Ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) has a large and well-documented global burden of disease. Our analysis uses high-resolution (10 km, global-coverage) concentration data and cause-specific integrated exposure-response (IER) functions developed for the Global Burden of Disease 2010 to assess how regional and global improvements in ambient air quality could reduce attributable mortality from PM2.5. Overall, an aggressive global program of PM2.5 mitigation in line with WHO interim guidelines could avoid 750 000 (23%) of the 3.2 million deaths per year currently (ca.

Diatoms are responsible for ~40% of marine primary productivity, fuelling the oceanic carbon cycle and contributing to natural carbon sequestration in the deep ocean. Diatoms rely on energetically expensive carbon concentrating mechanisms (CCMs) to fix carbon efficiently at modern levels of CO2. How diatoms may respond over the short and long term to rising atmospheric CO2 remains an open question.

Ongoing climate change can alter conditions for plant growth, in turn affecting ecological and social systems. While there have been considerable advances in understanding the physical aspects of climate change, comprehensive analyses integrating climate, biological, and social sciences are less common. Here the researchers use climate projections under alternative mitigation scenarios to show how changes in environmental variables that limit plant growth could impact ecosystems and people.

Prevention of obesity requires policies that work. In this Series paper, we propose a new way to understand how food policies could be made to work more effectively for obesity prevention. Our approach draws on evidence from a range of disciplines (psychology, economics, and public health nutrition) to develop a theory of change to understand how food policies work. We focus on one of the key determinants of obesity: diet.

First reported in September, 2012, human infections with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) can result in severe respiratory disease, characterised by life-threatening pneumonia and renal failure. Countries with primary infections of MERS-CoV are located in the Middle East, but cases have been occasionally exported in other countries (fi gure). Human-to-human infections of MERS-CoV are rare and confi rmed cases are usually traced back to contact with camels, an intermediate host species for MERS-CoV. (Correspondence)

This paper presents a summary of the work done within the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme project ECLIPSE (Evaluating the Climate and Air Quality
Impacts of Short-Lived Pollutants). ECLIPSE had a unique systematic concept for 5 designing a realistic and effective mitigation scenario for short-lived climate pollutants

A limited literature base suggests that ambient temperature contributes to suicide, with studies typically focused on a single nation using temporal and spatial aggregated data. The researchers evaluated an association between ambient temperature and suicide in multiple cities in three East Asian countries.

In order to characterize the long-term trend of remote marine aerosols, a 12-year observation was conducted for water-soluble ions in TSP (total suspended particulate) aerosols collected from 2001 to 2012 in the Asian outflow region at Chichijima Island in the western North Pacific. We found a clear difference in chemical composition between the continentally affected and marine background air masses over the observation site.

Production of cereals, the main staple and cash crops for millions of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is severely constrained by parasitic striga weed Striga hermonthica, stemborers and poor soil fertility.

Observations show that the global mean surface temperature has increased steadily since the 1950s and this warming trend is particularly strong and linear over land after 1979. This paper analyzes the relationship between surface temperature trends observed over land for the period 1979–2012 and enhanced vegetation index (EVI), a satellite measured vegetation greenness index, by large-scale ecoregion. The land areas between 50°S and 50°N are classified into various large-scale ecoregions