Many of the ~200 science news releases written and distributed for 30 clients in the 2010s warned of emerging problems; many celebrated breakthroughs. All included new insights and hopeful ways forward.
Biodiversity, the marine environment, and human health were dominant themes. Others included electronic waste, DNA, agriculture, freshwater, green energy, and The Anthropocene.
With thanks to many global collaborators who provided these stories, and to the journalists who covered them, the following releases were among the most noted this decade.
Agriculture
Africa can feed itself in a generation
2-Dec-2010
Africa can feed itself. And it can make the transition from hungry importer to self-sufficiency in a single generation.
The startling assertions, in stark contrast with entrenched, gloomy perceptions of the continent, highlight a collection of studies that present a clear prescription for transforming Sub-Saharan Africa’s agriculture and, by doing so, its economy. The strategy calls on governments to make African agricultural expansion central to decision making about everything from transportation and communication infrastructure to post-secondary education and innovation investment.
The approach is outlined in “The New Harvest, Agricultural Innovation in Africa,” by Harvard University professor Calestous Juma (right).
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Agriculture
Pioneering, self-contained ‘smart village’ offers world model for rural poverty relief
7-16-2012
An innovative, high-tech “smart village” built in Malaysia provides a potential global template for addressing rural poverty in a sustainable environment, say international experts.
Rimbunan Kaseh, a model community built north-east of Kuala Lumpur, consists of 100 affordable homes, high-tech educational, training and recreational facilities, and a creative, closed-loop agricultural system designed to provide both food and supplementary income for villagers. The “smart village,” located on 12 hectares in the Malaysian state of Pahang, includes a four-level aquaculture system whereby water cascades through a series of tanks to raise, first, fish sensitive to water quality, then tilapia (“the world’s answer to affordable protein"), then guppies and finally algae. The latter two products are used to feed the larger fish.
Filtered fish tank wastewater is then used to irrigate trees, grain fields and crops such as flowers and fresh produce, the plants grown individually in novel hydroponic devices. The “auto-pot” is a three-piece plastic container that automatically detects soil moisture levels and waters plants precisely as required, reducing needs for costly fertilizers and pesticides as well as water. Organic waste is composted to encourage worms and other organisms on which free-range chickens feed together with the home-grown grains. In addition to access to reliable food supplies, villagers augment their monthly income by an estimated $400 to $650.
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Agriculture
World loses trillions of dollars worth of nature’s benefits each year due to land degradation
9-15-2015
To better inform the tradeoffs involved in land use choices around the world, experts have assessed the value of ecosystem services provided by land resources such as food, poverty reduction, clean water, climate and disease regulation and nutrients cycling. Their report today estimates the value of ecosystem services worldwide forfeited due to land degradation at a staggering US $6.3 trillion to $10.6 trillion annually, or the equivalent of 10-17% of global GDP.
Furthermore, the problem threatens to force the migration of millions of people from affected areas. An estimated 50 million people may be forced to seek new homes and livelihoods within 10 years. That many migrants assembled would constitute the world’s 28th largest country by population.
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Anthropocene
State of the Planet: Scientists describe humanity’s global impact as ‘The Great Acceleration’ and offer ominous outlook: An uncertain future on a much hotter world
3-26-2012
Time is running out to minimize the risk of setting in motion irreversible and long-term climate change and other dramatic changes to Earth’s life support system, according to scientists speaking at the Planet Under Pressure conference. The unequivocal warning is delivered in London on the first day of the four-day conference, opened with the latest readings of Earth’s vital signs.
At the meeting, nearly 3,000 experts spanning the spectrum of interconnected scientific interests, will examine solutions, hurdles and ways to break down the barriers to progress. The conference is the largest gathering of experts in development and global environmental changes in advance of June’s UN “Rio+20” summit in Brazil.
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Anthropocene
Global forests expanding: Reflects wellbeing, not rising CO2, experts say
5-14-2018
Study finds virtually no correlation between higher levels of atmospheric CO2 and nations’ forest expansion/decline; difference mirrors the UN Human Development Index
The surprising, steady expansion of forests in many countries is a reflection of national well being and does not constitute a benefit of rapidly rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, experts say. On the planet as a whole, forests and other terrestrial ecosystems have become greener, which several global climate change models attribute to CO2 fertilization, says the study, published by PLOS ONE.
