is the Chinese Academy of Sciences'flagship institute for conservation research. Around it, however, the forests have increasingly been being replaced by row upon row of rubber trees;
The force of economic development is beyond our imagination, says Chen Jin, director of the XTBG.
protection of natural resources remains optional. This is a major problem, says Chen. Jiang, the prefecture party secretary, is adamant that people in Xishuangbanna have the right to develop
the conflict between development and conservation will never be reconciled, says Joachim Sauerborn, an agriculture researcher at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart,
It is an uphill struggle this is why conservation and poverty reduction go hand-in-hand, says Hasan Moinuddin of the Manila-based Asian Development Bank.
The scheme provides a revolving fund to villages that agree to establish new protection zones in their areas,
Nature Newsrising temperatures during crop-growing seasons will pose a serious threat to food security by 2090, scientists report.
Wheat genes could help fight fungal epidemics: Nature Newsas farmers around the world anxiously monitor the march of a deadly orange fungus across their wheat fields,
two research groups have reported progress in the battle against the lethal scourge: the cloning of two fungus-fighting genes.
Meanwhile, new types of stripe rust that can overcome the defences bred into commercial varieties have sparked a separate epidemic in the United states. It is amazing that we are still fighting this battle,
These defences target a specific molecule produced by the fungus, and in time, the fungus often evolves a way to modify the molecule,
Increasingly, breeders are turning to a class of defence gene with a broader spectrum of resistance.
that boosted defences against all known types of stripe rust. Dubcovsky and his colleagues now report that that Yr36 encodes a protein that may activate a protein signalling cascade in response to lipids,
A similar synergistic effect between genes may also be useful in the fight against Ug99,
According to the Office of State Flood control and Drought Relief Headquarters, the drought, which started in November,
which is responsible for scientific risk assessments on GM CROPS in Europe, has reported that there is no case against MON801,
and this led the European commission, the EU's executive, to develop a new legal framework that ensured the tightest possible safety controls based on transparent risk-assessment analysis. That framework,
which finally came into force in 2004, allows the EU to approve GM CROPS when there is no scientific evidence of danger to health or environment;
once approved the crop may be cultivated in all 27 member states. It also includes provision for revisiting an approval
if new scientific evidence of possible danger should come to light. Seven countries in the EU now grow MON801,
claiming that the risk assessment needs to be updated. Last year, France, which had been one of the EU's largest users of the technology,
But the EFSA concluded that none of the supposedly new scientific evidence provided by these four countries would invalidate the previous risk assessments of maize MON810.
After a risk-analysis report by The french food safety committee giving MON810 a clean bill of health was leaked to the press last week--it had previously been suppressed--prime minister Francois Fillon rushed to Brussels to insist that France would maintain its ban whatever
thousands of homeless families in search of shelter and food are flooding Red cross relief centres set up around the state.
Combined with record-breaking temperatures, unusually strong winds and alleged arson attacks, the fires have been particularly quick to spread through suburban areas that back onto bushland.
an increasing number of homes are being built in areas that have a greater risk of wildfire a problem that also exists in the greater Los angeles and San diego areas of California.
and smaller, more frequent fires reduce the risk of a catastrophic blaze. However, climate models do suggest that Australian summers will get warmer and drier as the century proceeds,
and there is little doubt that this will have an effect on fire risk. Heatwaves and fires are virtually certain to increase in intensity and frequency
%In southeast Australia, the frequency of very high and extreme fire danger days is likely to rise by 4-25%by 2020 and by 15-70%by 2050, according to the IPCC's report.
Other regions exposed to high wildfire risk, including southern Europe, South africa and the southwestern United states, face similar changes.
Other researchers think that ten Cate's study risks sullying Tinbergen's legacy. It's not fair to Tinbergen any paper from 50 years ago wouldn't pass modern standards
So, are we in danger of losing our closest allies in the fight against climate change?
Climate change and deforestation pose a double threat to rainforests. Keeping alive large amounts of forest will require big areas to remain undisturbed from logging and clearing.
THE WHO defends itself against allegations it overhyped the dangers of H1n1 under pressure from vaccine manufacturers at a hearing of the Council of europe's health committee.
