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  Adzope, Ivory Coast (AFP) Sept 26, 2018 In Ivory Coast, cocoa once guaranteed farmers a sweet life. Then the world's number one producer was whacked, as oversupply and falling demand from health-conscious consumers hit prices. But some producers proudly say they are not only weathering the cocoa storm but even flourishing. The thanks, they say, are due to fair-trade deals that demand higher environmental and social standards from producers in exchange for training and a tempting financial bonus. "Fair trade changed my life," e ... read more |
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Satellites safeguard Europe's potato industryParis (ESA) Sep 26, 2018 The drought that swept through Europe this year has hit European farmers hard. Sustained high temperatures and the lack of rain have badly affected the agrofood industry, including the important pot ... more 
Soil holds the secret to mitigating climate changeEast Lansing MI (SPX) Oct 01, 2018 Food production doesn't have to be a victim of climate change. New research from Michigan State University suggests that crop yields and the global food supply chain can be preserved by harnessing t ... more 
Sunflower pollen protects bees from disease, study findsWashington (UPI) Sep 26, 2018 Great access to sunflowers and their pollen could help keep vulnerable bee populations pathogen-free. ... more 
Soil health on the menu with retrieved coffee beansWashington DC (SPX) Oct 01, 2018 Coffee is one of Brazil's biggest crops. Brazil's favorable climate helps coffee beans ripen and be ready for picking during a concentrated period of weeks. This makes mechanical harvesting an econo ... more |
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Philippines digs out from Typhoon Fung-wong as death toll climbs
Philippines digs out from Typhoon Fung-wong as death toll climbs to 18 Three Vietnam men survive 40 hours at sea after typhoon Typhoon Fung-wong floods Philippine towns, leaves 5 dead in its wake Typhoon Fung-wong leaves flooded Philippine towns in its wake Typhoon exposes centuries-old shipwreck off Vietnam port Weakening Typhoon Fung-wong exits Philippines after displacing 1.4 million Super Typhoon Fung-wong makes landfall in Philippines Over 1 million evacuate as deadly Super Typhoon Fung-wong nears Philippines Dam reservoir levels drop below 3% in Iran's second city: media |
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| Previous Issues | Oct 01 | Sep 28 | Sep 27 | Sep 26 | Sep 25 |
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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 
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  
Hit-and-Run Heist of Water by Terrestrial Planets in the Early Solar SystemBerlin, Germany (SPX) Sep 20, 2018 A study simulating the final stages of terrestrial planet formation shows that 'hit-and-run' encounters play a significant role in the acquisition of water by large protoplanets, like those that gre ... more 
Farmers fume as France stands firm on more Pyrenees bearsPau, France (AFP) Sept 20, 2018 Dozens of farmers and local officials stormed out of a meeting with France's new environment minister on Friday as he confirmed two more bears would soon be released into the Pyrenees mountains. ... more
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 |
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 Chinese actress has high hopes for her Bordeaux vineyard 
Earliest Mediterranean cheese production revealed by pottery over 7,000 years oldWashington DC (SPX) Sep 20, 2018 Fatty acids detected on potsherds from Croatian archaeological sites contain evidence of the earliest known cheese production in the Mediterranean region, according to a study published September 5, ... more  |
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Multiple facets of biodiversity reduce variability of grassland biomass productionLeipzig, Germany (SPX) Sep 20, 2018 A new study shows that, in addition to species richness, plant evolutionary history plays a critical role in regulating year-to-year variation of biomass production in grasslands. In the face of cli ... more 
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 |
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 Boston MA (SPX) Sep 25, 2018 
Just as an oven gives off more heat to the surrounding kitchen as its internal temperature rises, the Earth sheds more heat into space as its surface warms up. Since the 1950s, scientists have observed a surprisingly straightforward, linear relationship between the Earth's surface temperature and its outgoing heat.
But the Earth is an incredibly messy system, with many complicated, interac ... more |
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 Washington (UPI) Sep 27, 2018 
Lockheed Martin has received a contract for the first two GPS IIIF satellites, Space Vehicles 11 and 12, which are follow-ons to the initial 10-satellites of the new GPS III constellation.
The contract, announced Wednesday by the Department of Defese, provides for engineering, space vehicle test bed and simulators, and production of GPS IIIF Space Vehicles 11 and 12. It also includes op ... more |
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 Libreville (AFP) Sept 26, 2018 
Gabon will pull forestry permits from firms that have not embraced an international standard on responsible logging by 2022, President Ali Bongo Ondimba said Wednesday.
Ondimba made the statement in support of a certification process run by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an international NGO devoted to better forestry management.
By 2022, all loggers have to be "committed" to FSC ... 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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 Fort Collins CO (SPX) Sep 27, 2018 
Mountaintop removal, a coal-mining technique used in much of Central Appalachia, is an extreme form of surface mining, that excavates ridges as deep as 600 feet - twice the length of a football field - and buries adjacent valleys and streams in bedrock and coal residue. This mining activity has long been known to have negative impacts on water quality downstream.
A new study led by watersh ... more |
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 Hong Kong (AFP) Sept 26, 2018 
Illuminated under a spotlight at London's British Museum, hand-drawn sketches of Hong Kong's 2014 Umbrella Movement are part of a new exhibition on dissent that offers a rare glimpse of the artworks produced during the pro-democracy rallies.
The months-long demonstrations, which kicked off on September 28 four years ago, brought parts of the city to a standstill as protest camps took over ar ... more |
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 Seattle (AFP) Sept 21, 2018  From the kitchen to the car, Amazon on Thursday sought to make its Alexa digital assistant and online services a bigger part of people's lives with an array of new products and partnerships.
Updates to the internet giant's Alexa-infused Echo smart speakers will allow them to tend to microwave cooking and even have "hunches" regarding what users may want or have forgotten.
When Alexa is t ... more |
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 Mumbai (AFP) Oct 2, 2018 
Wearing matching blue Nehru jackets, the dozen inspectors fan out across Mumbai's hectic Crawford Market, each scouring for violators of an ambitious plastic ban.
It doesn't take Mahindra Wayangankar long to find one: a dry fruits seller, wrapping his wares in plastic, is hit with a hefty 5,000-rupee ($69) fine.
Wayangankar, 50, is one of 311 officials dubbed the "blue squad" and tasked ... 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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 Washington (AFP) Oct 1, 2018 
Even as he announced a new trade deal with Canada and Mexico on Monday, US President Donald Trump again went after China, making it clear a truce with Beijing was unlikely to come soon.
Trump told reporters China wanted to open negotiations but "frankly, it's too early to talk."
With US tariffs now on $250 billion in Chinese annual exports, about half the total that comes into the US mar ... 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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 Ithaca NY (SPX) Sep 26, 2018 
Using cloud computing and data from 143 weather radar stations across the continental United States, Cornell Lab of Ornithology researchers can now estimate how many birds migrate through the U.S. and the toll that winter and these nocturnal journeys take. Their findings are published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
"We've discovered that each autumn, an average of 4 billion birds move so ... more |
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