In fact, however, since the 1800s transitions from net forest loss to gain have coincided with a switch within nations from subsistence to market oriented agriculture. Today the growth or decline of a nation’s forest resources correlates strongly to the UN Development Programme’s Human Development Index.
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Anthropocene
Catalog of 208 human-caused minerals bolsters argument to declare ‘Anthropocene Epoch’
Humans: The greatest contributor to diversity of minerals since oxygen; Officially recognized minerals, formed by nature: More than 5,000; Formed due to human activity: 208
Human industry and ingenuity has done more to diversify and distribute minerals on Earth than any development since the rise of oxygen over 2.2 billion years ago, experts say. The work bolsters the scientific argument to officially designate a new geological time interval distinguished by the pervasive impact of human activities: the Anthropocene Epoch.
In the paper, published by American Mineralogist, a team led by Robert Hazen of the Carnegie Institution for Science identifies for the first time a group of 208 mineral species that originated either principally or exclusively due to human activities. That’s almost 4% of the roughly 5,200 minerals officially recognized by the International Mineralogical Association (IMA). Most of the recognized minerals attributed to human activities originated through mining — in ore dumps, through the weathering of slag, formed in tunnel walls, mine water or timbers, or through mine fires.
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Biodiversity
Nature’s dangerous decline ‘unprecedented,’ species extinction rates ‘accelerating’
5-6-2019
Current global response insufficient; ‘transformative changes’ needed to restore and protect nature; opposition from vested interests can be overcome for public good; most comprehensive assessment of its kind
1 million species threatened with extinction
Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history — and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely, warns a landmark new report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the summary of which was approved at the 7th session of the IPBES Plenary (29 April – 4 May, Paris).
“The overwhelming evidence of the IPBES Global Assessment, from a wide range of different fields of knowledge, presents an ominous picture,” said IPBES Chair, Sir Robert Watson. “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide. The Report also tells us that it is not too late to make a difference, but only if we start now at every level from local to global,” he said. “Through ‘transformative change’, nature can still be conserved, restored and used sustainably – this is also key to meeting most other global goals.”
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Biodiversity
5-26-2017
Ontario town’s 10-year, $2.7 million effort to save endangered turtles offers global lessons, template
89% fewer turtles venture onto Lake Erie’s Long Point Causeway
A newly completed project in a remote corner of southwestern Ontario is being hailed as a landmark achievement in the protection of at-risk species and a model for other communities around the world seeking to reduce the number of animals killed on roads that run through fragile ecosystems.
For decades, the causeway linking Lake Erie’s Long Point peninsula with mainland Ontario was among the deadliest for threatened and endangered reptiles. Researchers estimate that, since 1979, as many as 10,000 animals per year — representing more than 100 species of reptiles, amphibians, mammals and birds — were killed by traffic on this 3.6 km stretch of two-lane road. The causeway separates Long Point Bay and the marshy wetlands of Big Creek National Wildlife Area, all part of a large UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. The Long Point Causeway Improvement Project has changed all that, dramatically reducing the incidence of fatal interactions between vehicles and wildlife by installing special fencing and culverts, and through public awareness campaigns and signage.
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Biodiversity
Pollinators vital to our food supply under threat
2-26-2016
Assessment details options for safeguarding pollinators
A growing number of pollinator species worldwide are being driven toward extinction by diverse pressures, many of them human-made, threatening millions of livelihoods and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of food supplies, according to the first global assessment of pollinators.
However, the two-year assessment, the first ever conducted and released by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), also highlights a number of ways to effectively safeguard pollinator populations. The assessment is a groundbreaking effort to better understand and manage a critical element of the global ecosystem. It is also the first assessment of its kind based on the available knowledge from science and indigenous and local knowledge systems.
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Full news release here; coverage summary here
Biodiversity
2-17-2011
(the origin of IPBES)
Put government policy options through a science test first, leading biodiversity experts urge
How should a new ‘IPCC for biodiversity’ work? Leading world scientists offer prescription
In the journal Science, leading scientists say the new “IPCC for biodiversity” should offer practical scientific assessments of actual policy options confronting decision makers.
