Rich foreign countries are buying up Thai farmland to ensure their own food supplies, said Sanitsuda Ekachai. An international nonprofit farmers’ rights group has documented “an alarming trend of governments and corporations buying up farmland on a large scale in more than 60 developing countries.” The rush began after the global food crisis of 2007-08, when rich countries realized they […]
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French researchers have revived a dormant and previously unknown virus from a 30,000-year-old sample of Siberian permafrost. The pathogen poses no threat to humans, but its zombie-like return to an infectious state demonstrates the remarkable durability of microbes and raises the question of whether unknown, disease-causing viruses from some ancient era might be locked in ice. [This] is a good […]
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■ Louisiana lawmakers are considering legislation that makes the Holy Bible the “official state book.”The legislation was opposed by some Democrats—not because it suggests the state’s endorsement of one religion, but because it originally specified the King James version, which some Christians do not use. “Why not put all versions of the Bible?” suggested state Rep. Robert Billiot.
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Africa’s lions are dwindling toward extinction at an alarming rate, Duke University researchers say. Using new high-resolution satellite data from Google Earth, they’ve discovered that the savanna habitat that lions need to survive has shrunk by 75 percent over the past 50 years and is far more fragmented than conservationists previously realized. Over the same period, the lion population is […]
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While some miners were digging in Northern Alberta, Canada they came upon a skeleton of a perfectly preserved dinosaur from over 110 million years ago. This dragon-like armor plated dinosaur was suggested to have been over 3000 pounds was discovered about six years ago. Previously unknown dinosaur species was a plant eating dinosaur and probably ate its last leaf over […]
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Along with goods for U.S. markets, China’s booming factories are exporting pollution that fouls the air over the Western U.S., a new study has found. “We’ve outsourced our manufacturing and much of our pollution, but some of it is blowing back across the Pacific to haunt us,” University of California, Irvine, earth scientist Steven Davis tells The Telegraph (U.K.).The study […]
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Scientists predict that we may have a cosmic collision which will cause space fireworks and launch us into exile. We do have some time before this will happen so we can prepare ourselves. According to astrophysicists we could be threatened by an asteroid smashing into earth in the distant future. We may not be able to survive a collision between […]
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There is a deafening and horrific silence in the USA about the problem of gun control, Piers Morgan told the Today program, responding to US radio host Alex Jones’ defence of guns. “The product of this demented attitude is you have the worst gun crime of any of the advanced countries in the world,” said the British journalist. Mr Morgan […]
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Can you catch obesity from others was studied by JAMA Pediatrics and came away with more questions. You may find the answers in the story below. The study was conducted on some military families that were assigned to different bases. Some were located in countries where the locals had high rates of obesity. Others were located in countries that had […]
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Think climate change is one of the world’s biggest problems? said Alex B. Berezow. Think again. Global warming doesn’t even crack the top 10 of the planet’s immediate concerns. Number 1 on that list: poverty. Nowhere near as “sexy” or “trendy” as climate change, it’s still the single biggest threat facing humanity. Hundreds of millions of people go hungry every […]
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