Methane from enteric fermentation in the ruminant digestive system is a major contributor to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and worldwide. Methane is also a net loss of feed energy to the animal. This study was undertaken to investigate the effect of a methane inhibitor on enteric methane emissions from lactating dairy cows. The experiment demonstrated that, under industry-relevant conditions, the inhibitor persistently decreased by 30% enteric methane emissions, without negatively affecting animal productivity.

Aurorae are detected from all the magnetized planets in our Solar System, including Earth. They are powered by magnetospheric current systems that lead to the precipitation of energetic electrons into the high-latitude regions of the upper atmosphere.

In this work, we developed an automated system to detect potentially illegal elephant ivory items for sale on eBay. Two law enforcement experts, with specific knowledge of elephant ivory identification, manually classified items on sale in the Antiques section of eBay UK over an 8 week period. This set the “Gold Standard” that we aim to emulate using data-mining. We achieved close to 93% accuracy with less data than the experts, as we relied entirely on metadata, but did not employ item descriptions or associated images, thus proving the potential and generality of our approach.

Extreme heat is a public health challenge. The scarcity of directly comparable studies on the association of heat with morbidity and mortality and the inconsistent identification of threshold temperatures for severe impacts hampers the development of comprehensive strategies aimed at reducing adverse heat-health events. This quantitative study was designed to link temperature with mortality and morbidity events in Maricopa County, Arizona, USA with a focus on the summer season.

In the last decades the Euro-Mediterranean region has experienced an increase in extreme temperature events such as heat waves. These extreme weather conditions can strongly affect arable crop growth and final yields. Here, early heat waves over Italy from 1995 to 2013 are identified and characterised and their impact on durum wheat yields is investigated. As expected, results confirm the impact of the 2003 heat wave and highlight a high percentage of concurrence of early heat waves and significant negative yield anomalies in 13 out of 39 durum wheat production areas.

Malnutrition is a challenge to the health and productivity of populations and is viewed as one of the five largest adverse health impacts of climate change. Nonetheless, systematic evidence quantifying these impacts is currently limited. Our aim was to assess the scientific evidence base for the impact of climate change on childhood undernutrition (particularly stunting) in subsistence farmers in low- and middle-income countries.

Original Source

A candidate tetravalent dengue vaccine is being assessed in three clinical trials involving more than 35,000 children between the ages of 2 and 16 years in Asian–Pacific and Latin American countries. The researchers report the results of long-term follow-up interim analyses and integrated efficacy analyses.

The most advanced candidate vaccine against dengue viruses, called CYD-TDV, is progressing toward potential registration and review by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2016. CYDTDV is a formulation of four chimeric yellow fever 17D vaccine viruses, each one engineered to express the surface envelope and prM (membrane) proteins from one of the four serotypes of dengue virus. The surface envelope protein is a target of virus-neutralizing antibodies. (Editorial)

When storm surge and heavy precipitation co-occur, the potential for flooding in low-lying coastal areas is often much greater than from either in isolation. Knowing the probability of these compound events and understanding the processes driving them is essential to mitigate the associated high-impact risks. Here the researchers determine the likelihood of joint occurrence of these two phenomena for the contiguous United States (US) and show that the risk of compound flooding is higher for the Atlantic/Gulf coast relative to the Pacific coast.

Climate change is a threat to human societies and natural ecosystems, yet public opinion research finds that public awareness and concern vary greatly. Here, using an unprecedented survey of 119 countries, we determine the relative influence of socio-demographic characteristics, geography, perceived well-being, and beliefs on public climate change awareness and risk perceptions at national scales. Worldwide, educational attainment is the single strongest predictor of climate change awareness.