“Hypothetical scenarios bear no relationship to the real options confronting policy makers now,” argues Charles Perrings, Professor of Environmental Economics at Arizona State University, co-author of the paper with Prof. Hal Mooney of Stanford University, Anne Larigauderie, Executive Director of Paris-based DIVERSITAS, and Anantha Duraiappah, Executive Director of the International Human Dimensions Program on Global Environmental Change, based at the United Nations University’s offices in Bonn. In their article, the scientists also urge that IPBES assessments pay “at least as much attention” to social sciences as to natural sciences – estimating, for example, the value of ecosystem services in economic terms to help societies make better-informed development choices.
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Biodiversity
Life in deep Earth totals 15 to 23 billion tonnes of carbon — hundreds of times more than humans
12-10-2018
Deep Carbon Observatory collaborators, exploring the ‘Galapagos of the deep,’ add to what’s known, unknown, and unknowable about Earth’s most pristine ecosystem
Barely living “zombie” bacteria and other forms of life constitute an immense amount of carbon deep within Earth’s subsurface – 245 to 385 times greater than the carbon mass of all humans on the surface, according to scientists nearing the end of a 10-year international collaboration to reveal Earth’s innermost secrets.
On the eve of the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting, scientists with the Deep Carbon Observatory reported several transformational discoveries, including how much and what kinds of life exist in the deep subsurface under the greatest extremes of pressure, temperature, and low nutrient availability. Drilling 2.5 kilometers into the seafloor, and sampling microbes from continental mines and boreholes more than 5 km deep, scientists have used the results to construct models of the ecosystem deep within the planet. With insights from now hundreds of sites under the continents and seas, they have approximated the size of the deep biosphere – 2 to 2.3 billion cubic km (almost twice the volume of all oceans) – as well as the carbon mass of deep life: 15 to 23 billion tonnes (an average of at least 7.5 tonnes of carbon per cu km subsurface).
The work also helps determine types of extraterrestrial environments that could support life.
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Biodiversity
Redesigned and vastly expanded, Encyclopedia of Life Version 2 offers information on one third of known species
9-5-2011
Landmark global online collaboration now offers trusted information on 700,000+ species, 35 million+ pages of scanned literature, 600,000+ photos and videos
The second edition of the free, online collaborative Encyclopedia of Life debuts with a redesign and new features making it easier to use, to personalize, and to interact with fellow enthusiasts worldwide. It is also vastly expanded, offering information on more than one-third of all known species on Earth.
The new interface makes it easy for users to find organisms of interest; to create personal collections of photos and information; to find or upload pictures, videos and sounds; and to share comments, questions and expertise with users worldwide who share similar interests. EOLv2 offers more than 20 times as many pages with content than the EOL.org launched 30 months ago — up from the original 30,000 pages in February 2008 to 700,000 today. The global partnership of 176 content providers behind EOL.org is progressing towards an aspiration of 1.9 million pages — one for every species known to science.
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Full news release here
Biodiversity
How many species on Earth? 8.7 million
Aug-23-2011
Eight million, seven hundred thousand species (give or take 1.3 million). That is a new, estimated total number of species on Earth — the most precise calculation ever offered — with 6.5 million species found on land and 2.2 million (about 25 percent of the total) dwelling in the ocean depths.
Announced by Census of Marine Life scientists, the figure is based on an innovative, validated analytical technique that dramatically narrows the range of previous estimates. Until now, the number of species on Earth was said to fall somewhere between 3 million and 100 million. Furthermore, the study, published today by PLoS Biology, says a staggering 86% of all species on land and 91% of those in the seas have yet to be discovered, described and catalogued.
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DNA
Quack medicines, insect immigrants, and what eats what among secrets revealed by DNA barcodes
11-27-2011
The newfound scientific power to quickly “fingerprint” species via DNA is being deployed to unmask quack herbal medicines, reveal types of ancient Arctic life frozen in permafrost, expose what eats what in nature, and halt agricultural and forestry pests at borders, among other applications across a wide array of public interests.
