• Nesting aids make agricultural fields attractive for bees

    Farmers are facing a problem: Honeybees are becoming ever more rare in many places. But a lot of plants can only produce fruits and seeds when their flowers were previously pollinated with pollen from different individuals. So when there are no pollinators around, yields will decrease.

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  • Looking back to move agriculture forward

    Small farmers and indigenous communities have practised sustainable agriculture for centuries. Chidi Oguamanam is working to ensure that traditional knowledge is recognized and shared equitably.

    The kind of clean technology Chidi Oguamanam advocates looks a lot different from what many of us might imagine. No high-tech solar panels. No futuristic gizmos. No scientists in a lab.

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  • University-led study looks to reduce methane gas emissions in cattle

    Seeking to mitigate the greenhouse gas contributions of the region’s agricultural sector, a University of Lethbridge-led study has been granted $1.1 million by the federal government’s Agricultural Greenhouse Gases Program.

    “Canadian farmers are great stewards of the land and the environment. These new investments are part of the government’s commitment to addressing climate change and ensuring our farmers are world leaders in the use and development of clean and sustainable technology and processes,” says Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food.

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  • Dust particles in livestock facilities: Sweat the small stuff

    A beam of sunlight streams into your living room, illuminating a Milky Way of dust particles hanging in the air. Although the air looks thick, those visible dust particles are so big that they can’t reach the smallest branches of the respiratory tree in your lungs. It’s the dust we can’t see—smaller than 2.5 microns, called PM 2.5—that can cause allergies and other respiratory problems.

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  • Conserve intact forest landscapes to maximize biodiversity, reduce extinction risk

    A new global analysis of forest habitat loss and wildlife extinction risk published today in the journal Nature shows that species most at risk live in areas just beginning to see the impacts of human activities such as hunting, mining, logging and ranching.

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  • Climate change: Biodiversity rescues biodiversity in a warmer world

    The last month was recorded as the warmest June ever in many parts of the world. Last year, 2016, was the warmest year in the modern temperature record. Our planet is constantly heating up. This poses direct threats to humans, like extreme weather events and global sea-level rise, but scientists are concerned that it may also affect our well-being indirectly via changes in biodiversity. The variety of life, from plants and animals to microorganisms, is the basis of many services ecosystems provide to us, for example clean drinking water or food. Today, ecologists are challenged by the question: what does a warmer world mean for biodiversity? More species, less species, or no change?

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  • Unabated climate change would reverse the development gains in Asia: report

    Unabated climate change would bring devastating consequences to countries in Asia and the Pacific, which could severely affect their future growth, reverse current development gains, and degrade quality of life, according to a report produced by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

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  • Treated Graywater Is Better for the Environment

    Reusing graywater in dry areas may require treatment for more efficient irrigation in arid, sandy soils, according to a new study published in Chemosphere by researchers at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research.

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  • "Big Muddy" Missouri River needs a plan

    As the Missouri River flows across the Great Plains to where it meets the Mississippi River at St. Louis, it accumulates such a large sediment load that it has earned the nickname “Big Muddy.”  A recent University of Illinois study looks at the history of the river, damages and changes from the 2011 flood, and its current post-flood condition. The study concludes that the river needs a comprehensive plan with multi-state cooperation.

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  • Warmer Artic linked to weaker vegetation growth

    To the vexation of school children and elation for their parents, residents living along the I-95 corridor of the northeastern United States know that El Niño in the Pacific will result in a dryer, warmer, and less snowy winter throughout the Appalachian, as certain as the adage ‘April showers bring May flowers.’ Such meteorological patterns where interannual variability in ocean temperatures affects climate have been long established in the field.

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