A spokesman warns of the danger of an explosion of outbreaks in some places. 27 december 2009:
Novartis says a trial on 100 subjects shows its H1n1 vaccine is potentially protective for 80%of subjects after one dose and over 90%after two doses. 21 august 2009:
Researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warn that pregnant women might be increased at risk for complications from pandemic H1n1 in a research paper in eventid=login>The Lancet (hithardbyswi. html>more on this story.
'Phase 4 indicates a significant increase in risk of a pandemic but does not necessarily mean that a pandemic is a forgone conclusion,
WHO director-general, Margaret Chan calls the flu problem a public health emergency of 0425/en/index. html>international concern.
Earliest onset date of swine flu reaching the United states, according to the CDC. 18 march 2009: Federal district of Mexico 0424/en/index. html>begins to pick up cases of swine flu.
but could also pose an infection risk. Researchers have used also the genome sequence to assemble a collection of more than 37,000 locations in the genome that contain frequent single-base changes in DNA sequence2.
US environment agency declares greenhouse gases a threat: Nature Newsthe US Environmental protection agency (EPA) today declared greenhouse gases a threat to public health and welfare, a move that gives the Obama administration broad powers to regulate greenhouse gases without going through Congress.
EPA administrator Lisa Jackson said the proposed endangerment finding confirms that greenhouse gases pose a serious problem for current and future generations,
says David Doniger, who handles climate policy issues for the Natural resources Defense Council in WASHINGTON DC.
also represented a threat. Under President George w bush, EPA scientists and officials prepared an endangerment finding,
The document specifically cited greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles as a danger to public health. California Democrat Barbara Boxer, who handles climate regulation in the Senate as chairwoman of the Environment and Public works Committee
But they have maintained also the threat of direct regulation if Congress fails to enact legislation.
The mountain pine beetle outbreak and the climate signal associated with it is the canary in the coal mine about future disturbances.
or risk defaulting on a promise to implement a system by 2010. Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull of the Liberal party has called the scheme irresponsible,
%because it was thought this level of protection was necessary for biodiversity conservation. He says that it is recognized now that protecting forests is also important for efforts to stabilize climate change
so if we are failing to meet the target it could be even worse for climate stabilization than for biodiversity.
The study found that the level of protection offered to different forest types varied greatly,
The analysis also looked at the level of protection afforded to forests in the world's 825 ecoregions,
The highest level of protection with more than 50%of forest protected was found in ecoregions in parts of the Amazon, Southeast asia and Alaska.
because it looks at forest protection in ecoregions and by forest type, rather than just total forest cover.
whether the protection status is being enforced on the ground. Lauren Coad, a forest scientist at the Environmental Change Institute
Patchy pig monitoring may hide flu threat: Nature Newspublic-health experts are warning that a lack of surveillance may be allowing the 2009 pandemic H1n1 flu virus to go undetected in pigs.
This raises the risk that the virus could circulate freely between humans and pigs, making it more likely to reassort into a deadlier strain,
they say. Pig surveillance is largely the remit of animal health organizations, agriculture ministries and the farming industry.
Their main concern tends to be that any reports of the pandemic virus in pigs might provoke overreactions such as the mass culling of pigs that took place in Egypt
Within minutes of the World health organization (WHO) announcement on 11 june that swine flu had become a pandemic, Bernard Vallat, director-general of an intergovernmental trade body,
But some experts say that is an artefact of patchy to nonexistent flu surveillance in pigs.
and his colleagues concluded that the lack of systematic swine surveillance allowed for the undetected persistence and evolution of this potentially pandemic strain for many years.
which coordinates work done by animal-flu surveillance labs worldwide, and former chief executive of the Veterinary Laboratories Agency.
Whereas flu surveillance has improved over the past six years in poultry and wild birds, pigs have been below the radar,
Surveillance for swine flu is not something that has been high on the agenda of government services,
Most flu surveillance in pigs is passive, relying on farmers or vets sending material to government labs. Active targeted surveillance with diagnostic tests is rarer,
as it is more expensive. OFFLU has called on labs worldwide to share what information they have on swine flu,
and THE WHO on 21 may the conclusions of which were made public last week recommended scaling up flu surveillance efforts in pigs,
European union funding for one of the world's largest pig surveillance networks expired in March. The European Surveillance Network for Influenza in Pigs,
which was created in 2001, comprises nine European labs and one in Hong kong. Although the network has detected not yet the new virus in pigs, its coordinator Kristien Van Reeth,
Network members hope that with the pandemic highlighting the need for better pig surveillance new funding will be forthcoming.