The explosion of creative new uses of DNA “barcoding” — identifying species based on a snippet of DNA — will occupy centre stage as 450 world experts convene at Australia’s University of Adelaide. DNA barcode technology has already sparked US Congressional hearings by exposing widespread “fish fraud” — mislabelling cheap fish as more desirable and expensive species like tuna or snapper. Other studies this year revealed unlisted ingredients in herbal tea bags.
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DNA
Scientists track fish migration using DNA in water samples
4-12-2017
Naked DNA in water tells if fish have arrived; Scientists demonstrate harmless, economical new way to log fish migration; Environmental DNA researchers foresee a revolution in how we assess the movement, diversity, distribution and abundance of fish
For the first time, scientists have recorded a spring fish migration simply by conducting DNA tests on water samples.
“Environmental DNA” (eDNA), strained from one-liter (quart) samples drawn weekly from New York’s East and Hudson Rivers over six months last year, revealed the presence or absence of several key fish species passing through the water on each test day. The convenient weekly data snapshots created a moving picture that largely reinforced and correlated with knowledge hard won from migration studies conducted over many years with fishnet trawls.
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DNA
Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA: Experts unite to shine modern light on a Renaissance genius
5-5-2016
The Leonardo Project: Illuminating the art, life, characteristics, talents, and brilliance of one of humanity’s most extraordinary figures
A team of eminent specialists from a variety of academic disciplines has coalesced around a goal of creating new insight into the life and genius of Leonardo da Vinci by means of authoritative new research and modern detective technologies, including DNA science.
The Leonardo Project is in pursuit of several possible physical connections to Leonardo, beaming radar, for example, at an ancient Italian church floor to help corroborate extensive research to pinpoint the likely location of the tomb of his father and other relatives. A collaborating scholar also recently announced the successful tracing of several likely DNA relatives of Leonardo living today in Italy. If granted the necessary approvals, the Project will compare DNA from Leonardo’s relatives past and present with physical remnants — hair, bones, fingerprints and skin cells — associated with the Renaissance figure whose life marked the rebirth of Western civilization.
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e-waste
World’s first e-waste map reveals national volumes, international flows
12-15-2013
Annual world volume of end-of-life electronics expected to jump one-third to 65.4 million tonnes by 2017; New report details US generation and destinations of shipments of used electronics leaving households; methodology offers world guide
By 2017, all of the year’s end-of-life refrigerators, TVs, mobile phones, computers, monitors, e-toys and other products with a battery or electrical cord worldwide could fill a line of 40-ton trucks end-to-end on a highway straddling three quarters of the Equator.
That forecast, based on data compiled by “Solving the E-Waste Problem (StEP) Initiative” — a partnership of UN organizations, industry, governments, non-government and science organizations— represents a global jump of 33% in just five years.
While most of these used e-products are destined for disposal, gradually improving efforts in some regions are diverting some of it to recycling and reuse. The escalating global e-waste problem is graphically portrayed in a first-of-its-kind StEP E-Waste World Map, available online.
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Geology
Scientists quantify global volcanic CO2 venting; estimate total carbon on Earth
10-1-2019
Scientists update estimates of Earth’s immense interior carbon reservoirs, and how much carbon Deep Earth naturally swallows and exhales; 10-year Deep Earth study advances knowledge, delineates limits; Do volcanoes send up chemical warnings days before they erupt? Carbon catastrophes: Earth has seen a few of them before; they don’t end well for life
Volcanoes, colliding and spreading continental and oceanic plates, and other phenomena re-studied with innovative high-tech tools, provide important fresh insights to Earth’s innermost workings, scientists say.
Preparing to summarize and celebrate the 10-year Deep Carbon Observatory program at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, DCO’s 500-member Reservoirs and Fluxes team today outlined several key findings that span time from the present to billions of years past; from Earth’s core to its atmosphere, and in size from single volcanoes to the five continents.
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Geology
Rewriting the textbook on fossil fuels: New technologies help unravel nature’s methane recipes
April-22-2019
Not all methane originated in buried, decayed remains of ancient life; some deep hydrocarbons aren’t conventional ‘fossil fuels’ as popularly defined; Abiotic methane: catalyst and nourishment for the earliest life on this planet — and others?
Experts say scientific understanding of deep hydrocarbons has been transformed, with new insights gained into the sources of energy that could have catalyzed and nurtured Earth’s earliest forms of life.
