China, India and USA are among the top three countries with a high number of diabetic population shows this new study published in Lancet. It finds that there is a fourfold rise in the number of diabetics – from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014.

The clustering of severe European windstorms on annual timescales has substantial impacts on the (re-)insurance industry. Our knowledge of the risk is limited by large uncertainties in estimates of clustering from typical historical storm data sets covering the past few decades. Eight storm data sets are gathered for analysis in this study in order to reduce these uncertainties.

Domestication and breeding have influenced the genetic structure of plant populations due to selection for adaptation from natural habitats to agro-ecosystems. Here, we investigate the effects of selection on the contents of 51 primary kernel metabolites and their relationships in three Triticum turgidum L. subspecies (i.e. wild emmer, emmer, durum wheat) that represent the major steps of tetraploid wheat domestication. We present a methodological pipeline to identify the signature of selection for molecular phenotypic traits (e.g. metabolites and transcripts).

We assess how presymptomatic infection affects predictability of infectious disease epidemics. We focus on whether or not a major outbreak (i.e. an epidemic that will go on to infect a large number of individuals) can be predicted reliably soon after initial cases of disease have appeared within a population. For emerging epidemics, significant time and effort is spent recording symptomatic cases. Scientific attention has often focused on improving statistical methodologies to estimate disease transmission parameters from these data.

Sea Level Rise (SLR) caused by climate change is impacting coastal wetlands around the globe. Due to their distinctive biophysical characteristics and unique plant communities, freshwater tidal wetlands are expected to exhibit a different response to SLR as compared with the better studied salt marshes. In this study we employed the Sea Level Affecting Marshes Model (SLAMM), which simulates regional- or local-scale changes in tidal wetland habitats in response to SLR, and adapted it for application in a freshwater-dominated tidal river system, the Hudson River Estuary.

Investors and financial regulators are increasingly aware of climate-change risks. So far, most of the attention has fallen on whether controls on carbon emissions will strand the assets of fossil-fuel companies1, 2. However, it is no less important to ask, what might be the impact of climate change itself on asset values? Here we show how a leading integrated assessment model can be used to estimate the impact of twenty-first-century climate change on the present market value of global financial assets.

Climate change is seriously affecting the cryosphere, in terms, for example of permafrost thaw, alteration of rain/snow ratio, glacier shrinkage. There is concern about the increasing number of rockfalls at high elevation in the last decades. Nevertheless, the impact of climate variables on slope instability at high elevation has not been fully explored yet. In this paper, we investigate 41 rockfalls occurred at high elevation in the Italian Alps between 1997 and 2013 in the absence of an evident trigger.

India and Japan have reportedly reached a preliminary understanding to sign a civil nuclear cooperation agreement after certain technical details are finalised. However domestic politics of Japan, anti-nuclear groups and India’s reluctance to join the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty are some of the concerns that would have to be addressed before the deal is finalised.

For over 30 years pharmaceutical companies have been selling fixed-dose combination drugs with scant need to justify their efficacy, safety or rationality for use. The Government of India has finally banned 344 such drugs, though pharma companies have been able to obtain interim judicial stay orders. It is hoped that the courts take into account the serious public health implications of the sale of certain drugs and allow regulatory intervention banning uncertified combination drugs, including codeine-based cough syrups and various cold and flu drugs.

The leak at Kakrapar has been plugged but it is yet another reminder of the risks nuclear reactors pose. (Editorial)