more

Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL),
Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
6-Nov-2009

The scientific ability to quickly and accurately identify species through DNA "barcoding" is being embraced and applied by a growing legion of global authorities – from medical and agricultural researchers to police and customs authorities to palaeontologists and others.

Some 350 experts from 50 nations gathering in Mexico for their 3rd global meeting will outline the latest creative applications of DNA barcoding, including projects to sequence ancient plant and animal remains extracted from northern permafrost cores.

Using new techniques to identify species from degraded DNA, the results could reveal how life on Earth responded to global climate change in ages past.

Meanwhile, by analyzing the DNA of gut contents, scientists have started unravelling secrets of what eats what in the animal world.


World will miss 2010 target to stem biodiversity loss, experts say

DIVERSITAS
Paris
11-Oct-2009

Growing water needs, mismanagement leading to 'catastrophic decline' in freshwater biodiversity

The world will miss its agreed target to stem biodiversity loss by next year, according to experts convening in Cape Town for a landmark conference devoted to biodiversity science.

The goal was agreed at the 6th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in April 2003. Some 123 world ministers committed to "achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the local, national and regional levels, as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth."

"We will certainly miss the target for reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 and therefore also miss the 2015 environmental targets within the U.N. Millennium Development Goals to improve health and livelihoods for the world's poorest and most vulnerable people," says Georgina Mace of Imperial College, London, and Vice-Chair of the international DIVERSITAS program, which is convening its 2nd Open Science Conference Oct. 13-16 with 600 experts from around the world.

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What are coral reef services worth? $130,000 to $1.2 million per hectare, per year: experts

Economists, assigning values to 'ecosystem services,' report staggering totals and rates of return on investment

Experts concluding the global DIVERSITAS biodiversity conference today in Cape Town described preliminary research revealing jaw-dropping dollar values of the “ecosystem services” of biomes like forests and coral reefs – including food, pollution treatment and climate regulation.
Undertaken to help societies make better-informed choices, the economic research shows a single hectare of coral reef, for example, provides annual services to humans valued at US $130,000 on average, rising to as much as $1.2 million.
The work provides insights into the worth of ecosystems in human economic terms, says economist Pavan Sukhdev of UNEP, head of a Cambridge, England-based project called The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB).

Medical ethics experts identify, address key issues in H1N1 pandemic

University of Toronto
Joint Center for Bioethics
23-Sep-2009

The anticipated onset of a second wave of the H1N1 influenza pandemic could present a host of thorny medical ethics issues best considered well in advance, according to the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics, which today released nine papers for public discussion.

Topics include duty of health care workers to work during a serious flu pandemic; government restrictions on individual freedoms and privacy and their responsibilities administering vaccination programs; how to allocate limited medical resources; and the obligation of rich countries to share such resources with those less fortunate.

"While we hope there will not be a major second wave of the H1N1 flu, there is limited cause for optimism and we could well see the pandemic's full onset late this year or early next when the traditional flu season begins," says JCB Director Ross Upshur.

"Now is the time to think through the serious ethical challenges societies may confront, not in the midst of crisis with line-ups at hospital doors. These issues and concerns, though drawn largely from a Canadian point of view, have relevance to countries everywhere."


Set world standards for electronics recycling, reuse to curb e-waste exports to developing countries

United Nations University
Tokyo / Bonn
15-Sep-2009

Sold in 2006: 230 million computers, 1 billion cell phones, 45.5 million TVs; many destined for uncontrolled disposal without change in policies, consumer practices

Processes and policies governing the reuse and recycling of electronic products need to be standardized worldwide to stem and reverse the growing problem of illegal and harmful e-waste processing practices in developing countries, according to experts behind the world's first international e-waste academy.

Making appropriate recycling technologies available worldwide and standardizing government policy approaches to reuse and recycling could dramatically extend the life of many computers, mobile phones, TVs and similar products and allow for more complete end-of-life harvesting of the highly valuable metals and other components they contain.

"Rapid product innovations and replacements – the shift from analog to newer digital technologies and to flat-screen TVs and monitors, for example – is pushing every country to find more effective ways to cope with their e-waste," says Ruediger Kuehr of United Nations University, Executive Secretary of a global public-private initiative called Solving the E-Waste Problem (StEP). Based in Bonn, Germany, StEP works with policy makers, industry, academia and other stakeholders.


Cool new tools let public contribute to massive interactive online biodiversity encyclopedia

Encyclopedia of Life
Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
23-Aug-2009

Over 30,000 still images and video, as well as local information about changing biodiversity, have been uploaded to the Encyclopedia of Life via new tools that let the public contribute as never before to a global online science collaboration of unprecedented scale.

Experts and citizen scientists alike have fuelled explosive growth of the interactive encyclopedia, which dedicates a Web page to each known species and will eventually contain 1.8 million pages.

More than 150,000 species pages populated with expert-verified text and/or images are now available at EOL.org, a fast-growing inventory expected to shed new light on everything from conservation strategies for endangered species to climate change and the movements of disease-bearing or invasive pests. Some experts believe it may one day even help advance human longevity.

As the 10-year project marks its 2nd anniversary, EOL officials say pages with vetted information cover 150,000 species likely to be of greatest public interest. They also announced completion of over 75% of the encyclopedia's architecture, with 1.4 million placeholder pages now in place.

Full text: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-08/eol-cnt081709.php

Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlbF9zth54L8dEpiSmprZTkydjNkUUdYaU5ubUNCRkE&hl=en

Tuvalu hopes solar project inspires climate talks; nation sets goal of 100 percent clean energy by 2020

e8, Montreal
19 July 2009

Pacific nation of 9 islands seeks to expand first solar system, donated by e8, a consortium of G8 country electricity firms

Amid worsening climate change-related problems for small island states, Tuvalu has established a national goal of being powered entirely by renewable energy sources by 2020.

Government officials and the donors of Tuvalu's first large-scale solar energy system alike hope the moves help inspire much larger nations later this year in negotiations of a successor to the Kyoto Protocol agreement on climate change.

The solar system installed on the roof of Tuvalu's largest football stadium now supplies 5 percent of the electricity needed by that nation's capital, Funafuti.