During the past hundred years scientists worked out in detail how hydrocarbons – “fossil fuels” drawn from reservoirs in Earth’s crust to heat and power homes, vehicles, and industry – have a biotic origin, derived from the buried plants, animals, and algae of eons past. But for some hydrocarbons, especially methane – the colorless, odorless main ingredient in natural gas – nature has many recipes, some of which are “abiotic” – derived not from the decay of prehistoric life, but created inorganically by geological and chemical processes deep within the Earth.
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Green energy
Sales of green energy to help halt decay of Philippines’ legendary rice terraces
1-21-2010
2,000-year-old ‘stairway to heaven,’ a threatened World Heritage Site, to benefit from proceeds of donated, $1 million mini-hydro project
Philippines officials today received the symbolic keys to a donated 200 kW hydro-electric project that, in addition to green energy, will start generating money to halt deterioration of the country’s fabled ancient rice terraces.The massive, spectacular and iconic Asian rice terraces were created on mountainsides largely by hand by indigenous people of the northern Ifugao province at least two millennia ago. Fed by tropical forest springs above, they are popularly referred to as “the stairways to Heaven,” and the “Eighth Wonder of the World.”
Eighty generations later, the terraces’ condition prompted UNESCO in 2001 to include them on its list of World Heritage Sites in Danger. The $1 million mini-hydro facility, located discretely in the Ambangal river downstream of the postcard terraces, will create annually about 1,450 megawatts hour (MWh) of much-needed new energy for the area, meeting 18% of the province’s electricity needs, and generating some US $70,000 in annual revenue for the new Rice Terrace Conservation Fund, fully dedicated to urgently needed shoring up of the terraces and related activities.
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Green energy
Renewable energy investments: Major milestones reached, new world record set
3-24-2016
For first time, developing world investments in renewables (up 19% in 2015) topped developed nations’ (down 8%); World record total of $286 billion invested in renewables last year, makes $2.3 trillion over 12 years
Coal and gas-fired electricity generation last year drew less than half the record investment made in solar, wind and other renewables capacity — one of several important firsts for green energy announced in a UN-backed report.
Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2016, the 10th edition of UNEP’s annual report, launched today by the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), says the annual global investment in new renewables capacity, at $266 billion, was more than double the estimated $130 billion invested in coal and gas power stations in 2015. All investments in renewables, including early-stage technology and R&D as well as spending on new capacity, totalled $286 billion in 2015, some 3% higher than the previous record in 2011. Since 2004, the world has invested $2.3 trillion in renewable energy (unadjusted for inflation).
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Health
‘Friendship Bench’: a blueprint for tackling developing world’s mental health crisis
12-27-2016
In Zimbabwe, Friendship Bench therapy reduces prevalence of depression to less than 14 percent, compared to 50 percent in control group; First at-scale model of community mental health care in Africa has diagnosed and treated over 27,500 people for common mental health disorders
Their offices are simple wooden seats, called Friendship Benches, located in the grounds of health clinics around Harare and other major cities in Zimbabwe. The practitioners are lay health workers known as community “Grandmothers,” trained to listen to and support patients living with anxiety, depression and other common mental disorders.
But the impact, measured in a ground-breaking study, shows that this innovative approach holds the potential to significantly improve the lives of millions of people with moderate and severe mental health problems in countries where access to treatment is limited or nonexistent. Six months after undergoing six weekly “problem solving therapy” sessions on the Friendship Benches, participants showed significant differences in severity of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts based on locally-validated questionnaires
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Health
Greater access to cell phones than toilets in India: UN
4-14-2010
Far more people in India have access to a cell phone than to a toilet and improved sanitation, according to UN experts who published today a 9-point prescription for achieving the world’s Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for sanitation by 2015.
They also urge the world community to set a new target beyond the MDG (which calls for a 50 percent improvement in access to adequate sanitation by 2015) to the achievement of 100 percent coverage by 2025
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Health
China a rising star in regenerative medicine despite world skepticism of stem cell therapies
1-8-2010
Chinese researchers have become the world’s fifth most prolific contributors to peer-reviewed scientific literature on clock-reversing regenerative medicine even as a skeptical international research community condemns the practice of Chinese clinics administering unproven stem cell therapies to domestic and foreign patients.
