Environment

Researchers have discovered that a network of viruses usually associated with managed honeybees pose a widespread risk to bumblebees in the wild also. The study revealed multiple interconnected diseases that are threatening several species of bumblebee and the managed honeybee, which are essential pollinators of many agricultural crops and wild flowers.  Previously research had only identified one virus, deformed wing virus, which had most likely spilled over from managed honeybees into wild bumblebee populations, and fluctuations in wild bees were attributed to pesticides by activist…

Potatoes are an essential food for humans and now two new varieties produced by the Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development have been added to the Registry of Commercial Varieties.  ‘Entzia’ has a purple flesh and has been created to have high antioxidant components, which will get it considered a functional food by nutritionists. It also has a considerable quantity of anthocyanins, a pigment with a great bioactive potential and beneficial effects for human health. Its concentration of bioactive compounds, such as phenols and vitamin C, and its antioxidant…

Northern British Columbia's First Nation leaders repeatedly rejected the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines from Alberta and so oil companies are shipping more oil by rail, which requires no new approval, and is inherently more environmentally risky than the pipeline they said was too risky.  If you are more familiar with U.S. scientization of politics, it is like the Obama administration ignoring Yucca mountain science reports so that nuclear waste can remain in over 100 different locations of suspect quality: A win for environmental activists who wanted to flex their muscles…

In 2006, a somewhat common yet unpredictable decline in bees occurred, just as had happened in previous decades and leading back as long as anecdotal records have been kept. While scientists tried to determine the cause, various constituents rushed to lay blame for this new short-term decline on various environmental factors. The science consensus was that it was parasites but while the investigation was ongoing, the European Union wanted to know if it was due to a newer class of pesticides, called neonicotinoids, that had been introduced as a safe alternative a decade earlier, due to a mass…

The agricultural development of the Lower Yangtze River Basin around Nanjing and Shanghai is ecologically unsustainable and actions are needed soon to reverse its decline, according to a new study. The region has been in environmental decline since it passed a tipping point in the late 1970s, which further found that: * the relatively stable pre-1970s 'agriculture-ecology' system in the region reached a tipping point at the end of the 1970s, as reforms in China allowed farmers to grow surplus crops with more fertilizers and pesticides. * economic development has created a 'trade-off' between…

Winter floods are important natural 'disturbances' for maintaining species-rich riparian zones along northern watercourses. Movies like The Day After Tomorrow and An Inconvenient Truth exaggerated some of the big effects of a climate gone crazy but less attention is given to smaller, realistic scenarios, like a disturbance in existing winter floods. Riparian forests are important as they supply habitat, store carbon, provide shading, and filter water. Ice formation and winter floods are significant factors for vegetation and wildlife in northern regions.  According to Ph.D.…

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced approval of the first two nonbrowning apple varieties, Arctic Golden and Arctic Granny apples.  The science studies, including the final environmental assessment and a plant pest risk assessment, are upcoming in the Federal Register. According to the USDA's announcement, these reviews have found that Arctic® apples "are unlikely to pose a plant pest risk" and deregulation "is not likely to have a significant impact on the human environment." As Dr. Steve Savage notes, the Arctic…

Cute, clever, incorrect. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations's Forest Resource Assessment for 2005 used the word "alarming" 20 times to describe the trend lines for deforestation. And, a commonplace inference is that forests are rapidly disappearing due to logging. Deforestation, that is the conversion from forest to non-forest, is not necessarily due to logging (illegal or otherwise). So it is not greed, but survival that often drives deforestation. About half of the wood consumed in the world is for heating or cooking [Global Forest Resource Assessment 2010…

New research has identified the mechanism used by plants in stress conditions to sense low oxygen levels - and scientists then used that knowledge and advanced breeding techniques to reduce yield loss in barley under water-logged conditions. In 2011, University of Nottingham Professor of Crop Science Michael Holdsworth and colleagues identified the mechanism used by plants in stress conditions to sense low oxygen levels and now they have discovered how this works in barley. “We now know how to breed barley cultivars more tolerant to waterlogging and flooding,” says Holdsworth. Across the…

Trilemma - a quandary posed by three alternative courses of action. “Agriculture is having increasingly strong global impact on both the environment and human health, often driven by dietary changes.” This is the opening sentence of an article written by the two scientists, David Tilman and Michael Clark. In their paper they don’t present new research data they generated. Instead, they present a thorough analysis of existing data, a collection of 50 years of data from 100 nations regarding dietary trends and the inter- relations of diet, health and the environment. So, why did the…