In its first 14 months, the operation has reduced Tuvalu's consumption of generator fuel, shipped from New Zealand, by about 17,000 litres and reduced Tuvalu's carbon footprint by about 50 tonnes.

(more...)

Full text: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/e-ths071309.php

Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tTXbewukRmovSqzvThmOrBw&hl=en

Health research agencies form global alliance to curb humanity's most fatal diseases

Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases
London / Washington / Toronto
15-Jun-2009

Six of the world's foremost health agencies, collectively managing an estimated 80% of all public health research funding, today announced formation of a landmark alliance to collaborate in the critical battle against chronic, non-communicable diseases: cardiovascular diseases (mainly heart disease and stroke), several cancers, chronic respiratory conditions, and type 2 diabetes.

The health impact and socio-economic cost of these largely-preventable diseases is enormous and rising, potentially derailing efforts at poverty reduction.
The Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (Alliance) is being created to support clear priorities for a coordinated research effort that will address this growing health crisis, now reaching world epidemic proportions. Experts estimate that, unless action is stepped up, 388 million people worldwide will die of one or more such diseases within the next decade.

UNEP report details surprising green energy investment trends worldwide

United Nations Environment Programme
Nairobi / Paris
3-Jun-2009

Some $155 billion was invested in 2008 in clean energy companies and projects worldwide, not including large hydro, a new report launched today says.

Of this $13.5 billion of new private investment went into companies developing and scaling-up new technologies alongside $117 billion of investment in renewable energy projects from geothermal and wind to solar and biofuels.

The 2008 investment is more than a four-fold increase since 2004 according to Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2009, prepared for the UN Environment Programme's (UNEP) Sustainable Energy Finance Initiative by global information provider New Energy Finance.

Full news release text:
www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/udot-urd060109.php

Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=ruwx4IHEwFza8u2EfQojSYA&hl=en

Scientists announce major global collaboration to create online 'macroscopic observatory' of Earth's biodiversity

Consortium for the Barcode of Life, Encyclopedia of Life
Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC;
Natural History Museum, London
31-May-2009

Biodiversity information, innovative internet architecture being fused to create seamless, global view of life

Wanted (soon): observations from environment-minded citizens that will allow science to study biodiversity at a planetary level in a massive, comprehensive virtual observatory of historic importance.

The online information system for life on Earth, now under construction, will take its place alongside the global network that records earthquakes, or the world meteorology data network that pools information to predict the weather.

The global scientific collaboration to construct a virtual observatory for the unprecedented study and monitoring of life in an integrative way will be announced by some 500 biology and technology experts from 50 countries, meeting for the first time in London June 1 to 3.


Ocean life in olden days: Researchers upend modern notions of 'natural' animal sizes, abundance

Census of Marine Life
Washington DC
24-May-2009
Census of Marine Life historians reconstruct images of past sea life that boggle today's imagination

Before oil hunters in the early 1800s harpooned whales by the score, the ocean around New Zealand teemed with about 27,000 southern right whales - roughly 30 times as many as today - according to one of several astonishing reconstructions of ocean life in olden days to be presented at a Census of Marine Life conference May 26-28.

At about the same time, UK researchers say large pods of blue whales and orcas, blue sharks and thresher sharks darkened the waters off Cornwall, England, herds of harbour porpoise pursued fish upriver, and dolphins regularly played in waters inshore.

Using such diverse sources as old ship logs, literary texts, tax accounts, newly translated legal documents and even mounted trophies, Census researchers are piecing together images - some flickering, others in high definition - of fish of such sizes, abundance and distribution in ages past that they stagger modern imaginations.

They are also documenting the timelines over which those giant marine life populations declined.

This release is also available in Chinese.

Mexican Genome Mapped

National Institute of Genomic Medicine
Mexico City
11-May-2009

Landmark Mexican Study Reveals Significant
Genetic Variation Between Nation’s Population And World’s Other Known Genetic Subgroups

Study moves scientists closer to identifying individuals at risk or resistant to flu and other diseases, and to the potential of creating genome-customized drugs

Could genetic differences explain why some people and not others have died of H1N1 Influenza A?

That is among the questions raised by a landmark Mexican study showing significant genetic variation between Mestizos (Latin Americans of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry) and the world’s other known genetic subgroups.

The study, by Mexico’s National Institute of Genomic Medicine (INMEGEN), was published Monday May 11 by the Washington DC-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and presented by lead researcher Dr. Gerardo Jimenez-Sanchez to Mexican President Calderon at the Presidential residence.

Full release text: here

“Designer Wheat” Research Breakthrough Wins Grade 10 Saskatchewan Student, 16, Top Honour in National Biotech Competition

Canadian Biotechnology Education Resource Centre / BioTalent Canada
Toronto / Ottawa
6-May-2009

Genetic research by a 16-year-old Saskatchewan student that could one day help farmers grow “designer wheat” -- tailoring the starch content of grain grown for different markets -- has earned the top national prize in the 2009 Sanofi-Aventis BioTalent Challenge (SABC).

Grade 10 Student Scott Adams of Saskatoon’s Walter Murray Collegiate Institute won the $5,000 national 1st place prize today with a ground-breaking study showing agricultural scientists a novel way to turn off a gene in wheat and alter its starch elements, making it possible potentially to grow wheat customized for different markets ranging from textiles to foods such as pasta and bread.

Full release text: here
Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=r4A3wrznE3TxgCE7tecxF-A&hl=en

DNA barcoding of mosquito species deployed in bid to end elephantiasis

JRS Biodiversity Foundation
Philadelphia, USA
29-Apr-2009

First use of DNA barcoding in war against a major world disease

New biotechnologies that allow scientists to quickly and accurately distinguish species based on a simple DNA analysis are being creatively deployed for the first time in the war against a major global disease.

The University of Ghana, supported by the Philadelphia-based JRS Biodiversity Foundation, is pioneering the use of DNA "barcodes" to map menacing mosquito species in West Africa that spread lymphatic filariasis (LF), commonly known as elephantiasis. Using a short DNA sequence from a particular genome region, scientists can obtain a species' 'barcode' identity. Barcodes are needed because closely-related species, with different capabilities to transmit LF, are otherwise hard to distinguish.