According to a study by the Canadian-based McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health (MRC), published today by the UK journal Regenerative Medicine, China’s government is pouring dollars generously into regenerative medicine (RM) research and aggressively recruiting high-calibre scientists trained abroad in pursuit of its ambition to become a world leader in the field.
And its strategy is working: Chinese contributions to scientific journals on RM topics leapt from 37 in year 2000 to 1,116 in 2008, exceeded only by the contributions of experts in the USA, Germany, Japan and the UK. The accomplishment is all the more astonishing given that China’s international credibility has been and still is severely hindered by global concerns surrounding Chinese clinics, where unproven therapies continue to be administered to thousands of patients.
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Health
Micronutrient supplements during pregnancy linked to smarter kids
Jan-16-2017
Maternal micronutrients, nurturing environment boost child development
Mothers who take multi-micronutrient supplements during pregnancy can add the equivalent of up to one full year of schooling to a child’s cognitive abilities at age 9-12, says a new study.
Other essential ingredients in the recipe for smarter kids include early life nurturing, happy moms, and educated parents, according to the research conducted in Indonesia. As well, the study finds that a child’s nurturing environment is more strongly correlated than biological factors to brain development and general intellectual ability, declarative memory, procedural memory, executive function, academic achievement, fine motor dexterity, and socio-emotional health.
Funded by the Government of Canada through Grand Challenges Canada’s Saving Brains program, the study appears in the prestigious journal, Lancet Global Health.
Health
Kangaroo mother care helps premature babies thrive 20 years later — study
Dec-12-2016
Study funded by Saving Brains shows Kangaroo Mother Care kids 20 years later are better behaved, have larger brains, higher paycheques, more protective and nurturing families
Two decades after a group of Colombian parents were shown how to keep their perilously tiny babies warm and nourished through breastfeeding and continuous skin-to-skin contact, a new groundbreaking study finds that as young adults their children continue to benefit from having undergone the technique known as Kangaroo Mother Care.
In young adulthood, they are less prone to aggressive, impulsive and hyperactive behaviour compared to a control group of premature and low birth weight contemporaries who received “traditional” inpatient incubator care. They are more likely to have survived into their 20s. Their families are more cohesive. They have bigger brains. Supported by the Government of Canada through Grand Challenges Canada’s “Saving Brains” program, as well as Colombia’s Administrative Department of Science, Technology and Innovation, the study is published in the journal Pediatrics.
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Health
Inspired: Canada funds 68 bold, inventive ways to improve health, save lives in developing countries
Nov-22-2012
Some 51 innovators in 18 low and middle income countries and 17 in Canada will share $7 million in Canadian grants to pursue bold, creative ideas for tackling health problems in resource-poor parts of the world.
Specially designed packages of anti-diarrhea kits for kids will hitch a ride on Coca-Cola’s distribution network, initially in Zambia
Among the Canadian-based projects: researchers will mimic rocket technology to propel coagulant nanoparticles into the bloodstream and stop maternal bleeding, a major cause of death in the developing world; test a high-tech Burn Survival Kit that includes a low-cost silver nanotubule dressing making treatment affordable; and develop an HIV infection detector that works in fewer than 5 minutes.
Out-of-the-box projects based overseas include a new trading system in Kenya: seeds and fertilizers for proof of child vaccinations; a $100 kitchen reno to reduce indoor pollution and problem pregnancies in Bangladesh; cultivating disease-fighting prawns in Senegal; creating wealth from human waste in cholera-troubled Haiti; and anti-diarrhea kits for infants hitching a ride on Coca-Cola’s distribution chain to get essential medicine to “the ends of the Earth.”
Grand Challenges Canada, funded by the Government of Canada, announced the 68 $100,000 grants under its Stars in Global Health program, which fosters affordable, breakthrough ideas to improve health in developing countries. Successful projects may apply for $1 million scale-up grants.
