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Health must be taken into account in climate change mitigation strategies

Health must be taken into account in climate change mitigation strategies. It is not widely appreciated that there are many benefits to health that are likely to accrue from a low carbon economy, say experts in a special supplement published on bmj.com today.

20 Mar 2012

Warming climate may increase risk from Chagas disease

In the spring of 1835, Charles Darwin was bitten in Argentina by a "great wingless black bug," he wrote in his diary. "It is most disgusting to feel soft wingless insects, about an inch long, crawling over one's body," Darwin wrote, "before sucking they are quite thin, but afterwards round & bloated with blood."

16 Mar 2012

Serious climate change-related health problems will affect the world's population

Worldwide increases in the incidences of asthma, allergies, infectious and cardiovascular diseases will result from a variety of impacts of global climate change, including rising temperatures, worsening ozone levels in urban areas, the spread of desertification, and expansions of the ranges of communicable diseases as the planet heats up, the professional organization representing respiratory and airway physicians stated in a new position paper released today.

16 Mar 2012

FAO officials, country representatives meet in Vietnam to discuss food security, nutrition in Asia-Pacific region

Representatives of 40 member countries of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), as well as senior officials from the agency, on Monday opened the 31st FAO Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific in Hanoi, Vietnam, to "discuss in depth the issues of food security and rural poverty reduction," Xinhua/China Daily reports.

13 Mar 2012

Policy makers, scientists collaborate to create new science-policy research agenda

One only has to be reminded of the BSE crisis and the MMR vaccine scare to recognise the importance of having policy informed by the best available science. Now, a collaboration of over fifty academics and policy makers from around the world have come together to agree a new research agenda on the role of science in public policy.

12 Mar 2012

Salt resistant wheat developed using genomics

Matthew Gilliham, of the University of Adelaide, said the new variety of durum wheat would be made freely available to publicly funded breeding programs overseas. Field trials in Moree and at other sites across southern Australia have shown that the new variety has a grain yield in salty soil of up to 25 per cent higher than that of the standard variety.

12 Mar 2012

Incorporating gender policy in USAID programs is 'good business practice'

USAID Deputy Administrator Ambassador Donald Steinberg writes in the White House Council on Women and Girls blog, "I am proud to say that USAID" last week released "a new policy on gender quality and female empowerment, the Agency's first in 30 years," "achieving great strides and reaffirming our commitment to close the gender gap in international development."

7 Mar 2012

Project uses remote sensing to track and predict impact of climate change

Scientists from the University of Maryland and Beijing Normal University are partnering to track and predict the impact of climate change internationally.

29 Feb 2012

Clinton to testify about FY13 budget request

In this post on the Center for Global Development's (CGD) "Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Blog," Jenny Ottenhoff, policy outreach associate at CGD, previews issues that may be raised when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton testifies before four congressional committees this week about President Obama's FY 2013 budget request for the State Department and USAID.

29 Feb 2012

World Bank needs better leadership to achieve goals of reducing poverty

With the proper leadership, the World Bank "can play a key role" in fighting "poverty, resource depletion and climate change," therefore "the global stakes are ... very high this spring as the bank's 187 member countries choose a new president to succeed Robert Zoellick, whose term ends in July," Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and a special adviser to the U.N. secretary general on the Millennium Development Goals, writes in a Project Syndicate opinion piece.

28 Feb 2012

NTU's Complexity Programme aims to establish Singapore as Asian hub

Asia will receive a boost in the field of complexity science through a dedicated programme by Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

28 Feb 2012

Overall 'health' of 152 countries around the world

A growing world population, mixed with the threat of climate change and mounting financial problems, has prompted University of British Columbia researchers to measure the overall 'health' of 152 countries around the world.

21 Feb 2012

ESOF 2012 science program launches today at AAAS meeting in Vancouver

The science program for Euroscience Open Forum 2012 (ESOF 2012) was officially launched today at the AAAS meeting in Vancouver.

20 Feb 2012

Smoke forecasting tools can help protect individuals and public health professionals

Satellite images, air quality measurements and smoke forecasting models are useful tools to help individuals and public health professionals prepare for smoke episodes in areas at risk from forest fire smoke, according to University of British Columbia researcher Michael Brauer.

20 Feb 2012

Proposed Sustainable Development Goals need greater health focus

In this SciDev.Net opinion piece, journalist Priya Shetty writes that the Sustainable Development Goals -- a successor to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) proposed to begin in 2015 -- "need more focus on health to continue the progress achieved with MDGs."

18 Feb 2012

Increased bacterial loads in potable water may have significant health effects on indigenous people

Indigenous people around the world are among the most vulnerable to climate change and are increasingly susceptible to the pathogen loads found in potable water after heavy rainfall or rapid snow melt.

18 Feb 2012

ESF-COST launch Responses to Environmental and Societal Challenges for our Unstable Earth initiative

Resolving the world's major challenges whether climate change, environmental pollution, urbanisation, our ageing population or resource scarcity requires a sweeping shift in our approach to sustainability research and education, a group of leading scientists told European policy makers today during the launch of their report "Responses to Environmental and Societal Challenges for our Unstable Earth" (RESCUE).

17 Feb 2012

World Economic Forum releases list of 'Important Technologies'

The World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies has just released its list of "Important Technologies" that will change the world in the years ahead. The list highlights technology trends most likely to impact on the state of the world in the near future and was developed by a cross section of experts from science, businesses, and public policy.

15 Feb 2012

UBC community to take part in 2012 AAAS annual meeting

The University of British Columbia community has come out in full force to take part in the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the largest general scientific gathering in the world.