Choking China: The struggle to clear Beijing's air
As pollution levels return to normal in China's capital after a record-breaking month of smog, what can be done to banish the smog?
New Scientist
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Climate change could save endangered salmon
Lean times lie ahead for fishermen in California and Oregon. Last week, US regulators decided to cancel the entire salmon season for this year. The long-term prospects for the salmon themselves are unclear. In the long term, however, the future of the salmon, and the people that rely on them, may depend on climate change.
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Tanzania leads the world in tackling child deaths
Let's hear it for Tanzania. Despite being one of the world's poorest nations, it has become a role model in how to reach global targets for reducing death rates of children and mothers - putting most of its poor African neighbours to shame. So says the World Health Organization.
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Making the right choices in climate change
Two years ago, Eduardo Ferreira was studying the microbiology of cancer cells in S
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Ocean biodiversity: Depths of ignorance
A rash of projects probing everything from life under the Arctic ice to the global movements of marine mammals is providing the information that conservationists badly need. It is now clear that hotspots do exist even out in the open ocean. However, these are not quite like their counterparts on land. For a start, they do not necessarily stay in the same place. Places with the highest biodiversity may not be the best habitats for the species that live there. Meanwhile, some seemingly inhospitable areas turn out to be thronging with life.
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Climate shocks that come out of the blue
Donald Rumsfeld, the former US Secretary of Defense, liked to distinguish between "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns", and for this he was widely ridiculed. But Rumsfeld had a point. We all know, for instance, that global warming is harming cold-adapted species on mountain tops, even if we can't predict the ultimate magnitude of the damage. Yet the really alarming changes are those that come completely out of the blue - the unknown unknowns that we never even imagined.
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Ozone smog spoils bracing seaside air
If you do like to be beside the seaside, it might be best to avoid beaches near major ports. The mix of sea salt, ship fumes and city smoke leads to a chemical reaction that encourages the formation of ozone smog, adding to the pollution that forms in cities. James Roberts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, and his colleagues have developed a mass spectrometer that can detect nitryl chloride (NO2Cl) - a chemical that aids the formation of ozone.
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Nuclear super-fuel gets too hot to handle
The energy we can get from uranium is set to rocket, but safety fears and waste disposal problems loom : a report.
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Nuclear industry must not forget past lessons
In the nuclear industry, memories can be distressingly short. In 1976, the UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution declared that it would be "morally wrong" to make a major commitment to nuclear power without demonstrating a way of safely isolating radioactive waste. Yet the UK is about to embark on a programme to build at least 10 reactors while still lacking a disposal site for the waste that has accumulated over the past 50 years. What's more, spent fuel from these reactors will be far more radioactive than existing waste and may even require a second repository. (Editorial)
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Comment: Why I had to walk out of farming talks
Four years ago, the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) was born. This ground-breaking exercise brought together government, non-governmental organisations and industry representatives, including Syngenta, to assess world agriculture. Potential authors were nominated and selected - and I was among them. All the authors were expected to draw on their own experience and interpretations of the available evidence, including that taken from peer-reviewed literature, but to leave their affiliations behind.
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Editorial: Gambling on the rainforests
A venture capital company has bought the rights to ecosystem services from a 370,000-hectare rainforest reserve in Guyana. In return for its investment, London-based Canopy Capital will receive a percentage of any income that might one day be made from the reserve's ecosystem services. The company's hope is that these services will eventually become tradable commodities in the same way that carbon is today. Once Canopy Capital has recouped its investment, 80 per cent of further profits will go back to the reserve.