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Health
Student, 16, progresses experimental way to kill cancer with gold nano ‘bullets,’ marvels experts
9-Apr-2013
Raising scientists: Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge Canada celebrates 20 years of inspiring biotechnology studies and careers
Cutting edge research into an experimental therapy that deploys nano-particles of gold in the fight against cancer earned an Alberta high school student, 16, top national honours today in the 2013 “Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge Canada."
India-born Arjun Nair, 16 (in photo: top left), a Grade 11 student at Webber Academy, Calgary, was awarded the top prize of $5,000 by a panel of eminent Canadian scientists assembled at the Ottawa headquarters of the National Research Council of Canada. His research project, mentored at the University of Calgary, advances an experimental cancer “photothermal therapy” which involves injecting a patient with gold nanoparticles. The particles accumulate in tumours, forming so-called “nano-bullets” that can be heated to kill cancer cells.
Arjun showed how an antibiotic may overcome the cancer’s defences and make the promising treatment more effective. Arjun’s research, which a panel of expert judges led by Luis Barreto, MD, called “world class Masters or PhD-level quality,” also won a special $1,000 prize awarded to the project with the greatest commercial potential.
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Health
4-Dec-2016
Torture: Rehabilitation experts from 80 nations meet in Mexico City
Torture thrives in the 21st Century. Amnesty International has documented cases over the past five years in more than 140 countries — three-quarters of all nations — leaving victims to deal with a range of long-term consequences.
Torture victims have the right to rehabilitation under the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Only a small percentage of victims, however, have access to services says the IRCT, an umbrella organization with more than 150 member institutions worldwide.
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Marine science
First census shows life in Planet Ocean is richer, more connected, more altered than expected
5-Oct-2010
Culminating a 10-year exploration, 2,700 scientists from 80 nations report first Census of Marine Life, revealing what, where, and how much lives and hides in global oceans
To measure changes caused by climate or oil spills, Census establishes a baseline
New species discovered, marine highways and rest stops mapped, diminished abundance documented
Online Census directory allows anyone to map global addresses of species
After a decade of joint work and scientific adventure, marine explorers from more than 80 countries delivered a historic first global Census of Marine Life.
In one of the largest scientific collaborations ever conducted, more than 2,700 Census scientists spent over 9,000 days at sea on more than 540 expeditions, plus countless days in labs and archives. Released today are maps, three landmark books, and a highlights summary that crown a decade of discovery.
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Marine science
Prodigal plankton species makes first known migration from Pacific to Atlantic via Pole
26-Jun-2011
Microscopic plant disappeared from North Atlantic 800,000 years ago; unwanted return of several climate change symptoms already apparent throughout European oceans
Some 800,000 years ago – about the time early human tribes were learning to make fire – a tiny species of plankton called Neodenticula seminae went extinct in the North Atlantic. Today, that microscopic plant has become an Atlantic resident again, having drifted from the Pacific through the Arctic Ocean thanks to dramatically reduced polar ice, scientists report.
The melting Arctic has opened a Northwest Passage across the Pole for the tiny algae. And while it’s a food source, it isn’t being welcomed back by experts, who say any changes at the base of the marine food web could, like an earthquake, shake or even topple the pillars of existing Atlantic ocean life. The discovery represents “the first evidence of a trans-Arctic migration in modern times” related to plankton
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Marine science
Plastics visible in 2-metre sea ice cores in the Northwest Passage
8-14-2019
Tiny pieces of plastic have been found in ice cores drilled in the Arctic by a U.S.-led team of scientists, underscoring the threat the growing form of pollution now poses to marine life in even the remotest waters on the planet.
Researchers led by Alessandra D’Angelo and Jacob Strock, University of Rhode Island, processed five of 18 sea ice core samples drawn from four locations in Lancaster Sound (73 to 74 degrees N, between 89 and 98 degrees W) in the vicinity of the hamlet of Resolute, one of Canada’s northernmost communities (pop. 200). D’Angelo and Strock were were part of a scientific team on board the Swedish Icebreaker Oden during the Northwest Passage Project, funded by the US National Science Foundation and the Heising-Simons Foundation.
While plastic has been documented in Arctic waters previously, “to our knowledge this is the first core sampling for plastic in the Northwest Passage,” says URI colleague Brice Loose, Chief Scientist of the NPP. “Even knowing what we knew about … the ubiquity of plastic, for us it was kind of a punch to the stomach to see what looked like a normal ice core in such a pristine environment just chock full of this material completely foreign to the environment.”