The ability to precisely identify mosquito species in this way is a promising advance in the battle against LF, an often disfiguring disease that today threatens 1 billion people across roughly 80 countries. Over 120 million people have the parasitic infection and more than 40 million have been permanently disabled or disfigured.

The research is identifying species spreading the worm larvae that clog the human lymph system, often causing grotesque swelling. By revealing the menace species' habitat and range, it also aids understanding of environmental factors that influence their breeding and abundance.

Full news release text: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/jbf-dbo042209.php

Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=r3XnUjJ09TeguDSjgFe7Aig&hl=en

Indigenous peoples at world summit to share climate change observations, coping techniques

United Nations University
Tokyo, Japan
19-Apr-2009


With the first climate change-related relocation of an Inuit village already underway, some 400 Indigenous People and observers from 80 nations are convening in Alaska for a UN-affiliated conference April 20-24 to discuss ways in which traditional knowledge can be used to both mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Co-sponsored by UN University and hosted by the Inuit Circumpolar Council, the Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change is also designed to help strengthen the communities' participation in and articulate messages and recommendations to the December UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, at which a successor agreement to the Kyoto protocol will be negotiated. The Summit will conclude Fri. April 24 with a declaration and action plan, and a call for world governments to fully include Indigenous Peoples in any post-Kyoto climate change regime adopted in Copenhagen.


Full news release text: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/unu-ipa041309.php

Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrQiPbknHgfNTQ&hl=en

Clean energy investment not on track to avoid climate change

New Energy Finance
London
4-Mar-2009

Impact of recession and low energy prices may postpone peak of world CO2 emissions by more than a decade

The world economic crisis has hit investment in clean energy and means its growth is no longer on track for the world to avert the worst impact of climate change, according to leading clean energy and carbon market analysts, New Energy Finance.

Presenting their Global Futures 2009 insights to the second New Energy Finance Summit on March 4th, NEF analysts say that although lower economic activity due to the financial crisis will reduce CO2 emissions, in the longer term the drying up of funding for lower-carbon energy solutions is likely to have far greater adverse impact on emissions.

Investment in clean energy - renewables, energy efficiency and carbon capture & storage - increased from $34bn in 2004 to around $150bn in each of 2007 and 2008. New Energy Finance's latest Global Futures report demonstrates that investment needs to reach $500bn per annum by 2020 if CO2 emissions from the world's energy system are to peak before 2020.

Full text: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/nef-cei030209.php

Coverage summary: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/nef-cei030209.php

Census of Marine Life explorers find hundreds of identical species thrive in both Arctic, Antarctic

Washington DC
15-Feb-2009

Earth's unique, forbidding ice oceans of the Arctic and Antarctic have revealed a trove of secrets to Census of Marine Life explorers, who were especially surprised to find at least 235 species live in both polar seas despite a distance of more than 13,000-kilometer distance in between.

The scientists found marine life that both poles apparently share in common include marathoners such as some great whales (blue www.eol.org/pages/328574; humpback www.eol.org/pages/328575; fin www.eol.org/pages/328573) and birds, but also worms, crustaceans, and angelic snail-like pteropods, the latter discoveries opening a host of future research questions about where they originated and how they wound up at both ends of the Earth. DNA analysis is underway to confirm whether the species are indeed identical.

Among many other findings, the scientists also documented evidence of cold water-loving species shifting towards both poles to escape rising ocean temperatures.

The discoveries are the result of a series of landmark, often perilous voyages conducted during International Polar Year, 2007-2008. Biologists braved waves of up to 16 meters (48 feet) while getting to and from the Antarctic while their Arctic colleagues often worked under the watchful eye of an armed lookout to protect them from polar bears.


The studies by a global network of polar researchers have added substantially to human knowledge about the diversity, distribution and abundance of marine life, with results to be fully detailed in the world's first Census report, to be released in London Oct. 4, 2010.


Biotech Scientists Team with Curators to Stem Decay of World’s Art, Cultural Heritage

United Nations University
Programme for Biotechnology for Latin America and the Caribbean
(UNU-BIOLAC),
Caracas, Venezuela

8-Feb-2009

The growing relationship between scientists and curators is the focus of a 4-day, UN-affiliated international conference in Caracas designed to promote innovative ways to stem the decay of some of humanity's greatest art and cultural treasures.

"With the world financial crisis and the advent of climate change effects, there is a state of emergency at the museums of several tropical countries: entire collections are compromised," says Alvaro Gonzalez, a researcher at the Caracas-based Institute of Advanced Studies (IDEA) and Director of Venezuela's Cultural Heritage Conservation Foundation, the host of the event.

Says Jose-Luis Ramirez, Director of the United Nations University's Programme for Biotechnology for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNU-BIOLAC), an event sponsor: "The normal concern about single artifacts is no longer paramount. Storing and protecting entire collections safely has become a priority and scientists have a key role: developing techniques and procedures that are fundamental to heritage conservation."

Many of the world's cultural treasures are creations made of organic materials such as paper, canvas, wood and leather which, in prolonged warmth and dampness, attract mold, micro-organisms and insects, causing decay and disintegration.

New biotechnology techniques to be described include the use of micro-organisms to remove fungus and other problems on artwork, photos, documents, masonry and more.

Full text of release:

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Rainforests Regrowing: Impact on Extinction Rates Sparks Debate at Smithsonian

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Washington / Panama
12-Jan-2009

Satellite data and other research reveal that huge tracts of abandoned tropical forests that were once logged or farmed are regrowing, prompting a contentious debate among world scientists convening at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History Jan. 12.

At issue is the extent to which this regrowth might mitigate the loss of biodiversity.

Some researchers contend that this process has been inadequately factored into estimates of future species loss and that the biodiversity crisis has been overstated ( the prevailing scientific prediction is that up to half of all species may be lost in our lifetimes ).

Others contend that only 50 to 80 percent of plant species may return to logged or altered forests, and many animal species will not survive the transition.

Still others warn that the continuing rapid expansion of logging and mining roads makes forest access easier for commercial poachers and the hungry, with animals being hunted for exotic food, trophies, medicine and pets on levels that threaten the continued existence of many species.

