"A U.N. meeting to set targets to fight rising animal and plant extinctions inched on Friday toward agreement, but rich and poor countries remained split over details of a new framework on genetic resources."
Asian stink bugs have invaded the East Coast, are spreading, and are getting into people's yards and houses. When disturbed, they emit an unpleasant smell.
"Like generations of Tibetan nomads before him, Phuntsok Dorje makes a living raising yaks and other livestock on the vast alpine grasslands that provide a thatch on the roof of the world. But in recent years the vegetation around his home, the Tibetan plateau, has been destroyed by rising temperatures, excess livestock and plagues of insects and rodents."
"Wildfires have cost Russia 300 billion dollars in forest loss, environmentalists said on Thursday, explaining the scale of the disaster by Vladimir Putin's 'absurd' changes to forestry law."
"Without DDT and the other now-banned pesticides that kept bedbugs in check for more than 50 years, the United States is as vulnerable as parts of the world where the insects remain a plague."
"The Monsanto Company agreed to pay the Environmental Protection Agency a $2.5 million penalty for selling mislabeled bags of genetically engineered seed."
An armada of crop-dusters is poised to attack billions of hungry high plains and Rocky Mountain grasshoppers in what is seen as the biggest plague in a generation.
A new study has linked attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to organophosphate pesticides, which attack the nervous system.
"Earth's various ecosystems, with all their plants and animals, will need to shift about a quarter-mile per year on average to keep pace with global climate change, scientists said in a study released on Wednesday."
When plants are eaten -- especially by insects -- they emit a number of signals that might be seen as howls of alarm, and exhibit responses seemingly meant to stop the carnage. Whether or not this troubles vegans, it fascinates scientists.
