Review of 2007

Happy New Year and a big thank you to all those who subscribe or read our blog.

It was a good 2007 for the hand picked ... and carefully sorted with a full calendar year of blogging under our belt, turning 1 year old on 2nd November. We posted 167 articles on a variety of topics and had one of our posts, "Bluetongue virus:knocking at the door" by Robert Taylor, nominated for consideration towards the new edition of the Science Blogging Anthology, "Open Laboratory 2007".

Please read on for a monthly breakdown of all our posts.

January

• Dolly for dinner? - is your dinner going to be cloned.
• Obese people like chewing
• Dangerous rust puts strain on food security
• Reducing soil erosion in the real world
• Trees for flights - carbon offsetting
• Troubled times for tuna - overfishing of tuna stocks
• Successful seed storage - video CABI's Good Seed Initiative in Bangladeshi
• Maryland at risk of loosing millions of trees - emerald ash borer invasion
• Be(a)ware - salt and human health
• Creating the perfect catfish - DNA fingerprinting
• Why salt? - more on salt and human health
• Goodbye Barbaro - equine injuries & the launch of VetMed Resource
• Slick seabirds - oil spills and seabirds
• Whitefly and virus team tactics

February

• The hypertension controversy - salt and hypertension is there a link?
• I love you like meat loves salt
• Tortilla chips: how green fuel may be harming Mexico's poor - biofuels
• Measuring out their lives in coffee spoons - coffee production & wildlife
• UK hopeful Bird Flu has been contained
• Trans fats - the wrong targets?
• Can weeds be our friends - water hyacinth
• Seeds of doom - new seed bank in Sweden
• Penalty kicks: are they all in the mind? - sport psychology
• Water or biofuels? you choose - biofuel crops & water resources
• More good news for coffee drinkers!
• Conservation agriculture: the zero way - no till or zero till agriculture
• Do you have room for a rhino? - climate change
• Last stand for the orangutan
• Dolly: ten years after - cloning
• Thai rubber industry plans to bounce back from El Niño
• Is circumcision the answer to HIV?
• Rebuilding the Brazilian rainforest
• Frog fungus - frog species extinctions

March

• Drink coffee, feed the world? - describes what is fairtrade?
• Bluetongue in Northern Europe
• How safe is making drugs in GM plants?
• USDA support for GM rice with Human genes
• "Sustainable Aquaculture" - challenges for a growing industry
• Fancy a bottle of Swedish white? - climate change and wine
• Fat, me? - obesity
• Grassland invaders had inside help - invasive species and plant viruses
• A role for rice in causing and tackling climate change?
• Polarized thought - international polar year and Arctic warming
• My love is like a blue, blue rose - a true blue flower?
• The great global warming swindle - don't forget the science
• Atkins – the right strategy for the wrong reasons?
• Controlling the screwworm - Cochliomyia hominivorax
• Celebrating Linnaeus - 300th anniversary of the birth of Linnaeus
• Pet food safety - recall of cat & dog food in the N. America
• Cow + grass = house - a new way of making fiberboard
• World Water Day - includes a cartogram of global freshwater availability
• China’s functional food honey-trap
• Cataloging life - the launch of a new taxonomic checklist
• MUM’s not going to poison you - bottled water labeling
• A health dose of stress - organic vs. conventionally produced food
• Peat - sink or source - the carbon emissions ticking bomb

April

• Funky and unusual, it brings you lots of luck! - Cane toad news
• Orangutan Diary
• Origins of BSE?
• Cancer prevention for pets?
• Tourism threat to cradle of evolution - tourism pressure on the Galapagos Islands
• 1000 diseases mapped! - map 1000 of the  Distribution Maps of Plant Diseases published
• Wine has many uses - wine extract to protect skin from UV radiation
• Hitching a flight - the spread of invasive species along transport networks
• Ticks: be aware, but don't panic
• Twinkle, twinkle, little star - EU Galileo positioning system
• Where have all the bees gone? - the decline of UK and US bee numbers
• Could it bee your mobile phone? - may mobile phones cause Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)?
• 1000 diseases mapped - a challenge is issued
• Blood transfusion - never  entirely safe
• Pet foods for thought - a month on from the pet food recall yet any questions still to be answered
• Cowpox, cats, smallpox and history
• And how would you like your flowers Madam? - GM flowers
• It’s sweet, but is it safe? - aspartame and food science