They state that this increasingly massive harvest of animals, combined with the emergence of devastating wildlife diseases, habitat loss due to industrial scale development, climate change and other factors, is a recipe for catastrophic biodiversity collapse, despite encouraging evidence of rainforest regrowth in many places.

The need to shed light on these issues has prompted the Smithsonian to invite leading experts to present their ideas at a major symposium on the tropical extinction crisis, featuring eight researchers whose symposium papers will be published in a special volume of the U.S. journal Conservation Biology.


Biomarkers in blood could aid diagnosis of crippling, often fatal forms of malaria

McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health
University of Toronto / University Health Network
7-Dec-2008

Canadian researchers have identified protein biomarkers that shed new light on the development of two severe and debilitating forms of malaria.

The findings may let doctors detect earlier two crippling malaria variations – one that develops in the placenta of pregnant women affecting countless unborn children, the other, cerebral malaria, that develops in the brain's blood vessels – malaria's most deadly form.

Full release: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-12/pols-bib120208.php

Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrQxHi1zD28kTw

Scientists Report Major Steps Towards 1st Census of Marine Life

Census of Marine Life
Washington DC
9-Nov-2008

Among report's revelations: Antarctic ancestry of many octopus species, behemoth bacteria, colossal sea stars, mammoth mollusks, more

In a report on progress towards the first Census of Marine Life, more than 2,000 scientists from 82 nations announce astonishing examples of recent new finds from the world's ocean depths.

As more than 500 delegates gather for the World Conference on Marine Biodiversity (Valencia, Spain Nov. 11-15), organized by the Census's European affiliate program on Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning, the report details major progress towards the first ever marine life census, for release in October, 2010. In Spain, renowned marine scientists will announce more new and surprising results daily throughout the event, to be opened with a news conference in Valencia Tues. Nov. 11.

In the fourth report issued since the global collaboration began in the year 2000, Census scientists say their work is:

* Compiling an unprecedented number of "firsts" for ocean biodiversity;
* Advancing technology for discovery;
* Organizing knowledge about marine life and making it accessible;
* Measuring effects of human activities on ocean life;
* Providing the foundation for scientifically-based policies.

According to Ian Poiner, chair of the Census's International Scientific Steering Committee and Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, "The release of the first Census in 2010 will be a milestone in science. After 10 years of new global research and information assembly by thousands of experts the world over, it will synthesize what humankind knows about the oceans, what we don't know, and what we may never know – a scientific achievement of historic proportions."

Bottom left: Megeleledone setebos, endemic to the Southern Ocean, surrounded by related octopus species that evolved in the deep-sea. Click here for more information.

Full news release text:
www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-11/coml-sam110308.php

Coverage summary:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrS2OeiDIMRHBg

'Arid aquaculture' among livelihoods promoted to relieve worsening pressure on world's drylands

United Nations University
11-Nov-2008

"Arid aquaculture" using ponds filled with salty, undrinkable water for fish production is one of several options experts have proven to be an effective potential alternative livelihood for people living in desertified parts of the world's expanding drylands.

In a report released today, researchers with the United Nations University, the International Centre on Agricultural Research in Dryland Areas (ICARDA), and UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Program say alternatives to traditional crop farming and livestock rearing will need to be put in place in drylands in order to mitigate human causes of desertification.

While it may sound far-fetched, researchers say using briny water to establish aquaculture in a dry, degraded part of Pakistan not only introduced a new source of income, it helped improve nutrition through diet diversification. The researchers also showed it possible to cultivate some varieties of vegetables with the same type of brackish water.

Drylands residents, many of whom are the world's "poorest of the poor," employ "highly vulnerable livelihood strategies that depend on land productivity" warns the report, which describes the success of several occupational options explored in a four-year, multi-country study.

Full news release text:
www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-11/unu-aa110308.php

Coverage summary:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrSuVgycW55Ucg

Providing toilets, safe water is top route to reducing world poverty: UN University

United Nations University
Tokyo Japan / Hamilton, Canada
19-Oct-2008

Simply installing toilets where needed throughout the world and ensuring safe water supplies would do more to end crippling poverty and improve world health than any other possible measure, according to an analysis released today by the United Nations University.

The analysis says better water and sanitation reduces poverty in three ways.
  • New service business opportunities are created for local entrepreneurs;
  • Significant savings are achieved in the public health sector; and
  • Individual productivity is greater in contributing to local and national economies.
UNU also calls on the world's research community to help fill major knowledge gaps that impede progress in addressing the twin global scourges of unsafe water and poor sanitation.

Information gaps include such seemingly obvious measures as common definitions and worldwide maps to identify communities most vulnerable to health-related problems as a result of poor access to sanitation and safe water. UNU also calls for creation of a "tool-box" to help policy-makers choose between available options in local circumstances.

Full text:

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Environmental migrants: UN meeting aims to build consensus on definitions, support, protection

United Nations University
Tokyo, Japan
8-Oct-2008

A growing international consensus to formally recognize and protect people uprooted by environmental problems is expected to accelerate at a major conference in Bonn, Germany Oct. 9 to 11.

Featured at the conference will be the presentation and discussion of early results of the first comprehensive empirical study, funded by the European Commission, gauging the extent to which environment problems influence migration decisions.

Hosted by the United Nations University, the conference on Environment, Forced Migration and Social Vulnerability (www.efmsv2008.org) will capture the current state of research and debate on the issue and conclude with recommendations for moving forward.

Experts estimate that by 2050 some 200 million people will be displaced by environmental problems, a number of people roughly equal to two-thirds of the USA today (or the combined population of the UK, France, Italy and the Netherlands).


Explorers find hundreds of undescribed corals, other species on familiar Australian reefs

Census of Marine Life
Washington D.C.
18-Sep-2008

Hundreds of new kinds of animal species surprised international researchers systematically exploring waters off two islands on the Great Barrier Reef and a reef off northwestern Australia -- waters long familiar to divers.

The expeditions, affiliated with the global Census of Marine Life, help mark the International Year of the Reef and included the first systematic scientific inventory of spectacular soft corals, named octocorals for the eight tentacles that fringe each polyp.

The explorers today released some initial results and stunning images from their landmark four-year effort to record the diversity of life in and around Australia's renowned reefs.

