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| December 23, 2013 |
 UNL Research Raises Concerns About Future Global Crop Yield Projections Lincoln NB (SPX) Dec 23, 2013 - About 30 percent of the major global cereal crops - rice, wheat and corn - may have reached their maximum possible yields in farmers' fields, according to University of Nebraska-Lincoln research published this week in Nature Communications. These findings raise concerns about efforts to increase food production to meet growing global populations. Yields of these crops have recently decreas ... more |  |
Coastal ocean aquaculture can be environmentally sustainable Washington DC (SPX) Dec 23, 2013 - Specific types of fish farming can be accomplished with minimal or no harm to the coastal ocean environment as long as proper planning and safeguards are in place, according to a new report from researchers at NOAA's National Ocean Service. The study, led by scientists at National Ocean Service's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), evaluated the environmental effects of fin ... more |  |
Availability of food increases as countries' dependence on food trade grows Esbo, Finland (SPX) Dec 23, 2013 - The figures come out in a study made at Aalto University in Finland examining developments in food availability and food self-sufficiency in 1965. Researchers of Aalto University examined the development of food availability in recent decades for the first time. Food availability has improved especially in the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America, China, and Southeast Asia. Although ... more |  |
Efforts to curb climate change require greater emphasis on livestock Corvallis OR (SPX) Dec 23, 2013 - While climate change negotiators struggle to agree on ways to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, they have paid inadequate attention to other greenhouse gases associated with livestock, according to an analysis by an international research team. A reduction in non-CO2 greenhouse gases will be required to abate climate change, the researchers said. Cutting releases of methane and nitrou ... more |  |
 Environmentalists pledge to stop Swedish wolf hunt Stockholm (AFP) Dec 20, 2013 - Swedish environmental groups on Friday vowed to block plans to cull wolves in controversial licensed hunts aimed at keeping their numbers down and potentially cutting the wolf population in half. The first hunt is scheduled for February 1, 2014 with a target of 30 wolves and will be the first licensed wolf hunt since 2011. "We will appeal, we stopped it last time," Mikael Karlsson from t ... more |  |
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 Anti-whalers dismiss 'sham' Australian surveillance Sydney (AFP) Dec 23, 2013 - Militant anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd on Monday dismissed as a "sham" Australian government plans to track Japan's annual whale hunt by air instead of by sea, saying it was a toothless and "cowardly" response. Australia on Sunday announced an aerial Customs and Border Protection mission to the Southern Ocean as a showdown looms between Japan's whaling fleet and Sea Shepherd activists, say ... more |  |
 Russian court sentences Olympics critic to three years Moscow (AFP) Dec 20, 2013 - A Russian environmentalist working on a report about impact of the Sochi Olympic Games was sentenced to three years in a penal colony Friday for causing damage to property, in what he said was an attempt to scare other activists. A judge in the southern Black Sea town of Tuapse which borders Sochi ruled that Evgeny Vitishko had violated his parole and turned a suspended sentence of three yea ... more |  |
Singapore to deport 53 riot suspects back to India Singapore (UPI) Dec 20, 2013 - Singapore is set to deport 53 immigrant Asians workers for their part in the city-state's recent riot - the first in 40 years. Police said they picked up the 53 people, all Indian nationals except for one Bangladeshi, in an island-wide sweep early Tuesday morning. The men are being held in connection with the street disturbance in an area known as Little India where migrant work ... more |  |
Scandal-hit Turkey PM presses police purge Istanbul (AFP) Dec 21, 2013 - Turkish prosecutors have begun charging some of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's closest allies in a huge graft scandal he has responded to with a spectacular purge of the police. Erdogan has said he is battling "a state within a state" and described the corruption probe, which comes ahead of crucial March polls, as a smear operation. Media reports on Friday said prosecutors had beg ... more |  |
Khodorkovsky to stay out of Russia, help jailed dissidents Berlin (AFP) Dec 22, 2013 - Russia's former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky said Sunday after walking free from a decade in jail that he would stay away from his homeland but help to free Russian political prisoners still behind bars. In an astonishing turn of events, the Kremlin critic surfaced in Germany hours after his release on Friday from a prison in an obscure corner of northern Russia, following a pardon by Pre ... more |  |
