CABI Blogs: hand picked... and carefully sorted

Where there’s a will there’s a way! Can internet technologies help combat global warming?

Image from Coalition of the Willing web page

The Federal Environment Agency (UBA) of Germany has just released an interim report entitled “Environmental and economic effects of the Copenhagen pledges and more ambitious emission reduction targets.” The report describes the environmental and economic effects of the pledges submitted by industrialized and major developing countries for 2020 under the Copenhagen Accord as quantifiable emission reductions. Read on to find out more about the report and about an internet campaign called ‘Coalition of the Willing’ - the really interesting bit of this blog!

Attack of the Buttock-Biting Spider and Other Myths

“The trouble with the world is not that people know so little, but that they know so many things that ain’t so.” This observation from Mark Twain is one of many illuminating quotes in an examination by Richard Vetter of the power of myth in science and medicine, and the limited power of hard science in dispelling such myths.

Myths are particularly persuasive when they are consistent with pre-existing beliefs, are repeated frequently, and the origins become lost, says Vetter, in a paper in CAB Reviews. Vetter, from the University of California, Riverside, takes as his focus the urban myths that abound regarding spiders.

 

 

Be careful to check tuffets before you sit on them

 

Why do referees sometimes get it wrong?

I think everyone would agree that soccer referees have a very difficult job. They have to keep a close eye on a fast-moving game in which incidents often occur away from the ball, and need to make decisions in an instant which in high-profile games will be endlessly dissected by pundits and fans - sometimes for years to come - who have been able to replay the incident from every conceivable camera angle. But are there any factors contributing to errors or perceived bias in refereeing decision, and if so is there anything that can be done about them? 

Travel advice: Watch out for the mozzies!

The Hand Picked blog is not perhaps a place where you'd normally expect to find pictures of celebrities. And fear not, we're not going down the route of showbiz gossip. But sometimes celebrity news and serious topics overlap. And the power of celebrity has been harnessed this week to highlight the malaria risk when travelling to the tropics, after British singer and television presenter Cheryl Cole was diagnosed with malaria following a recent trip to Tanzania.

 

What can you do with 12,000 solar cells?

Image from solarimpulse.com

Power an airplane, of course! A team of Swiss engineers, led by Mr. Andre Borschberg and fellow aviator Bertrand Piccard, have been doing just that for the past few years - building an airplane powered entirely by sun energy, which they named ‘Solar Impulse’. The airplane has 12,000 solar cells arranged on its wingspan and the cells collect enough sun energy to power the plane’s batteries for the flight. Read on to find out more about the flight.

Cutting The Salt

Salt reduction is a hot topic at the moment in the US and the UK as officials react to research that suggests decreasing salt intake could decrease levels of stroke in the population.  Consumers can do a lot to reduce the salt they consume, but as most of salt consumption comes from eating processed food, campaigns have also focussed on the food industry. The US has recently seen the launch of the National Salt Reduction initiative, a campaign that aims to get food companies to voluntarily reduce salt content in their products, while in the UK recent talks on salt reduction between the Food Standards Agency (FSA), WHO and the food industry have just finished. (Photo courtesy UK Salt Manufacturers Association)

How easy is it for the food industry to reduce the salt it uses? What options are there for reducing salt in processed foods?

What can you do with 12,000 plastic bottles?

Plastiki departing from San Francisco-photo by Catherine Sparks

How about a 20-metre catamaran? That’s what British adventurer and environmentalist David de Rothschild and his crew of scientists and ecologists are sailing on, from San Francisco to Sydney since mid-March. Read on to find out more about the Plastiki and the expedition.

Health Literacy in action

  This blog is contributed by Dr. Arthur Culbert, a member of the Global Health advisory board, and Executive Director of the non-profit organisation Health Literacy Missouri (HLM), USA. 

On May 27, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released the National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy.  The long-awaited action plan is aimed at making health information and services easier to understand and use. It seeks to engage organizations, professionals, policymakers, communities, individuals and families around improving the health literacy of our nation.

The plan comes at an important time. More than 90 million people in the United States have difficulty understanding and effectively using health information such as following the directions on prescription drug labels or understanding insurance forms. However, consumers are increasingly being asked to take a greater role in managing their health, especially with the recent passage of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which stresses prevention.