Arctic Ice in Death Spiral

The carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have melted the Arctic sea ice to its lowest volume since before the rise of human civilisation, dangerously upsetting the energy balance of the entire planet, climate scientists are reporting.

AFRICA: Liberalised Services Still Require Proper Regulations

With African countries' trade remaining inordinately dependent on natural resources exports, their economies could benefit from liberalisation of trade in services but only as long as proper domestic regulatory frameworks are put in place, some trade experts argue.

Record Temperatures Killing Caribbean Corals

The waters of the Caribbean Sea are the warmest on record and the region's imperilled corals are bleaching and beginning to die, experts warn.

ETHIOPIA: New Wheat Variety to Deal with Wheat-killer Diseases

Like most farmers in Ethiopia, Jundi Hajji expected that the profit from his wheat harvest would be sufficient to feed his family of eight until next year's harvest.

MALAYSIA: Plan to Use ‘Killer’ Mosquitoes vs Dengue Draws Fire

Genetically modified ‘terminator’ mosquitoes are the latest weapons that the Malaysian government wants to use against the deadly dengue fever, but activists and environmentalists say the public health risks of introducing a new ‘artificial’ strain of mosquito are far too high.

INDIA: Buoyed by Growing Market, More Farmers Go Organic

He had decided to grow watermelons this summer on his one-acre (.405 hectare) plot, and so Veera Narayana went about preparing the arid red earth by first ploughing it and then lighting fires in the furrows.

HEALTH: H1N1 Pandemic Is Over, But Vigilance Needed – WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is urging countries in Asia to remain vigilant about the spread of the H1N1 influenza virus, which the international body declared was no longer a pandemic a month ago.

Q&A: Cuban Vaccines Cross Borders, But Barriers Remain

Even today, many years after it was proved effective, the Cuban vaccine against meningitis B is still ignored by industrialised countries, whose medical literature usually states there is no immunisation against that strain of the disease.

ENVIRONMENT: South Still Battling to Stop North’s Biopiracy

The United Nations declared 2010 the Year of Biodiversity. But 17 years after the Convention on Biological Diversity was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the issue of biopiracy is still pitching North against South.

Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill’s 30-Year Legacy

A surprisingly small number of scientists have studied the impacts of the oil spill resulting from the 1979 blowout at the Ixtoc I oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Wes Tunnell, who first studied the spill’s effects in July and August of 1980 and has returned many times since, is one of the few exceptions.

Environmental Forensics for BP Gulf Spill

Stealthy submarine gliders slide through the depths of the Gulf of Mexico with the precision of birds of prey. Robot-like rovers search for droplets of oil thousands of metres under the surface. Powerful computerised analysers send instant results to scientists on board the ship above. All of this to assess the impact of disaster.

Uganda Could Become Regional Rice Exporter say Researchers

In a small garden at the Entebbe Botanical garden, about 40 kilometres from Kampala, a few yellowish plants are trying to adapt to their new environment.

AFRICA: ‘Welcome to My Taxi – Let’s Do Business with My Cellphone’

In cities across Africa, being an entrepreneur requires no office, business card or investors. All it takes is a cell phone, according to Adele Botha, a researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa.

Geothermal: Getting Energy from the Earth

The heat in the upper six miles of the earth's crust contains 50,000 times as much energy as found in all the world's oil and gas reserves combined. Despite this abundance, only 10,700 megawatts of geothermal electricity generating capacity have been harnessed worldwide.

SOUTH AFRICA: ‘Tea Bag’ Filter Provides Safe Drinking Water

Though it may look like a tea bag, straining water through this recently developed filter could provide a cheap, easily replenished source of water for those who need it most.

AFRICA: Outrage Over Claim that Anti-GM Campaign “Causes Hunger”

Civil society organisations have reacted with outrage to claims that the international campaign against genetically modified (GM) crops is partly responsible for food shortages and food insecurity in Africa.

Death of Smallpox Holds Clues to Stop Viral Killers

The stories of Dr. Ciro de Quadros' work in eradicating smallpox read like the stuff of global health legend.

HEALTH: S. Africa Becomes a Victim of its ARV Treatment Success

Almost a million South Africans are already on lifelong antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and this number is supposed to triple in the next decade if the South African government keeps to its implementation plan.

US: Govt Claims Slammed as “Final Kill” Looms for Gulf Oil Leak

Between April and August this year, 4.9 million barrels of oil were spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. How much remains today is not yet clear and is a hot topic of debate among academic and government scientists.

HEALTH-INDIA: Superbug Boosts Hopes of Rational Drug Use

Howls of protest from doctors and officials in India have followed the naming of the New Delhi Metallo-1 (NDM-1), a gene that can transform infectious bacteria into superbugs that are resistant to the most powerful antibiotics. But other experts hope that the furore on this issue may lead to a rethink on the widespread practice of using medicines indiscriminately.

RWANDA: Improving the Lives of Small-Scale Farmers

Joelle Nsamira Kajuga, a female agricultural researcher has a ready answer to describe which modified crop will produce a higher yield, which will be resistant to bacteria, and which will ensure food security and generate a higher turnover for poor small-scale farmers in different regions in Rwanda.