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  Jakarta (AFP) Sept 25, 2018 Greenpeace activists Tuesday scaled storage tanks at an Indonesian palm oil refinery along with a popular rock band which played pro-environment songs, protesting against a commodity found in everything from soap to biscuits. The green group said 30 activists - including several foreigners - and Indonesian metal group Boomerang had been "occupying" the site on Sulawesi island to draw attention to widespread environmental destruction caused by clearing forest for palmoil plantations. They pain ... read more |
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Indonesia halts new palm oil plantation developmentJakarta (AFP) Sept 20, 2018 Indonesia's president has signed a moratorium on all new palm oil plantation development, an official said Thursday, in a move hailed by environmentalists. ... more 
South African villagers tap into trend for 'superfood' baobabMutale, South Africa (AFP) Sept 24, 2018 From before dawn, 54-year-old grandmother Annah Muvhali weaves between baobab trees that loom over her rural South African home, collecting fruit that enthusiasts worldwide hail as a "superfood". ... more  
3D electron microscopy uncovers the complex guts of desalination membranesUniversity Park PA (SPX) Sep 24, 2018 Careful sample preparation, electron tomography and quantitative analysis of 3D models provides unique insights into the inner structure of reverse osmosis membranes widely used for salt water desal ... more
EU palm oil ban sows bitter seeds for Southeast Asian farmersLangkat/Ijok, Indonesia (AFP) Sept 24, 2018 Indonesian palm oil farmer Kawal Surbakti says his livelihood is under attack, but the threat is not from insects or hungry orangutans eating his prized crop. ... more |
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Philippines commission to probe widening flood project scandal
Magnitude 7.4 quake strikes off Russian Far East, tsunami warning lifted Magnitude 7.4 quake strikes off Russian Far East, tsunami warning issued S.Sudan flooding displaces 100,000 in matter of weeks: UN Afghan deputy PM visits earthquake hit area Death toll from Indonesia flooding rises to 23 Death toll from Indonesia flash floods rises to 19 Deadly floods inundate Indonesia's Bali and Flores islands Surveillance camera captures tornado in eastern Australia Deadly floods inundate Indonesia's Bali and Flores |
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| Previous Issues | Sep 25 | Sep 24 | Sep 21 | Sep 20 | Sep 19 |
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Swiss NGO links pesticide to Indian farmer deathsGeneva (AFP) Sept 18, 2018 The Swiss NGO Public Eye called Tuesday for an export ban on the pesticide Polo, produced by agriculture giant Syngenta, implicating it in the death of 20 Indian farmers last year. ... more 
Insects, plants living in agricultural regions are surprisingly resilientWashington (UPI) Sep 18, 2018 Plants and pollinators that have survived the impacts of agriculture intensification are more likely to survive future environmental changes, new research suggests. ... more 
Philippine farmers risk death to save crops from killer typhoonBaggao, Philippines (AFP) Sept 17, 2018 As Typhoon Manghkut hurtled toward the Philippines, those in its firing line had a stark choice: stay or flee. Many chose to remain in order to protect their most precious possessions - their food and livestock. ... more 
Wild animals were routinely captured and traded in ancient MesoamericaWashington DC (SPX) Sep 18, 2018 New evidence from the Maya city of Copan, in Honduras, reveals that ancient Mesoamericans routinely captured and traded wild animals for symbolic and ritual purposes, according to a study published ... more 
Czech Republic to restrict use of glyphosate weedkillerPrague (AFP) Sept 17, 2018 The Czech Republic will limit the use of substances containing the controversial glyphosate weedkiller as of next year, the agriculture ministry said on Monday. ... more |
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 High-yield farming costs the environment less than previously thought 
Spanish farmers go nuts for almonds as global demand boomsSanta Cruz, Spain (AFP) Sept 16, 2018 Surging worldwide demand for almonds is pushing Spanish farmers to replace traditional wheat and sunflower fields with almond orchards, transforming the landscape in the south of the country. ... more  |
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Improving soil quality can slow global warmingBerkeley CA (SPX) Sep 14, 2018 Low-tech ways of improving soil quality on farms and rangelands worldwide could pull significant amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere and slow the pace of climate change, according to a new Unive ... more 
Farmers on the front lines of marine aquacultureSanta Barbara CA (SPX) Sep 13, 2018 Many of the world's future farmers will likely be farming oceans, as aquaculture - the cultivation of fish and other aquatic species - continues its expansion as the fastest growing food sector. New ... more  
Drought, conflict and migration in KenyaSalt Lake City UT (SPX) Sep 13, 2018 As droughts worsen across the globe, more people who earn their living through farming and owning livestock are forced to leave their homes. Many academics and policymakers predict that the rise in ... more  
Ancient farmers spared us from glaciers but profoundly changed Earth's climateMadison WI (SPX) Sep 07, 2018 Millenia ago, ancient farmers cleared land to plant wheat and maize, potatoes and squash. They flooded fields to grow rice. They began to raise livestock. And unknowingly, they may have been fundame ... more 
Water in small dust grains can explain large amounts of water on EarthAmsterdam, Netherlands (SPX) Sep 12, 2018 Water trapped in dust grains from which the Earth formed can explain the current large amount of water on Earth. This is suggested by scientists from the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom, ... more |
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 Paris (ESA) Sep 24, 2018 
As part of ESA's continuing commitment to realise cutting-edge satellite missions to advance scientific understanding of our planet and to show how new technologies can be used in space, three new ideas have been chosen to compete as the tenth Earth Explorer mission.