May

• Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb... 
• The state of Britain’s moth species 
• Patents, pigs and pastoralists
• Cod this mean the end for Gadus morhua? - cod and the common fisheries policy
• Melamine: important information being ignored? - more information on the pet food recall 
• Insect protein: an alternative to fish meal?
• Will new parasite hinder UK otter recovery? - a gall bladder fluke Pseudamphistomum truncatum
• Disturbing soil has disturbing effects on forest carbon - a new CAB reviews paper see abstract
• Taking the sting out of nettles - nettles have many uses as highlighted by "be nice to nettle week"
• The art of...boiling broccoli
• Virus threatens Scotland's red squirrels - the squirrelpox virus
• Hunting both animals and plants 
• International day for Biological Diversity
• Climate change clock ticking for wild relatives
• Melamine contamination is spreading to meat and fish supplies - pet food contamination continues
• Not all doom and gloom (but not far off)... - tree planting and mass deforestation
• Glycerol, a byproduct of the biodiesel industry, in livestock feeds

June

• Grasping the great ape situation
• What a load of rubbish! - packaging, recycling and rubbish
• Do cows sneeeze in June?
• Melting Ice - a hot topic? - world environment day and international polar year
• Soil, a potential large scale carbon store
• Have you ever milked a hemp?
• B-list celebrity in shock relationship scandal - Europe calling for fortification of flour with folic acid
• World Ocean Day and Chinese water news round-up
• CABI fungi examined for medical marvels 
• Obesity- now blame the microwave or lack of sleep
• Clouds in my decaf - is GM coffee coming soon?
• Plants uproot and head North - plant distributions moving North to find colder climates
• Report warns of MRSA in farm animals
• Changes in the veterinary profession
• Hug fat trees - ancient tree survey underway in UK
• Don’t you know there’s a war on? - aspartame and food sweetening

July

• What are my chances of catching an interesting parasite? - food parasites
• Organic tomatoes - better for your heart?
• Take one funny film twice daily - melatonin levels
• Bamboo socks and bicycles
• No go for the GM Danio - GM zebrafish banned from New Zealand
• Two pints of lager and a tin of sardines - fortified alcoholic drinks
• Why should we? - India and China won't
  

August

• Consultation on proposed EU Soil Framework Directive
• Foot and mouth: back again?
• A parasite that affects the mind - Toxoplasma gondii
• Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells: TB complacency is not acceptable
• Biosecurity: who will guard the guardians?
• What do you know about biodiversity?
• Highlighting the use of evidence
• The joys of biological containment
• Pass the chocolate? - junk food diets and pregnancy
• Water cleaning eggs! - eggshell to absorb lead in industrial waste water
• So long, and thanks for all the fish - Dolphin sightings in the Bay of Biscay down by 80%

September

• Bloggers for peer reviewed research: the contest
• Food colourings studies - handle with care!
• Vote for the winner of the “peer-reviewed research reporting” icon contest
• From NASA to the takeaway – does HACCP overburden small businesses?
• Bluetongue virus: knocking at the door
• The final Steve Irwin croc paper
• Bruno, Bruce and the Penan
• Can Bt Maize beat down mycotoxins?

October

• BSE: Twenty years old
• The Blandford Fly is not confined to Blandford (and other interesting facts about blackflies)
•  World tourism leaders tackle climate change
•  Sympathy for the devil - facial tumors threaten the survival of the Tasmanian Devil
•  Pine beetles continue marching east
•  Not mush-room for fungi in school
•  Carbon offsets - whats the deal? - report from the UNWTO Conference, Davos
•  Gardening in microgravity
•  Finding that needle: searching tips
•  (Not-so-)Happy World Food Day!
•  Blogging from BCPC/IPPC 2007 - call for agrochem education
•  Needle cast diseases on Christmas trees
•  Get set for a busy birdfeeder!
•  Don't waste your energy! - energy efficiency of your home to combat climate change
•  How we keep women workers in poverty
•  Goliath and Titan – running out of leg room - fossil evidence gigantic insects

November

• Katrina, flu and bioterrorism
• Poverty and Human Development, Global theme issue, supported by Tropical Diseases Bulletin
• Do you blog about peer reviewed research?
• Maps - finding our place in the World - highlighting the Chicago festival of maps online displays
• Pass the Tamiflu!
• Happy holidays! ‘Tis the season to be hypertensive
• The superfood of the future – Chenopodium quinoa
• Bioethanol production arrives in the UK
• Forests and climate change: a convenient truth? - FC conference report from London, UK
• TOPPS - best pesticide practice, better water protection
• Chikungunya conquers the Swiss Alps - mosquito (Aedes albopictus) spotted heading North

December

• Second (Life) Nature - climate change lecture series
• Trade, biotechnology, biofuels, ethics: some issues that the sugar industry is thinking about
• GREENhouse appeal
• Wash your hands…not your turkey!
• Could blue be next year's green?
• Kiss - don't shake hands? - disease transmission
• Rudolf the parasitized Reindeer