Moreover, Nature has learned that the international community was warned of such a risk in a presentation at a closed meeting between the OIE, THE WHO and the Food and agriculture organization of the united nations in Paris in February.
in which a secret agent-cum-botanist hunts for a missing researcher believed to have discovered an apomixis'supergene'.
Nature Newsan international treaty aimed at protecting and improving access to the world's plant genetic resources is set to dole out its first round of research grants this week amid cash-flow problems that could endanger future awards.
The results underscore the danger posed by deforestation, which is responsible for upward of 20 percent of global carbon emissions.
The perils to biodiversity are increasing too, he says.
Forest growth studies begin to turn up the heat: Nature Newsacross the United states, researchers are firing up experiments to determine how rising temperatures could reshape the nation's forests.
In the next few weeks, Mohan and her colleagues, including Jerry Melillo of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole,
as is customary when their maize crops struggle because of drought. But this year, they have a second backstop against hunger:
countries would have to show that they are engaged actively in risk reduction, she says. Developing countries agree to reduce their risk,
and then developed countries would provide an insurance package. Warner says that references to climate insurance go all the way back to the original United nations Framework Convention on Climate Change signed in Rio de janeiro in 1992,
To date, the best model for large-scale multilateral insurance may be the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Initiative.
the WASHINGTON DC-based head of the nonprofit firm Caribbean Risk Managers, which manages the programme.
The money will be spread between emergency food aid and investment in agriculture. The latter push mirrors,
and other animals for years before they emerge as a worldwide threat to human health.
It reinforces the idea that systematic surveillance, not only in humans but in other mammalian and avian hosts,
A new study released today By nature suggests that people alive during the infamous 1918 influenza outbreak have the greatest protection against the current swine flu1.
and found that those born before 1918 were more likely to produce antibodies capable of neutralizing the swine flu virus. That protection is somewhat counterintuitive:
But it is still possible that the immune response elicited by one virus can offer protection against the other (see Old seasonal flu antibodies target swine flu virus). Oddly,
nevertheless offer some protection against infection, Brown says. At present, most swine flu infections are mild, and the severity of the present pandemic does not come close to the 1918 flu,
The dispute centres on four words common but differentiated responsibilities that are in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de janeiro, Brazil.
but frequently seek refuge within the G77, where expectations for commitments to mitigate climate change are much lower.
Saran's only promise is that India won't exceed the per-capita emissions of the developed world more a threat than a promise,
including the terrorist attacks on Mumbai last November and national elections in May. But the government is now moving forward,
One way to reduce this threat is to adopt a'pyramid'approach and create crops that produce multiple toxins that target the same pest.
Missouri, intends to launch a line of maize (corn) that contains eight different genes that make the crop resistant to herbicides and to attack by insects.
But this does not pose a threat for control by the current pyramided Bt cotton of this insect Tabashnik says.
Nevertheless, the results do highlight the continued threat of resistance, adds Tabashnik. Pyramids are not a panacea,
the authors re-ran their estimates to take account of the likely impact of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, also known as the Waxman-Markey bill.
I'm someone who believes that habitat change is as big a threat to our world today
Iran denies that the reactor has a military purpose. Chemical regulation: The costs of complying with European union legislation on chemical safety (REACH) are much greater than thought,
although methane waste gas from coal mining was classified also as a renewable-energy source under the bill.
environmental groups seeking to block the use of air guns during the tests (see Nature 460,939;
Indiana, had hoped arzoxifene would be a successor to its blockbuster osteoporosis treatment raloxifene (Evista), which will lose its patent protections by 2014.
Meanwhile, Amgen, of Thousand Oaks, California, has received more positive news for its new-mode-of-action osteoporosis treatment, denosumab.
according to a non-peer-reviewed report from the US Geological Survey (USGS). More than two-thirds contained levels exceeding the Environmental protection agency's level of concern for the protection of fish-eating mammals,
The Nature study focused on the threat posed by deep flooding, which affects more than 25%of global rice-producing land.
Flooding is not the only threat to the world's largest diet staple. Rice blast disease destroys around 10-30%of global rice crops enough food to feed about 60 million people each year.