The decision follows the release of a call for ideas in September 2017. Out of the 21 proposals submitted, ESA's Advisory Co ... more |
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 Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 24, 2018 
Hurricane Harvey dumped more than 5 feet (1.5 meters) of water on southeast Texas in late August 2017, making it the wettest recorded hurricane in U.S. history. But after the storm passed, where did all that water go?
In a new, NASA-led study, scientists used Global Positioning System (GPS) data to answer that question and to track not just where Harvey's stormwater ended up on land, but a ... more |
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 Gloucester Point VA (SPX) Sep 24, 2018 
When Florence slogged ashore in North Carolina last week, coastal wetlands offered one of the best lines of defense against the hurricane's waves and surge.
A new study predicts such wetlands will survive rising seas to buffer the world's coastlines against future storms and provide their many other ecological and economic benefits, but only if humans preserve the room needed for the wetla ... more |
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 Brisbane, Australia (SPX) Sep 26, 2018 
Researchers from The University of Queensland (UQ) and the University of Munster (WWU) have purified and visualized the 'Cyclic Electron Flow' (CEF) supercomplex, a critical part of the photosynthetic machinery in all plants, in a discovery that could help guide the development of next-generation solar biotechnologies.
The findings, made in collaboration with an international team of scien ... more |
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 Oak Ridge TN (SPX) Sep 26, 2018 
A unique combination of imaging tools and atomic-level simulations has allowed a team led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory to solve a longstanding debate about the properties of a promising material that can harvest energy from light.
The researchers used multimodal imaging to "see" nanoscale interactions within a thin film of hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite, ... more |
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 Freiburg, Germany (SPX) Sep 06, 2018 
Wind power is an important pillar in Germany's energy policy turnaround: According to the German government, the resource should cover 65 percent of German electricity needs by 2030, along with solar, hydropower and biomass. In a recent study, Dr. Christopher Jung and Dr. Dirk Schindler from the University of Freiburg show that it will be possible to cover 40 percent of the current electricity c ... more |
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 Berlin (AFP) Sept 19, 2018 
The German authorities on Wednesday suspended an operation to evict protesters, holed up in forest treehouses to block the expansion of an open-pit coal mine, after the death of a journalist.
The man, "most likely a journalist" according to the police, died on Wednesday after falling from a bridge that connected two of the treehouses.
"We simply cannot continue as if nothing has happened ... more |
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 Hong Kong (AFP) Sept 24, 2018 
Hong Kong on Monday banned a political party which promotes independence, calling it a threat to national security, as Beijing clamps down on challenges to its sovereignty.
It was the first ban on a political party since the city was handed back to China by Britain 21 years ago. The foreign ministry in London expressed concern at the move.
Semi-autonomous Hong Kong enjoys freedoms unse ... more |
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 New Haven CT (SPX) Sep 24, 2018 
When you think of robotics, you likely think of something rigid, heavy, and built for a specific purpose. New "Robotic Skins" technology developed by Yale researchers flips that notion on its head, allowing users to animate the inanimate and turn everyday objects into robots.
Developed in the lab of Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials scien ... more |
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 Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 25, 2018 
A new NASA-led study helps answer decades-old questions about the role of smoke and human-caused air pollution on clouds and rainfall. Looking specifically at deep convective clouds - tall clouds like thunderclouds, formed by warm air rising - the study shows that smoky air makes it harder for these clouds to grow. Pollution, on the other hand, energizes their growth, but only if the pollution i ... more |
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 Calci, Italy (AFP) Sept 25, 2018  A vast forest fire has forced the evacuation of hundreds of people from their houses in Tuscany, with firefighters Tuesday battling to extinguish flames fanned by fierce winds.
Around 600 hectares in total have been consumed by the blaze, chief Pisan firefighter Ugo D'Anna told a local television station, adding that while it was now contained it would take some hours to put out.
The fir ... more |
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 New York (AFP) Sept 25, 2018  One sunny morning in New York, a dozen biologists and volunteers stand in knee-deep water, chucking net sacks of oyster shells down a human chain, before planting them in containers on the riverbed.
Why? To build an oyster reef.
The goal? To restore a billion oysters by 2035 to America's largest city - not as a delicacy for the dinner table but in an environmental bid to clean up its n ... more |
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 Ottawa (AFP) Sept 22, 2018 
More than 200,000 people in Canada's capital region of Ottawa were without power on Saturday and two people were critically injured after a powerful tornado ripped apart dozens of homes and threw cars into the air.
After visiting the hard-hit Dunrobin area, in the city's west, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson likened it to an aerial bombing, adding that Friday's tornado was among "the top two or thre ... more |
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 Brussels (AFP) Sept 24, 2018 
The EU on Monday gave Britain two months to recover 2.7 billion euros ($3.3 billion) in lost customs duties or risk referral to the EU's top court after London allegedly ignored a scam by Chinese importers.
The demand, part of a so-called infringement action launched by Brussels, threatens to further inflame tensions amid fraught Brexit negotiations just days after an EU summit in Austria en ... more |
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 Greenbelt MD (SPX) Sep 20, 2018 
Just over a month into its mission, Parker Solar Probe has returned first-light data from each of its four instrument suites. These early observations - while not yet examples of the key science observations Parker Solar Probe will take closer to the Sun - show that each of the instruments is working well. The instruments work in tandem to measure the Sun's electric and magnetic fields, particle ... more |
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 New Brunswick NJ (SPX) Sep 24, 2018 
A Rutgers-led team has discovered how plants harness microbes in soil to get nutrients, a process that could be exploited to boost crop growth, fight weeds and slash the use of polluting fertilizers and herbicides.
In a process the team has named the "rhizophagy cycle" (rhizophagy means root eating), bacteria and fungi cycle between a free-living phase in the soil and a plant-dependent pha ... more |
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