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 Revealed: Vast water store beneath Greenland's ice Paris (AFP) Dec 22, 2013 - A vast store of water equivalent in area to Ireland lies beneath Greenland's icesheet, and it may provide answers to one of the big riddles of climate change, scientists reported on Sunday. In 2011, US scientists crossed the southern Greenland icesheet on an expedition to drill ice cores, a benchmark of annual snowfall. They were stunned when they drilled into a layer of compressed snow ... more |  |
Chinese firm buys historic French chateau, vineyard Bordeaux (AFP) Dec 20, 2013 - A Chinese group specialising in rare teas and luxury hotels has bought a historic chateau and vineyard near Bordeaux with the aim of turning it into a high class tea and wine tasting centre. The Hong Kong-based Brilliant group, whose interests range from Pu'er - a dark fermented tea from China's Yunnan region - to top-end resorts, acquired La Riviere chateau and its 65-hectare (160-acre) v ... more |  |
 Fossil throat bone suggests Neanderthals had power of speech Kensington, Australia (UPI) Dec 20, 2013 - An analysis of a fossil bone suggests Neanderthals may have had the ability to speak, an Australian researcher says. Stephen Wroe of the University of New South Wales, working with an international team, says the researchers were able to determine how the Hyoid bone - a horseshoe shaped structure in the neck - worked in Neanderthals. Wroe said the findings are "highly suggestiv ... more |  |
Bangladesh to deploy military to stem poll violence Dhaka (AFP) Dec 20, 2013 - Bangladesh said Friday it will deploy thousands of troops next week in an effort to contain deadly political violence ahead of controversial general elections slated for January 5. Heavily armed troops have already fanned out in major trouble spots across the country but "official deployment" will start December 26, the Election Commission said. "The army troops will be deployed between ... more |  |
 'World is behind you', Ban tells Philippine typhoon survivors Tacloban, Philippines (AFP) Dec 21, 2013 - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Philippine typhoon survivors Saturday to "never despair", vowing to rally global backing as they rebuild their lives from one of their country's deadliest disasters. "Never despair. The UN is behind you. The world is behind you," the UN chief said during a visit to the devastated central city of Tacloban, which suffered more than 5,000 deaths from Super ... more |  |
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Tanzania fires ministers over anti-poaching abuses: PM Arusha, Tanzania (AFP) Dec 20, 2013 - Tanzania on Friday fired four key ministers for abuses committed by the security forces during a controversial anti-poaching drive, the Prime Minister said. The officials fired are Defence Minister Shamsi Vuai Nahodha, Interior Minister Emmanuel Nchimbi, Natural Resources and Tourism Minister Khamis Kagasheki and Lifestock and Fisheries Minister David Matayo. All four are from the ruling par ... more |  |
Neanderthal genome shows early human interbreeding, inbreeding Berkeley CA (SPX) Dec 20, 2013 - The most complete sequence to date of the Neanderthal genome, using DNA extracted from a woman's toe bone that dates back 50,000 years, reveals a long history of interbreeding among at least four different types of early humans living in Europe and Asia at that time, according to University of California, Berkeley, scientists. Population geneticist Montgomery Slatkin, graduate student Fern ... more |  |
Oregano Oil May Help Sunflower Seeds Keep Longer Chicago IL (SPX) Dec 20, 2013 - Sunflower seeds and sunflower oils have been shown to decrease risk of cardiovascular disease as well as have potential beneficial effects on obesity, bone health, and blood pressure. However their high protein and fat content mean they can have a short shelf-life. A study in the Journal of Food Science published by the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) showed that the addition of oreg ... more |  |
A roly-poly pika gathers much moss Salt Lake City UT (SPX) Dec 20, 2013 - In some mountain ranges, Earth's warming climate is driving rabbit relatives known as pikas to higher elevations or wiping them out. But University of Utah biologists discovered that roly-poly pikas living in rockslides near sea level in Oregon can survive hot weather by eating more moss than any other mammal. "Our work shows pikas can eat unusual foods like moss to persist in strange envi ... more |  |
Sunlight adaptation of Neanderthal genome found in 65 percent of modern East Asians Oxford, UK (SPX) Dec 20, 2013 - With the Neanderthal genome now published, for the first time, scientists have a rich new resource of comparative evolution. For example, recently, scientists have shown that humans and Neanderthals once interbreed, with the accumulation of elements of Neanderthal DNA found in up to 5 percent in modern humans. Are there any advantages to the retention of Neanderthal DNA that favors modern ... more |  |
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