Amazon fires are causing glaciers in the Andes to melt even faster

Dec 01, 2019 03:18 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature

If have you turned on a TV or read the news during the past few months, you have probably heard of the widespread fires that wrought havoc on the Amazon rainforest this year. Fires occur in the rainforest every year, but...

Growing palm oil on former farmland cuts deforestation, CO₂ and biodiversity loss

Nov 24, 2019 14:38 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

Few natural products are as maligned as palm oil, the vegetable oil thats in everything from chocolate spread to washing up liquid. On the island of Borneo, oil palm plantations have replaced nearly 40% of the native...

Celebrity greens kale and seaweed were long considered food of last resort

Nov 24, 2019 14:37 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

Many of our diets are, to some extent, determined by the whims of fashion. This is not an astute observation, nor a particularly new one just consider the 1970s obsession with pineapple and quiche. But social media is...

Why it is important to regulate shark fisheries in Indonesia

Nov 24, 2019 14:26 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

Indonesia is home to 117 shark species. The 2015 report from the Food and Agriculture Agency, FAO, ranked Indonesia in first place among 40 nations that still fish for sharks. In the last decade, Indonesia contributed...

Light versus dark – the color of the meat is due to the job of the muscle

Nov 24, 2019 14:19 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

As families gather together this holiday season, the lucky ones will avoid impassioned discussions about religion and politics. But another argument is almost inevitable: white meat versus dark meat. Light meat lovers...

Smoke haze hurts financial markets as well as the environment

Nov 24, 2019 14:11 pm UTC| Insights & Views Economy Nature

Sydney is currently blanketed by smoke haze from severe bushfires that have burned through New South Wales. Air pollution levels on Thursday reached hazardous levels for the second time in a week. The NSW Rural Fire...

Tons of acorns? It must be a mast year

Nov 19, 2019 03:44 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature

If you have oak trees in your neighborhood, perhaps youve noticed that some years the ground is carpeted with their acorns, and some years there are hardly any. Biologists call this pattern, in which all the oak trees for...