By Danielle Carpenter – Climate change and extreme climatic events are having grave consequences for plant biodiversity around the world. Fires in Australia, the Amazon and North America are destroying key ecosystems. Bark beetles are benefiting from warmer temperatures to kill increasing numbers of trees worldwide. Extreme drought in some areas and flooding in others […]
Ever heard of Henry Beecher? He was an American doctor who discovered the placebo effect as a medic in World War II. When he ran out of morphine to ease the pain of wounded soldiers, he instead administered a mixture of salt and water but told them it was a drug to relieve pain. He reported that […]
Sutera, a village in Sicily, has since 2014 increased its mostly elderly population of a few hundred inhabitants with dozens of refugees. The town in the 1970s had over 5,000 people, but most had left to seek better job opportunities in larger cities. By 2012, this out-migration caused homes to be abandoned and shops to […]
Opinion Columnist Nicholas Kristof says that “2019 has been the best year ever”. And he’s right! Click here to find out why.
The industrial production of materials such as cement and steel is a significant contributor to carbon dioxide emissions, or so claims the International Energy Agency. Cement, for example, accounts for 7% of such emissions globally. Reducing the sector’s emissions would go a long way towards fighting climate change. Industries can avoid such emissions Heliogen is […]
The French artist Aude Michon has been visiting the Gustave Roussy hospital in Villejuif, France for the last two years to dance for people with cancer, simply to brighten up their day. Aude Michon is a professional dancer who teaches Salsa, Bachata, Cha Cha and other Latin dances. She created the Elles Dansent association to […]
Seaweed refers to all kinds of marine plants and algae that grow in the ocean, rivers, lakes and other bodies of water. It contains fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals, including iodine, iron and calcium, and is a good source of omega-3 fats. According to this video, it also absorbs five times more carbon than land-based plants, which […]
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy tells stories that drive social change. She wrote, “My films are examples of how one story, eloquently told, can move a country’s lawmakers to break through decades of impunity and legal deadlock. Film, art, literature, music and performance help people express themselves and even just be themselves.” “In 2014, a Pakistani teenager called […]
Guatemala is using plastic to trap plastic in its rivers. How? With plastic “biofences”. This video, produced by the World Economic Forum, circulated rapidly worldwide earlier this year. It shows the plastic-catching barriers stopping floating trash. This simple structure keeps 60% of the plastic from reaching the seas that lead to the ocean. Guatemala is […]
Over the last 300 years, only a handful of people have tried making spider silk into a cloth. Yet natural spider silk is soft, light and incredibly strong. Its strength, resilience and flexibility are as yet unmatched (scientists are still trying to produce synthetic spider silk that replicates the properties of the natural protein fiber). […]