Some rice plants are resistant to the pernicious fungus responsible the disease, but the rice from these plants often has undesirable qualities,
Some researchers have speculated that blast-immunity genes might directly confer terrible taste, but Fukuoka and his colleagues have shown that resistance
and showed that plants with two rare deletions had around 10 times fewer blast lesions than wild-type rice,
and the only national programme that could demonstrate how tropical forest protection might be folded into the global-warming treaty that international leaders hope to sign in Copenhagen in December.
That food crisis reminded people of the imminent threat in the 1960s and 1970s that Asia wouldn't be feed able to its population,
says Colin Chartres, director-general of the IWMI. These surface-irrigation systems have fallen into disrepair since the 1990s for a variety of reasons
The researchers report in the Journal of Zoology1 that the bats had an average maximum bite force of 10.9 newtons,
Hyenas have large bite forces that allow them access to a wider array of foods
if it were not being emitted continually by the plants it would be better to guide the nematodes to the plants most in need of protection,
and that could further increase the risk to food security.
News briefing: 1 october 2009: Nature Newspolicy Events Research Business The week ahead News maker Number crunch Policy Merkel wins:
The United nations Security council unanimously backed a non-binding resolution to bolster efforts aimed at slowing the spread of nuclear weapons.
(which would outlaw nuclear bomb tests) and improving nuclear security. Emissions reporting: The US Environmental protection agency has announced its nationwide reporting system for greenhouse-gas emissions.
Large facilities will have to disclose their emissions every year, as part of a programme that the agency said should cover 85%of US emissions.
and a 2009 report from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) warned of significant health risks.
On 25 september, the US, French and British premiers held a press conference to announce their intelligence on the site.
which could enrich enough uranium for one nuclear weapon in a year. Plagiarism allegation: Two Iranian government ministers, including Kamran Daneshjou,
which had failed to work individually, together reduced the risk of contracting HIV by nearly a third.
and is currently in a patent dispute with the University of Texas in Austin, where the material was developed.
says David Berry, a partner at venture-capital firm Flagship Ventures in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The economic downturn has made it more difficult
and food safety and security. Yet Beachy's arrival also underscores the often-close ties between US agribusiness and federal research.
however, concludes that methyl iodide fumigation results in significant health risks for workers and the general population,
money or know-how to undertake all the required precautions. Alternatives to chemical fumigants are available including rotating strawberries with crops such as broccoli that contain natural pest deterrents,
Fungus genome boosts fight to save North american forests: Nature Newscanadian researchers have decoded the DNA of the tree-killing fungus found in the mouths of mountain pine beetles,
which stops the production of a protective toxic resin released by the tree and allows the beetles to continue to infest.
says Pushpito Ghosh, director of the Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute in Bhavnagar.
not only reduce emissions and save oil but also result in consumer savings of roughly $3, 000 over the lifetime of a vehicle produced in 2016.
EPA administrator Lisa Jackson took the first step in April with an endangerment finding that would formally declare carbon dioxide a danger to public health and the environment.
Potato blight's gene weaponry revealed: Nature Newsthe blight that caused the infamous Irish potato famine of the 1840s has yielded its genetic secrets.
code for the blight's'weapons'against potatoes. That is an insane number. For microbes 25%is a lot,
The mould could be using the transposons to maintain the diversity of its weapons arsenal,
will provide a comprehensive list of these weapons genes. Researchers can now give them the individual treatment that they deserve to figure out what they are doing.
In the arms race between plant and pathogen, potatoes have had long an ally: human plant breeders, who have struggled to develop blight-resistant spuds.
Fotis Kafatos, president of the ERC, said that the commission's response was welcome but not particularly revolutionary.
Polar-bear protection: The US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed on 22 october to designate around 500,000 square kilometres of critical habitat 96%of which is sea ice for the polar bear.
but the designation would add another layer of protection by also making it illegal to conduct activities that adversely affect the bear's habitat.
although four in five children now have access to lifesaving vaccines, at least another US$1 billion is needed annually to help raise immunization rates above 90%.
The US Department of energy has awarded $151 million to 37 research projects through the recently formed Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). Based on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
Research Scientific espionage: A former Los alamos nuclear-weapons physicist says that he is under investigation for espionage.
The researcher, P. Leonardo Mascheroni, spoke to the Associated press on 22 october, two days after he says FBI AGENTS raided his home.