Full text: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/coml-efh091208.php

Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrRpiC7PrOQTXA&hl=en

Experts meet on need for new rules to govern world's fragile polar regions

United Nations University
Tokyo
7-Sep-2008

A new co-ordinated international set of rules to govern commercial and research activities in both of Earth's polar regions is urgently needed to reflect new environmental realities and to temper pressure building on these highly fragile ecosystems, according to several of the experts convening in Iceland for a UN-affiliated conference marking the International Polar Year.

Full text: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/unu-emo090108.php

Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrTXn7Vzrp8bdw&hl=en

Students Use DNA Barcodes to Unmask “Mislabeled” Fish at Grocery Stores, Restaurants

Rockefeller University / Trinity School

New York
22-Aug-08

Two New York City high school friends, curious about new DNA barcoding technology, discovered that fish at local stores and restaurants are commonly mislabeled and sold for far more than regular market price.

Worse, in two cases DNA barcode tests revealed that filleted fish sold as the popular Red Snapper (caught mostly off the southeast U.S. and in the Caribbean) was instead the endangered Acadian Redfish (which swims in the North Atlantic).
The report details the first known student use of the four-year-old DNA barcoding technology in a public marketplace. Based in part on the results, barcode scientists are developing sampling kits for schools – an educational program that could contribute to consumer protection at the same time.

Rising energy, food prices major threats to wetlands as farmers eye new areas for crops


United Nations University
25-Jul-2008

Critical food shortages and growing demand for bio-fuels and hydro-electricity due to high fossil fuel prices rank among the greatest threats today to the preservation of precious wetlands worldwide as farmers and developers look for new areas for agriculture, energy crop plantations and hydro dams.

However, resisting pressures to convert wetlands is vital to avoid destroying ecosystems that provide a suite of services essential to humanity, including safe, steady local water supplies, preserving biodiversity and the large-scale capture and storage of climate warming greenhouse gases, according 700 leading world experts concluding a week-long meeting in Cuiaba, Brazil.

The experts issued the Cuiaba Declaration July 25, the final day of the 8th INTECOL International Wetlands Conference, convened on the northern edge of the world's largest tropical wetland, the Pantanal (pictured).

Full text: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/unu-ref072408.php
Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrTP10O5oHqTNw&hl=en

Massive greenhouse gases may be released as destruction, drying of world wetlands worsens: UN

United Nations University
20-Jul-2008

700 leading experts convene at edge of Brazil's vast Pantanal to take stock, offer policy prescription to remedy wetlands crisis

Leading world scientists convene in Brazil July 21-25 amid growing concern that evaporation and ongoing destruction of world wetlands, which hold a volume of carbon similar to that in the atmosphere today, could cause them to exhale billows of greenhouse gases.

Meeting in the city of Cuiaba on the edge of South America's vast Pantanal, the largest wetland of its kind, some 700 experts from 28 nations at the 8th INTECOL International Wetlands Conference will prescribe measures urgently needed to better understand and manage these vibrant ecosystems, ranked among the planet's most threatened, and slow their decline and loss.

Warming world temperatures are speeding both rates of decomposition of trapped organic material and evaporation, while threatening critical sources of wetlands recharge by melting glaciers and reducing precipitation.

Full text: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/unu-mgg071408.php
Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrTP10O5oHqTNw&hl=en

UNEP: Clean energy investments charge forward despite financial market turmoil

United Nations Environment Programme
Nairobi, Kenya

01 Jul 08

With end of cheap oil, renewables and energy efficiency attracts fast-growing interest; new investment surpasses $148 billion in 2007, a 60 percent rise from 2006
Climate change worries, growing support from world governments, rising oil prices and ongoing energy security concerns combined to fuel another record-setting year of investment in the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries in 2007, according to an analysis issued Tuesday July 1 by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Over $148 billion in new funding entered the sustainable energy sector globally last year, up 60% from 2006, even as a credit crunch began to roil financial markets, according to the report, “Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2008,” prepared by UK-based New Energy Finance for UNEP’s Paris-based Sustainable Energy Finance Initiative.

“Just as thousands were drawn to California and the Klondike in the late 1800s, the green energy gold rush is attracting legions of modern day prospectors in all parts of the globe,” says Achim Steiner, head of UNEP.

“A century later, the key difference is that a higher proportion of those looking for riches today may find them. With world temperatures and fossil fuel prices climbing higher, it is increasingly obvious to the public and investors alike that the transition to a low-carbon society is both a global imperative and an inevitability."

Full text: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/udot-uce062708.php

Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrTK68uqOGHZNQ&hl=en

Census of Marine Life lists 122,500 known species, over halfway to complete inventory by Oct. 2010

Census of Marine Life
Washington D.C.

25-Jun-2008

World Register of Marine Species inaugurated with first 122,500 validated names; over 56,000 aliases for ocean species identified

Census of Marine Life-affiliated scientists consolidating world databases of ocean organisms have demoted to alias status almost one-third of all names culled from 34 regional and highly specialized inventories.

The new World Register of Marine Species (http://www.marinespecies.org/) contains about 122,500 validated marine species names (experts having recognized and tidied up some 56,400 aliases – 32% of all names reviewed). It also contains some 5,600 images, hyperlinks to taxonomic literature and other information.

Marking the World Register's official inauguration, some 55 researchers from 17 countries met in Belgium to plan its completion by 2010. Leading WoRMS experts independently estimate that about 230,000 marine species are known to science. They also believe there are three times as many unknown (unnamed) marine species as known, for a grand total on Earth that could surpass 1 million.

"Convincing warnings about declining fish and other marine species must rest on a valid census," says Dr. Mark Costello of the University of Auckland, co-founder of WoRMS and a senior Census of Marine Life official. "This project will improve information vital to researchers investigating fisheries, invasive species, threatened species and marine ecosystem functioning, as well as to educators. It will eliminate the misinterpretation of names, confusion over Latin spellings, redundancies and a host of other problems that sow confusion and slow scientific progress."

