exploring the world of agriculture, arts, business, education, fashion, fitness, health, lifestyle, travel, wildlife & etc.
With the recent wild fires in Russia disrupting flights and increasing air pollution in Moscow, environmental quality is a growing factor in attracting tourists. Crisis events like fires and volcanoes, as well as general air pollution can put off visitors, as they become increasingly interested in the eco-credentials of their host nations. After all, who [...]
The United Nations declared 2010 The Year Of Conservation. Yet this year the Earth’s natural environment has copped a hammering on an unprecedented scale through a series of natural and human-made environmental disasters. Destruction reeked from natural disasters and human-made pollution this year alone has highlighted (if nothing else) one salient fact: For all the [...]
Vitamin D found to exert an influence over genes associated with certain diseases more common in the northern hemisphere Insufficient exposure to sunshine, resulting in low levels of vitamin D, could play a part in a wide-range of diseases, from multiple sclerosis to rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, some cancers and even dementia, scientists say [...]
There was a time when Becky Thurmond Fowler neglected to take her birth control pills for days on end. But she didn’t worry, because she and her husband, Dan, wanted to have a child at some point. “It wouldn’t have been the end of the world if I got pregnant,” she said. That attitude changed [...]
Plant growth that had been spurred by global warming has reversed, despite temperatures that continue to rise. Researchers say the change could affect food security and development of biofuels. The amount of carbon taken up by growing plants increased from 1982 through 1999 as temperatures rose and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere [...]
Scientists at the University of York have discovered a gene in plants which could help to increase future crop yields. Researchers in the university’s Centre for Novel Agricultural Products (CNAP) identified a feature of a plant’s temperature sensing and growth mechanism, which plays a significant role in the plant’s growth rate. The study, published in [...]
Mammoth tusks, intricately carved to depict anything from devotional Buddhist scenes and teeming wildlife to bizarre erotic fantasies, now make up most of the ivory for sale in the city. The international trade in elephant ivory, with rare exceptions, has been outlawed since 1989 after populations of the African giants dropped from the millions in [...]