The bureau confirmed an ongoing investigation into his activities. Mascheroni, who worked in the lab's X Division in the 1980s,
In September, the trial was said to show that a vaccine combination reduced the risk of HIV infection by nearly one-third.
They have lost already the battle over Bt cotton the only GM crop grown in India
if they lose over Bt brinjal they lose the war, he says.
Argentina's forests dwindle: Nature Newsargentina, often perceived as a vast fertile territory, is losing its native forests.
Nearly 40%of animal and plant species in the country's arid and semiarid ecosystems are in danger from habitat loss,
Abraham announced the new numbers on biodiversity threats compiled over 20 years of laboratory and field studies last month,
at a meeting in Buenos aires of the parties to the United nations Convention to Combat Desertification.
The US government should grade microorganisms and toxins according to their risk as potential biothreat agents,
Currently, research on 82 human, plant and animal pathogens (called select agents) is monitored under a 1996 law that requires the same security procedures for all of them.
lawmakers from mining states fear job losses as the US economy shifts away from cheap coal.
Coal-fired power companies are pushing for as much protection as possible, but the nuclear industry, and to a lesser extent the natural-gas industry, see opportunities in the push toward low-carbon energy.
Policies for mitigating the impact of climate change must align with policies for protecting public health,
and better housing insulation could lead to health risks from factors such as more indoor air pollution.
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study pointed to the ample financial returns of investment in protecting natural areas such as mangroves, tropical forests and grasslands.
Security screen: Five gene-synthesis companies in a new International Gene Synthesis Consortium have adopted practices that are intended to address the biosecurity risks of the technology.
The board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the major funding channel for controlling these diseases, last week approved US$2. 4 billion in extra funding over two years.
although no violence was reported. German education minister Annette Schavan called on the country's federal states to streamline degree requirements.
Magnanti says she worked for an escort agency, charging £300 (US$500) an hour, after running into financial difficulties during her Phd.
and risks yet the studies'findings are already being challenged. Spraying the herbicide glyphosate on coca plants is a key tool in the war on cocaine.
The strategy, known as Plan Colombia, is supported by the United states but there have long been questions over the plan's impact on animal and human health in the region.
The GAO recommended that the US Congress should start pulling back funding for Colombia's military,
He is known as the force behind Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog1. It was the one major paper from the Hwang laboratory that was dismissed not as fraud in January 2006 (see'Verdict:
and make a revolutionary contribution to neuroscience. Lee so far has no such behavioural studies underway
a forest ecologist at Colorado State university in Fort Collins who was involved not in the research.
says Steve Schwartzman, who heads tropical forest policy for the Environmental Defense Fund in WASHINGTON DC. This is a major step.
By late January, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the country's president, had declared a state of emergency
while the UN's Food and agriculture organization (FAO) warned of further attacks to come (see'Halting the African armyworm').
The initial exaggerated report of the outbreak by villagers and some unqualified staff of the Ministry of Agriculture, led to rather disproportionate alarm
The situation was exacerbated by an early misidentification of the caterpillar as an armyworm (a devastating crop pest that regularly attacks eastern Africa,
Apart from the initial destruction of a few tree crops like cocoa, coffee and plantain, Achaea did not pose any threat to food crops like rice,
to improve the capacity of rural communities to manage such attacks. A lot of things went wrong;
says Julius Sele, a project manager at Africare and currently in the field in Liberia, of January's alarm and panic.
Maryland, slammed into a defunct Russian military communications satellite 800 kilometres above Siberia on 10 february 2009.
The collision sent hundreds of pieces of debris flying at high speed across low-Earth orbit, threatening other satellites and increasing the risk to a NASA shuttle mission to fix the Hubble Space Telescope
(see'Kaputnik chaos could kill Hubble'and'Collision debris increases risk to Earth-observing satellites'.
and other satellites have yet to be influenced by the shrapnel from the collision. But the debris has had a big impact here On earth, according to Brian Weeden, an orbital debris specialist at the Secure World Foundation, in Superior, Colorado,
Before the collision the US Air force was tracking just a handful of vital American satellites.
In the near term, the Pentagon must warn private companies and other nations about possible collisions.
To that end, NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency hosted a conference this month to look at strategies for removing debris. The solutions floated include space tugs and Earth-based lasers.
'The Gran Sasso National Laboratory offered shelter to physics students and teachers from the university and conditions slowly improved over the summer.
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