Seed Daily - Land Seed Water Food

November 23, 2014

From hurricanes to drought, LatAm's volatile climate
Palacaguina, Nicaragua (AFP) Nov 21, 2014
Sixteen years ago, Teodoro Acuna Zavala lost nearly everything when Hurricane Mitch ravaged his fields, pouring 10 days of torrential rains on Central America and killing more than 9,000 people. Today, the 64-year-old farmer has been forced to the brink again, this time by the drought gripping Nicaragua - the latest natural disaster to hit Latin America, where the weather is growing ever more volatile as the effects of climate change take hold. "I sold a calf to survive, so I could buy corn," s ... read more

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Seychelles poachers go nutty for erotic shaped seed Under cover of darkness in the steamy jungles of the Seychelles thieves creep out to harvest the sizeable and valuable nuts of the famous coco de mer palm, but their activities are threatening its long-term survival. ... more		Dutch cull ducks amid bird flu fears in poultry heartland The Dutch authorities on Saturday ordered the preventative cull of 8,000 ducks amid fears that a bird flu outbreak could spread to the country's poultry heartland. ... more		Cocoa crunch: The worldwide chocolate shortage The trending topic in the food industry is that the world faces a shortage in chocolate due to the wide gap between global demand and the limited supply of cocoa. ... more
				Second bird flu outbreak found on Dutch farm Dutch officials have detected a second case of bird flu on a southern Netherlands farm, officials said Thursday, but could not yet say whether the strain was of a highly contagious variety discovered earlier this week. ... more		'Aquatic osteoporosis' jellifying lakes A plague of "aquatic osteoporosis" is spreading throughout many North American soft-water lakes due to declining calcium levels in the water and hindering the survival of some organisms, says new re ... more

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

Great apes facing 'direct threat' from palm oil farming The destruction of rainforests in Southeast Asia and increasingly in Africa to make way for palm oil cultivation is a "direct threat" to the survival of great apes such as the orangutan, environmentalists warned Thursday. ... more		Crops play a major role in the annual CO2 cycle increase Each year, the planet balances its budget. The carbon dioxide absorbed by plants in the spring and summer as they convert solar energy into food is released back to the atmosphere in autumn and wint ... more		AALTO plans Zephyr stratospheric hub in northern Australia and seeks local payload partners Ancient guano drove Chincha coastal power UAH lands first DARPA award for biological sciences department		Nicaragua $50 bn canal construction to start in December Nicaragua said a Hong Kong-based company will start building a $50 billion waterway next month, despite opposition from farmers and environmentalists against the mega-project aimed at rivaling the Panama Canal. ... more
				Ageing Japan struggles to make immigrants feel at home The first word Mr En learned when he started work on a construction site in Japan after moving from China was "baka" - "idiot". ... more		World Bank proposes global epidemic fund in wake of Ebola World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim warned Tuesday that the Ebola outbreak in west Africa could trigger famine, and called for the creation of an international emergency fund for epidemics. ... more

Startup in the Land of the Rising Sun; A Japanese Solar Venture - by Bradley L. Bartz

Insect-resistant maize increases yields and decrease pesticide use Although maize was originally domesticated in Mexico, the country's average yield per hectare is 38% below the world's average. In fact, Mexico imports 30% of its maize from foreign sources to keep ... more		WHO braces for bird flu spread in European poultry, urges vigilance A new kind of bird flu hitting European poultry farms will surely continue to spread among birds, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, urging countries to be "vigilant". ... more		Sidekick autonomy software guides YFQ-42A test mission for CCA program Infleqtion lists shares on NYSE as neutral atom quantum firm Top Chinese gaming companies continue to challenge		Netherlands bans poultry transport after discovering bird flu Dutch officials on Sunday banned the transport of poultry in the Netherlands after the discovery of a highly infectious strain of bird flu which could jump to humans. ... more
Ocean primed for more El Nino The ocean is warming steadily and setting up the conditions for stronger El Nino weather events, a new study has shown. A team of US, Australian, and Canadian researchers sampled corals from a remot ... more		Plants have little wiggle room to survive drought Plants all over the world are more sensitive to drought than many experts realized, according to a new study by scientists at UCLA and China's Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden. The research w ... more		Australia's Rinehart invests Aus$500 million in China milk deal Mining magnate Gina Rinehart Saturday signed a deal to invest Aus$500 million (US$438 million) in an Australian dairy project to tap into the multi-billion dollar Chinese infant formula market. ... more		Insights into plant growth could curb need for fertilizers New insights into how plants regulate their absorption of an essential nutrient could help avoid pollution caused by excess use of fertiliser. The findings could lead to the development of crop vari ... more

	Anti-organic: Why do some farmers resist profitable change? Why do some chemical farmers resist a profitable conversion to organic methods? A new study in the Journal of Marketing suggests it may be because making that change feels like switching belief syst ... more		Stolen or farmed, Greek mountain herbs take off Christos Mousafidis, a police officer on the Greek-Albanian border, mainly deals with drug trafficking and illegal immigration. But this year he is grappling with a different kind of crime: herb smuggling. ... more

China Moves To Deepen Commercial Space Sector With Focus On In-Space Manufacturing

Superflare Observations Solve Long-Standing Iron Line Mystery in Stellar Physics

Magnetic Fields Drive Rotation Reversals Inside Massive Stars Before Collapse

Too many people, not enough water: Now and 2,700 years ago		BAM-FX offers agricultural solutions across seven states		Using wheat as an energy source for beef cattle		Synthetic fish measures wild ride through dams		Details on the November ENSO forecast: slip-slidin' away?
NMSU professor experiments growing plants in highly saline water		Understanding of global freshwater fish and fishing too shallow		Sediment supply drives floodplain evolution in Amazon Basin		Genetic toolkit finds new maximum for crop yields		Europe has 421 million fewer birds than 30 years ago: study

Philippine typhoon widow grateful for cruel consolation

Himalayan Viagra fuels caterpillar fungus gold rush

International donors pledge $3bn to save shrinking Aral Sea

Uzbekistan calls for help over disappearing Aral Sea

World losing 2,000 hectares of farm soil daily to salt damage

Salt-loving plants key to sustainable food production

Desert Streams: Deceptively Simple

No-till agriculture may not bring hoped-for boost in global crop yields

New Insights on Carbonic Acid in Water

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