Full text: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-06/coml-com062208.php

Marine explorers marvel at 'Brittlestar City' on seamount in powerful current swirling around Antarctica

Census of Marine Life
Washington DC

18-May-2008

Millions of starfish-like creatures catch passing food in 4 km/h current; cod shelter from 'rattling' current in folds of huge bubblegum coral

Census of Marine Life-affiliated scientists, plumbing the secrets of a vast underwater mountain range south of New Zealand, captured the first images of a novel “Brittlestar City” established against daunting odds on the peak of a seamount – an underwater summit taller than the world’s tallest building.

Its cramped starfish-like inhabitants, tens of millions living arm tip to arm tip, owe their success to the seamount’s shape and to the swirling circumpolar current flowing over and around it at roughly four kilometers per hour. It allows Brittlestar City’s underwater denizens to capture passing food simply by raising their arms, and it sweeps away fish and other hovering would-be predators.

Discovery of this marine metropolis, announced today along with important new insights into seamount geology and physics, highlighted a month-long April expedition to survey the Macquarie Ridge aboard the Research Vessel Tangaroa of New Zealand’s National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, host of the Census of Marine Life seamount programme, CenSeam.


Ottawa high school student's "flu glue" wins national prize

Canadian Biotechnology Education Resource Centre
/ BioTalent Canada

Toronto / Ottawa

7-May-2008

Health Canada's preliminary test of student's findings 'encouraging'

A ground-breaking study by a 17-year-old Ottawa student that demonstrated the potential of a new way to diagnose, and perhaps prevent, influenza has earned top national honours among 14 regional entries in the 2008 Sanofi-Aventis BioTalent Challenge (SABC), announced today at National Research Council Headquarters, Ottawa.

Grade 12 student Maria Merziotis of Ottawa’s Hillcrest High School won the top $5,000 national prize, plus a $1,000 prize for the project with the greatest commercial potential.

The application of her research related to identifying different influenza types has already been tested by Health Canada with encouraging results.

Full text: www.eurekalert.org/features/kids/2008-05/cber-ohs050708.php
Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrTDeccnclQtIw&hl=en

International health experts to enlist the public in war on African malaria

McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health
University of Toronto / University Health Network

20-Apr-2008

British entrepreneur, 25, created world's top soccer Web site; now teams with leading global health professors to innovate in malaria philanthropy

Philanthropy just got easier and a lot more accessible to the public thanks to the social networking power of the Internet and a ground-breaking partnership between a young British entrepreneur, a global health think tank and an African medical research institute.

Debuted April 20 to offer individuals a meaningful way to mark World Malaria Day (Friday, April 25), its creators hope http://www.malariaengage.org/ will do for African research what YouTube did for sharing videos and what eBay did for trading things – open it up in a creative and engaging way to the vast global community through the World Wide Web.

At MalariaEngage.org, people can enlist directly in the anti-malaria battle by contributing $10 or more to an initial choice of seven highly varied projects involving selected scientists in developing countries. Over time, new projects will replace those that reach their funding goal (the original seven have objectives ranging from $10,000 to $50,000). The site features a discussion area where supporters can interact with researchers and each other, obtain news and photos of both funded and proposed projects, a running tally of money raised, and stories from the front lines in the war against the scourge of malaria.

Full text: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/unep-fmi041408.php

Indigenous peoples hardest hit by climate change describe impacts

United Nations University - Institute of Advance Studies
Yokohama

2-Apr-2008

Biofuel production, renewable energy expansion, other mitigation measures uprooting indigenous peoples in many regions

Indigenous peoples have contributed the least to world greenhouse gas emissions and have the smallest ecological footprints on Earth. Yet they suffer the worst impacts not only of climate change, but also from some of the international mitigation measures being taken, according to organizers of a United Nations University co-hosted meeting April 3 in Darwin, Australia.

Full text: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/unu-iph040108.php
Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrSUKBKFrkQ7Pg&hl=en

Sanitation investment in poor countries would yield $9-to-1 benefits in productivity, health: UN

United Nations University / International Year of Sanitation
20-Mar-2008

Experts estimate that $9 in productivity, health and other benefits are returned for every dollar invested installing toilets for people in countries that today are off-track in meeting the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for sanitation.

Some argue that meeting the sanitation MDG is also a prerequisite to the goals of reducing global poverty.

Achieving the sanitation goal – to simply halve the number of people without access to a toilet by 2015 – would cost $38 billion, less than 1% of annual world military spending. That investment, however, would yield $347 billion worth of benefits – much of it related to higher productivity and improved health.

Full text: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-03/unu-sii031808.php
Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrTGUBebks6zaQ&hl=en

Scientists to explore life's mysteries through encyclopedic 'macroscope'

Encyclopoedia of Life
Smithsonian Institution
25 Feb 2008

The first 30,000 pages of a massive online Encyclopedia of Life were unveiled today (Feb. 27) at the prestigious Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) Conference in Monterey, California.

Intended as a tool for scientists and policymakers and a fascinating resource for anyone interested in the living world, the EOL is being developed by a unique collaboration between scientists and the general public.

By making it easy to compare and contrast information about life on Earth, the resulting compendium has the potential to provide new insights into many of life’s secrets.

In essence, EOL will be a microscope in reverse, or “macroscope,” helping users to discern large-scale patterns. By aggregating for analysis information on Earth’s estimated 1.8 million known species, scientists say the EOL could, for example, help map vectors of human disease, reveal mysteries behind longevity, suggest substitute plant pollinators for a swelling list of places where honeybees no longer provide that service, and foster strategies to slow the spread of invasive species.


Coverage summary:

First wind turbines on Galapagos Islands will halve diesel imports, reduce risk of future oil spills

e8
Montreal, Canada
18-Feb-2008

Power utilities from US, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Russia team on project to help protect 'Mona Lisa' of biodiversity

In January 2001, the world held its breath when the tanker Jessica, loaded with 150,000 gallons of fuel, struck a reef and began breaking up in the heart of one of the most precious, famous and fragile ecosystems on earth – the Galapagos Islands.

At risk were vast numbers of unique species of flora and fauna renowned through studies by Charles Darwin that contributed to his landmark theory of evolution by natural selection.

While scores of wildlife required cleaning by Galapagos National Park Service staff and volunteers, the wind and currents stepped in to narrowly avert an environmental catastrophe. Yet the sight of thousands of gallons of oil pouring into the ocean off the Galapagos island of San Cristobal triggered a determined international initiative to mitigate risks of future spills by dramatically reducing the islands’ dependence on diesel fuel to generate electricity.

