“An inordinate fondness for beetles” is what the celebrated biologist J.B.S. Haldane apocryphally quipped when asked his opinion of God. purchasing levitra Beetles comprise just under a third of the 1.2 million species described so far [], and a recent paper has estimated that there are about 7-10 million species on the planet. In other words, we have yet to describe about 86% of the … Continue reading The importance of being biodiverse
— A fifty-year famine provoked by drought threatens millions in the sub-Saharan Sahel region of Africa with crop failure, cattle loss, starvation and death. As policy makers work to provide relief for the drought-ravaged nations, scientists in Europe are investigating what caused a seemingly-minor ‘dry spell’ to snowball into a drought so severe that it now threatens political stability in sub-Saharan Africa. Airborne dust, created by commercial farming practices introduced by Portuguese settlers between the 18th and the 19th centuries, may be the culprit. Continue reading Famine follows the plough in Africa?
The 2011 Harvard Radcliffe Institute Science Symposium, “Something in the Air: Climate Change, Science, and Policy” [1] brought together internationally renowned researchers to address the state of our current knowledge of climate science and courses of action that might lie ahead in addressing human-induced climate change. Chemistry plays an essential role in every aspect of studying and modeling the climate, as well as developing predictions … Continue reading Curbing the chemistry of climate change
–While the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico dominated the news during summer 2010, it was a somewhat unusual summer for the rest of the world as well. Extreme heat and fires in Russia caused millions of dollars worth of damage. Flooding in Pakistan has resulted in millions losing their homes. And droughts in most parts of sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia have led to crop failures. One climate-related event that we haven’t heard much about, however, is the widespread bleaching of coral reefs all across the globe, largely due to this year’s severe heat stress. Continue reading Coral bleaching in 2010: An early indicator of vulnerable marine ecosystems under human-made stress