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Marine science
Over 1,000 new ocean fish species identified in past eight years, including 122 sharks, rays
3-12-2015
World registry, nearing completion, confirms 228,450 known marine species; consolidation relegates 190,400 other “species” as duplicate identities; Champion of taxonomic redundancy: “Rough Periwinkle” sea snail had 113 scientific names
Over 1,000 new-to-science marine fish species have been described since 2008 – an average of more than 10 per month – according to scientists completing a consolidated inventory of all known ocean life. Among fish species newly-described worldwide are 122 new sharks and rays, 131 new members of the goby family, and a new barracuda found in the Mediterranean.
All are contained in the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), a landmark international effort to unite all existing knowledge of sea life. In the past eight years, the effort has identified as redundant aliases almost half the names assigned over two and a half centuries to ocean dwelling creatures.
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Marine science
Keeping whales safe in sound: Marine species and seismic surveys
1-20-2014
Unique collaboration between oil/ gas industry, scientists, conservationists proves way to minimize seismic survey impacts on rare whales, other species
A step-by-step guide to reducing impacts on whales and other marine species during seismic sea floor surveys has been developed by experts with IUCN’s Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel (WGWAP) and Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd.
In a study published in the journal Aquatic Mammals the authors present the most thorough, robust and practical approach to minimizing and monitoring the risk of harm to vulnerable marine species when intense sounds are used to survey the sea floor primarily in the search for oil and gas.
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Water
UN warns of rising levels of toxic brine as desalination plants meet growing water needs
1-14-2019
World’s ~16,000 desalination plants discharge 142 million cubic meters of brine daily — 50 percent more than previously estimated
The fast-rising number of desalination plants worldwide — now almost 16,000, with capacity concentrated in the Middle East and North Africa — quench a growing thirst for freshwater but create a salty dilemma as well: how to deal with all the chemical-laden leftover brine.
In a UN-backed paper, experts estimate the freshwater output capacity of desalination plants at 95 million cubic meters per day — equal to almost half the average flow over Niagara Falls.
For every litre of freshwater output, however, desalination plants produce on average 1.5 litres of brine (though values vary dramatically, depending on the feedwater salinity and desalination technology used, and local conditions). Globally, plants now discharge 142 million cubic meters of hypersaline brine every day (a 50% increase on previous assessments). That's enough in a year to cover Florida under a foot (30.5 cm) of brine
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Water
Former national leaders: Water a global security issue
10-Sep-2012
World confronts serious water crisis, former heads of government and experts warn in new report; India and China may exceed supplies in less than 20 years
The world today confronts a water crisis with critical implications for peace, political stability and economic development, experts warn in a new report being launched jointly by the InterAction Council (IAC), a group of 40 prominent former government leaders and heads of state, together with the United Nations University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health, and Canada’s Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation.
“The future political impact of water scarcity may be devastating,” says former Canadian Prime Minister and IAC co-chair Jean Chrétien. “Using water the way we have in the past simply will not sustain humanity in future. The IAC is calling on the United Nations Security Council to recognize water as one of the top security concerns facing the global community.”
“Starting to manage water resources more effectively and efficiently now will enable humanity to better respond to today’s problems and to the surprises and troubles we can expect in a warming world.”
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Water
‘Amazon of the North’: Major world interests at stake in Canada’s vast Mackenzie River Basin
9-3-2012
Watershed covers roughly 20 percent of Canada, including oil sands; The Mackenzie may discharge more water into the Arctic than the St. Lawrence into the Atlantic
The governance of Canada’s massive Mackenzie River Basin holds enormous national but also global importance due to the watershed’s impact on the Arctic Ocean, international migratory birds and climate stability, say experts convening a special forum on the topic.
“Relevant parties in western Canada have recognized the need for a multi-party transboundary agreement that will govern land and water management in the Mackenzie River watershed. Successful collaboration will effectively determine the management regime for a watershed covering 1.8 million square kilometers or about 20 percent of Canada – an area roughly three times the size of France – and include the country’s vast oil sands,” says University of California Prof. Henry Vaux.
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