On January 29, 2014, the World Wildlife Fund reported that the ‘number of monarch butterflies hibernating in Mexico reached an all-time low in 2013.” Since recording of overwintering areas began, the butterflies reached a peak in 1995, covering 44.5 acres in the pine and fir forests west of Mexico City. Now they cover only 1.65 acres. Their decline can no longer be explained away by seasonal aberration. The monarchs are literally disappearing.
Monarch Butterfly

Is Monsanto’s Roundup killing butterflies?

The steady and now statistically significant disappearance of the monarch butterfly coincides with habitat loss that began with the introduction of hideous agribusiness giant Monsanto’s product Roundup (glyphosate), the expansion of Roundup-ready corn and soybean crops and the wiping out of milkweed, the food source for the caterpillars. World Wildlife fund (WWF) explains:

A number of factors have contributed to a sharp decline in monarch populations in recent years, including loss of reproductive habitat caused by land-use changes and reduction of milkweed (primary food source for monarch larvae ) from herbicide use; extreme climate conditions in Canada, the United States and Mexico; and deforestation and forest degradation in hibernation sites in Mexico.

“The combination of these threats […]

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A coal slurry spill has blackened 6 miles of a creek in West Virginia’s eastern Kanawha County, near the site of last month’s massive chemical leak. At least 100,000 gallons of the coal byproduct were released in Fields Creeks when a valve inside a slurry line malfunctioned, according to state environmental protection officials.

Officials say the drinking water is safe this time, although it’s still off limits to pregnant women in Kanawha County thanks to last month’s chemical spill. And despite the lack of an immediate safety risk, this new spill is shaping up to be an environmental disaster in its own right:

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Cat bites can be considerably more dangerous than most people assume, according to new research from Mayo Clinic. The findings of the new study state that one in every three recipients of a cat bite to the hand ends up hospitalized, with two-thirds of those hospitalized ending up requiring surgery.

The study notes that the complication most often experienced by cat bite victims is a deep-tissue infection. The research also found that, somewhat unsurprisingly, and somewhat humorously, middle-aged women were the most common victim of cat bites.

The reason for increased likelihood for infection, as compared to human or dog bites, is all down to the fangs. Cat mouths don’t harbor bacteria that is anymore dangerous than that found in dog mouths, it’s simply that their fangs are far more effective at delivering this bacteria deep into the meat of what it bites.

‘The dogs’ teeth are blunter, so they don’t tend to penetrate as deeply and they tend to leave a larger wound after they bite. The cats’ teeth are sharp and they can penetrate very deeply, they can seed bacteria in the joint and tendon sheaths,” explains study author Brian Carlsen, MD, a Mayo Clinic plastic surgeon and orthopedic hand surgeon. […]

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Yearly mammograms in middle-age women do not reduce breast cancer deaths – these tests are essentially as good as physical examination alone, according to a new 25-year study from Canada.

The study, which included nearly 90,000 women ages 40 to 59, is the latest to question the value of routine mammography. The researchers found the same number of women died of breast cancer over 25 years, regardless of whether they underwent yearly mammograms or not.

Mammography is performed routinely to screen women for breast cancer, with the goal of early diagnosis. But it is highly debated whether this screening saves lives. In some cases, early detection does not necessarily mean the cancer can be cured, and in some others, treatments work even if cancer is discovered at later stages. [6 Foods That May Affect Breast Cancer Risk]

It is also controversial whether the potential benefits of mammograms outweigh the harm done by overdiagnosis and overtreatment. The new study found that about 22 percent of breast cancers detected by mammograms were what researchers call over-diagnosed, meaning the mammograms revealed tumors that didn’t cause disease symptoms, and would not have reduced a woman’s life span if left undetected.

The new findings suggest that “the rationale for […]

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In case there was any doubt that the ‘most anti-environment House of Representatives in history” has earned its reputation, the League of Conservation Voters has released its annual scorecard, which found that House Republicans supported key environmental legislation merely five percent of the time in 2013.

The first session of the 113th congress saw 13 Senate and 28 House votes on environmental issues ranging from disaster relief for Hurricane Sandy, to safeguards against climate change, to clean water protections. House Republicans’ voting scores – which had dropped from 17 to 10 percent between 2008 and 2012 – halved last year to the lowest they’ve been since the LCV started keeping track in 1970. They’ve mostly attributed this fall to the rise of the Tea Party.

Senate Republicans fared slightly better, with an average of 17 percent. Further illustrating the partisan split over environmental issues, House Democrats had an 87 percent pro-environment voting record, while Senate Democrats scored a resounding 92 percent.

As to the low number of environment-related votes that came to the Senate floor, the LCV credits Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for blocking the more egregious legislation brought forward by the GOP, while also noting that the fierce anti-environment […]

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