Credit: Jeremy T. Kerr
A new study provides the first evidence of a link between neonicotinoid pesticides and escalating honeybee colony losses on a landscape level. (emphasis added)
The study found the increased use of a pesticide, which is linked to causing serious harm in bees worldwide, as a seed treatment on oilseed rape in England and Wales over an 11 year period correlated with higher bee mortality during that time.
The research, published in Nature scientific reports on Thursday, combined large-scale pesticide usage and yield observations from oilseed rape with data on honeybee loses between 2000 and 2010.
The total area of land planted with oil seed rape in England and Wales more than doubled from 293, 378 hectares (724,952 acres) to 602,270 hectares over that time and the number of seeds treated with the imidacloprid pesticide increased from less than 1% of the area planted in 2000 to more than 75% of the area planted with oilseed rape by 2010.
Comparing […]
In this Feb. 26, 2015 photo, solar panels that are part of the Wright-Hennepin Cooperative Electric Association’s community gardens are shown in Rockford, Minn. Community solar gardens are a new concept in renewable energy, allowing customers who cannot put up solar panels to buy into the green energy boom anyway.
Credit: AP Photo/Jim Mone
Carbon capture is an idea that’s been around for a while, but it’s always seemed like a bit of an afterthought, a way to slightly slow the pace at which we’re pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But what if we could do at a scale that would suck all the carbon we’ve emitted since the industrial revolution right out out of the atmosphere, and turn it into […]
Whitehall officials have told the BBC that contrary to recent announcements, the number of Britons emigrating to Syria to live under Islamic State (IS) rule peaked two years ago. However, the proportion of women among those joining the extremist group has risen dramatically. So what’s behind this and what exactly is the IS strategy behind luring women into their ranks? Our Security Correspondent Frank Gardner investigates.
Islamic State, also known as Isis, has a dual attitude to women.
On the one hand it treats those it considers heretics as almost sub-human, as commodities to be traded and given away as rewards to jihadist fighters.
Shocking footage from a modern-day sex-slave market in Mosul, Iraq, shows militants discussing prices for Yazidi girls, captured last year, many of them underage.
At least 2,000 Yazidi women are still being held, only a few have escaped.
‘Corner stones’
“They put us up for sale,” said one who did recently escape. “Many groups of fighters came to buy. Whatever we did, crying, begging, made no difference.”
But on the other hand, IS has big plans for Muslim women […]
Frrench “green” building.
Credit: Ana Lisa Alperovich for Inhabitat via Flickr
Green rooftops will soon be sprouting up across France, thanks to a new law passed in March.
Rooftop vegetation will provide habitat for birds, absorb pollutants, and retain rainwater.
New buildings in the country’s commercial zones—think shops, offices, and restaurants—must now have either solar panels or green roofs, meaning a growing medium such as soil and a covering of vegetation.
The new rooftop vegetation will provide habitat for birds, absorb airborne pollutants, reduce sewer overflow by retaining rainwater, and reduce the urban heat island effect whereby high concentrations of concrete buildings and asphalt increase air temperature. Green roofs could even improve worker productivity, with a recent study by the University of Melbourne finding that participants who took a 40-second break to look at a green roof were more focused and accurate when they got back to work compared to those who viewed a concrete roof.
John Farrell, the director of democratic energy at the Institute for […]