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa today launched his country’s programme to rid the use of fossil fuels on the Galapagos by 2015, an initiative led by the San Cristobal Wind Project – three giant wind turbines that will halve the island’s diesel fuel imports and pave the way for further renewable energy development elsewhere in the archipelago.

Turbines installed by the San Cristobal Wind Project, an international partnership between the government of Ecuador, the UN Development Program and nine of the world’s largest electricity companies (known as the e8), started supplying power on the islands last October. The system will meet 60 to 80% of electrical demand during the windy months of October, November and December.

Full story: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/e-1wt021808.php

$1 trillion US carbon trading market by 2020: study

New Energy Finance
London, Washington
14-Feb-2008

The United States will be home to a $1 trillion carbon emission market by 2020 if federal and state policymakers continue on their current path towards a comprehensive "cap-and-trade" program that is confined to domestic trading only.

In an analysis of bills today before the U.S. Congress, New Carbon Finance research economists based in New York, Washington D.C. and London, U.K. predict that in 12 years a carbon-constrained U.S. economy that includes a cap-and-trade system allowing only domestic trades will produce:

* A $1 trillion carbon trading market -- more than twice the size of the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme;
* A carbon price of $40 per tonne as soon as 2015, which will result in a rise in consumer energy prices in real terms of roughly 20% for electricity, 12% for gasoline and 10% for natural gas -- as well as impacts on other prices as higher energy and transportation costs filter through the economy; and
* Major U.S. investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and greenhouse gas mitigation projects and technologies.

The analysis was released Feb. 14 by Michael Liebreich, CEO of New Energy Finance, parent of New Carbon Finance, attending climate change roundtable discussions at U.N. headquarters, New York.

Full story: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/nef-tu021208.php

Global corporate giants ask suppliers to volunteer CO2 emissions information

Carbon Disclosure Project
London, UK
20-Jan-2008

The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a collaboration of over 315 institutional investors (including Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Allianz and HSBC, with assets under management of more than $41 trillion), has partnered with some of the world’s largest companies to assess the greenhouse gas emissions of their supply chain firms.

Under CDP's Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration, multinationals including Dell, Hewlett Packard, L’Oreal, PepsiCo, Cadbury Schweppes, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble and Unilever will use a standardized CDP questionairre to elicit CO2 emission-related information from suppliers.

The eventual goal: to obtain data from tens of thousands of suppliers and develop strategies to reduce the carbon footprints of corporations worldwide.

Full text: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/cdp-gcg011608.php

Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrRgHc-9l_Nxag&hl=en
(notes: if needed to open the file, enter usual email address and create a password; tabs across the bottom point to different types of coverage).

China’s Health Biotech Industry: An Asian Dragon is Growing

McLaughlin Rotman Centre for Global Health
University of Toronto / University Health Network
7-Jan-2008

Government funds innovation but venture capital needed; Wary investors 'need to be shown the exits'; Returning 'sea turtles' bring expertise, international credibility

Backed by a government intent on promoting innovation and fuelled by the “brain gain” of talented scientists and entrepreneurs returning from abroad, China’s health biotech industry only needs a more favourable investment climate to emerge as a global force in the production of therapies and medicines – both new and low-cost generics – experts say in a new study.

Long considered a skillful product replicator, China today boasts of daring medical science innovation and stunning breakthroughs – including the world’s first commercialized gene therapy product and the sole cholera vaccine tablet. However, Chinese firms face an uphill battle in attracting high-risk venture capital needed to sustain innovative, research-driven projects, says the study published by Nature Biotechnology.
Conducted through face to face interviews with management of 22 Chinese firms, the work is the first study of China’s most innovative health biotechnology companies available in the public domain.

Full text: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/pols-cbi010108.php

Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrRq0vhMobZDXg&hl=en

Economists: Reduce fish catch now for bigger net profits later

Australian National University, Crawford School of Economics and Government
6-Dec-2007

A new and compelling argument for reducing fish harvests – the profit motive – could persuade world fishers to endure the short-term pain of lower catches for the long-term gain of higher returns for their labor, according to authors of a ground-breaking study on fisheries over-exploitation.

They say their findings, published in the journal Science Dec. 7, will help overcome a key cause of over-fishing – industry opposition to lower catches – by demonstrating that when stocks are allowed to recover, profits take a sharp turn upward.

“It has always been assumed that maximizing fishing profits will lead to stock depletion and possibly even extinction of some commercial species,” says co-author Quentin Grafton, research director at the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the Australian National University (ANU) and one of the co-authors of the paper “Economics of Over-exploitation Revisited.”

“But our results prove that the highest profits are made when fish numbers are allowed to rise beyond levels traditionally considered optimal. In other words, bigger stocks mean bigger bucks.”

Full release text: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-12/anuc-erf120207.php

Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrRzjUrm1YpRew&hl=en

European Union forests expanding, absorbing carbon at surprisingly high rate: study

University of Helsinki
29 Nov 07

European Union countries likely require an old ally – Mother Nature and her forests – to meet an ambitious post-Kyoto goal for cutting greenhouse gas emissions 20% by 2020, according to new research.

The University of Helsinki study says that despite rising population and affluence, the EU can meet its obligations post-Kyoto (2012-2020). However, it will likely require more than energy savings, new technologies and mitigating non-CO2 gasses such as methane; partial credit for expansion of the region’s forests could be decisive, say researchers Pekka E. Kauppi, Laura Saikku and Aapo Rautiainen, whose report, The Sustainability Challenge of Meeting Carbon Dioxide Targets in Europe by 2020, is published today in the peer-reviewed UK journal Energy Policy.

Full release text: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/uoh-efk_1112707.php


Coverage summary:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrTLT2FfphVpGw&hl=en

Marine scientists warn human safety, prosperity depend on better ocean observing system

Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans
(Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD)
La Jolla, CA
25-Nov-2007

Speedy diagnosis of the temper and vital signs of the oceans matters increasingly to the well being of humanity, says a distinguished partnership of international scientists urging support to complete a world marine monitoring system within 10 years.

The Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO) says warming seas, over-fishing and pollution are among profound concerns that must be better measured to help society respond in a well-informed, timely and cost-effective way.

Full release:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/coml-msw111807.php

Coverage summary:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrSmRFo5PkPUNA&hl=en

Curbing world's most fatal diseases: consensus created by health experts offers global prescription

McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health
Toronto
21-Nov-2007

20 'Grand Challenges' in chronic non-communicable diseases, 1st agreed roadmap to reduce rising toll of slow killer illnesses

Several of the world’s most eminent health scientists and organizations today publish a landmark global consensus on the 20 foremost measures needed to curb humanity’s most fatal diseases, their study featured in Nature magazine.

Full release:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/pols-cwm111807.php

Coverage summary:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrTQz_-FXlwjBA&hl=en

Human clones: New U.N. analysis lays out world's choices

United Nations University
Institute of Advanced Studies, Yokohama, Japan
10-Nov-2007

Report says ban on human reproductive cloning, coupled with restricted therapeutic research, is global compromise most likely to succeed

The world community quickly needs to reach a compromise that outlaws reproductive cloning or prepare to protect the rights of cloned individuals from potential abuse, prejudice and discrimination, according to authors of a new policy analysis by the United Nations University’s Institute of Advanced Studies (http://www.ias.unu.edu/).

A legally-binding global ban on work to create a human clone, coupled with freedom for nations to permit strictly controlled therapeutic research, has the greatest political viability of options available to the international community, says the report: Is Human Reproductive Cloning Inevitable: Future Options for UN Governance, released Nov. 12 by A.H. Zakri, Director of UNU-IAS, based in Yokohama, Japan.

News release: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/unu-hcn110507.php

Coverage results: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrQBDVfKMgnaZQ&hl=en

Global corporate climate change report released

Carbon Disclosure Project
London
24-Sep-2007

'Climate Disclosure Leadership Index' launched, President Clinton to speak

New York / London -- The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a collaboration of over 315 institutional investors with assets under management of more than $41 trillion, releases its 5th annual global report, providing the largest and most comprehensive database of strategies from the world's largest corporations regarding the impact of climate change on shareholder value.

CDP also launches the Climate Disclosure Leadership Index (CDLI), a prestigious honour roll for global corporations addressing the challenges of climate change. The CDLI is comprised of 68 FT500 companies that show distinction in their responses to the CDP survey based on their reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and assessment of climate change strategies.

Climate Disclosure Leadership Index members are distinguished by the disclosure of their awareness of the risks and opportunities of climate change, as well as the quality and effectiveness of programs put in place to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions.

Full text: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-09/cdp-gcc092007.php

Coverage results: http://news.google.ca/news?hl=en&ned=&q=%22carbon+disclosure+project%22&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d

Amid spiralling government interest, world's top 350 DNA barcode scientists meet in Taipei

Consortium for the Barcode of Life,
Smithsonian Institution
14-Sep-2007

Major advances foreseen in health, consumer and environment protection, more

About 350 DNA barcoding experts from 46 nations will converge in Taipei amid spiralling interest from health officials, government agencies and others beginning to realize potential applications in a range of areas -- from consumer protection and food safety to disease prevention and better environmental monitoring.

Specifically, this burgeoning three-year-old scientific field could, among many other things, help get illegal fish and timber out of global markets, slow the spread of invasive pests, reduce bird-plane collisions, and uncover the hideouts of medically-important species of mosquito.

Government agencies, particularly in North America but elsewhere as well, are expanding investments in applications for the new technologies that identify and distinguish known and unknown species ever more quickly, cheaply, easily and accurately based on snippets of DNA code.

Full text: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-09/cftb-asg090707.php

Coverage results: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrQ_lTsdPZw3NQ&hl=en

Pioneering study catalogs ethical issues of scientific research in developing world

McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health, Program on Life Sciences, Ethics and Policy
Toronto
10 Sep 07

The first comprehensive examination of the ethical, social and cultural (ESC) challenges faced by major science programs in developing countries has identified a complex assortment of issues with the potential to slow critical global health research if left unaddressed.

The findings are published in this week’s PLoS Medicine.

The challenges range from problems such as government corruption to questions surrounding community and public engagement, cultural acceptability, and gender.

Professor Peter Singer (Senior Scientist, McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health, University of Toronto) and colleagues conducted 70 interviews with academics, government officials, and NGO and private sector experts from developing countries. The study team pinpointed 13 ESC issues of concern for major science programs.

Full text: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-09/plos-psc090407.php

Coverage results: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrQ63Dq9yWYPGg&hl=en

Restoring soils vital to feed world, forestall climate change: experts

Soil Conservation Service of Iceland, Reykjavik,
and United Nations University
30 Aug 07

Protecting soils claimed as an immediate fix to counter climate change; 150 world experts meet in Iceland on 'silent crisis'

To meet the needs of a rapidly rising human population, the planet needs to produce more food over the coming decades than it did in the last 10,000 years combined, warn experts organizing a major world forum on the critical need to restore and protect Earth’s precious soil resources.

While demand for soil’s services are growing, however, the problems of land degradation and desertification are intensifying in many parts of the world -- a creeping environmental crisis affecting one-third of all people on Earth today and worsened by the effects of warming global temperatures.

Full text: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-08/scso-rsv082907.php

Coverage results: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrRmoLOlpgnwIQ&hl=en

Tuna Past and Present

Census of Marine Life,
Washington DC
5-Aug-2007


Historians detail collapse of bluefin tuna population off northern Europe;
Tagging reveals migration, breeding secrets of declining population

Ocean historians affiliated with the Census of Marine Life have painted the first detailed portrait of a burst of fishing from 1900 to 1950 that preceded the collapse of once abundant bluefin tuna populations off the coast of northern Europe.


The chronicle of decimation of the bluefin tuna population in the North Atlantic is being published as other affiliated researchers release the latest results of modern electronic fish tagging efforts off Ireland and in the Gulf of Mexico, revealing remarkable migrations and life-cycle secrets of the declining species.


Full text: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-08/coml-com073007.php


Coverage summary: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pRwdzmg01IrQ82gXsI97gSQ&hl=en_GB
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