Former NBA star Yao Ming is very famous in China, and he’s using his fame on behalf of conservation issues. Now a member of China’s parliament, Yao is calling for a ban on the sale of ivory in China. » E-Mail This
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Key connection
For more than a century, scientists have suggested that the best way to settle the debate about how phenotypic plasticity — the way an organism changes in response to environment — may be connected to evolution would be to identify a single mechanism that controls both. Harvard researchers say they have discovered just such a […]
Crop Pests “Vastly Underestmated’ Warns Study
The number of different pests plaguing crops in the developing world may be vastly underestimated, contributing to severely reduced harvests in some of the world’s most important food-producing nations, say researchers.
Duke ordered to stop groundwater pollution at North Carolina coal plants
(Reuters) – A North Carolina judge ruled on Thursday that Duke Energy Corp must immediately stop the sources of groundwater pollution at its 14 coal-fired power plants in the state.
Norway’s pension fund continues to invest in coal companies destroying Indonesia’s forests
Norway’s massive sovereign wealth fund is continuing to invest in coal companies that are destroying forests in Indonesia despite divesting from forestry and plantation companies with poor environmental track records, reports the Rainforest Foundation Norway.
From theory to deadly reality: malaria moving upslope due to global warming
Malaria is a global scourge: despite centuries of efforts to combat the mosquito-borne disease, it still kills between 660,000 to 1.2 million people a year, according to World Health Organization data from 2010. Astoundingly, experts estimate that around 300 million people are infected with the disease every year or about 4 percent of the world’s […]
Marijuana’s anxiety relief effects: Receptors found in emotional hub of brain
Cannabinoid receptors, through which marijuana exerts its effects, have been found in a key emotional hub in the brain involved in regulating anxiety and the flight-or-fight response. This is the first time cannabinoid receptors have been identified in the central nucleus of the amygdala in a mouse model.
Detailed picture created of membrane protein linked to learning, memory, anxiety, pain and brain disorders
The most detailed 3-D picture yet has been created of a membrane protein linked to learning, memory, anxiety, pain and brain disorders such as schizophrenia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and autism. The mGlu1 receptor, which helps regulate the neurotransmitter glutamate, belongs to a superfamily of molecules known as G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). GPCRs sit in the cell […]
Warmer temperatures push malaria to higher elevations
Researchers have debated for more than two decades the likely impacts, if any, of global warming on the worldwide incidence of malaria, a mosquito-borne disease that infects more than 300 million people each year. Now, ecologists are reporting the first hard evidence that malaria does — as had long been predicted — creep to higher […]
Peatlands biosphere reserve facing severe encroachment in Sumatra
An important reserve that contains a block of fast-dwindling lowland swamp forest in Riau Province is facing an onslaught of encroachment for illegal oil palm plantations, worsening choking haze in the region, reports Mongabay-Indonesia.
