Top African producer bans GM cotton
Ouagadougou (AFP) April 24, 2016 -
Burkina Faso, Africa's top cotton producer and the sole West African nation to venture into biotech farming, is dropping genetically-modified (GM) cotton on quality grounds.
The world's 10th largest cotton producer, with four of its 19 million people dependent on the "white gold", Burkina Faso earlier this month said it was giving up Monsanto's GM Bt cotton because it had proved uneconomical ...
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IceBridge Begins Eighth Year of Arctic Flights
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Apr 25, 2016 -
Operation IceBridge, NASA's airborne survey of polar ice, completed its first Greenland research flight of 2016 on April 19, kicking off its eighth spring Arctic campaign. This year's science flights over Arctic sea and land ice will continue until May 21.
During its seven years of operations in the Arctic, IceBridge has gathered large volumes of data on changes in the elevation of the ice ...
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Ancient tectonic activity was trigger for ice ages
Boston MA (SPX) Apr 25, 2016 -
For hundreds of millions of years, Earth's climate has remained on a fairly even keel, with some dramatic exceptions: Around 80 million years ago, the planet's temperature plummeted, along with carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. The Earth eventually recovered, only to swing back into the present-day ice age 50 million years ago.
Now geologists at MIT have identified the likely cause ...
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Eight killed as 'golf ball' hailstones, storms lash Myanmar
Yangon (AFP) April 24, 2016 -
Violent storms which saw hailstones the size of golf balls rain down across Myanmar have killed at least eight people in recent days, toppled pagodas and damaged thousands of buildings, officials said Sunday.
The freak storms struck across five states on Friday and Saturday after weeks of heatwave temperatures regularly topping 40C (104F).
"From what we know now there are eight people ki ...
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Nanoparticle acts like Trojan horse to halt asthma
Chicago IL (SPX) Apr 22, 2016 -
In an entirely new approach to treating asthma and allergies, a biodegradable nanoparticle acts like a Trojan horse, hiding an allergen in a friendly shell, to convince the immune system not to attack it, according to new Northwestern Medicine research. As a result, the allergic reaction in the airways is shut down long- term and an asthma attack prevented.
The technology can be applied to ...
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Which trees face death in drought
Salt Lake City UT (SPX) Apr 22, 2016 -
Two hundred-twenty-five million trees dead in the southwest in a 2002 drought. Three hundred million trees in Texas in 2011. Twelve million this past year in California. Throughout the world, large numbers of trees are dying in extreme heat and drought events. Because mass die-offs can have critical consequences for the future of forests and the future of Earth's climate, scientists are trying t ...
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The health impacts of extreme weather in South Pacific
Oakbrook Terrace IL (SPX) Apr 22, 2016 -
As weather events turn more frequent and more extreme in the 21st century, a new study published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene details the public health impacts after devastating flooding on a South Pacific island, and provides graphic evidence of the risk facing island populations and their health systems worldwide.
Researchers documented the injury, loss of lif ...
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