The U.S. and Australia have been the breadbasket that fed famine-stricken areas of Africa and Asia in recent decades. Global climate change may be weakening that foundation of world food security.
"As the last bit of life drained from his frail body, Ahmed Nur was still tethered to an intravenous tube. His father brushed his fingers over the boy’s eyes to close the motionless eyelids. He gently pulled a sheet over his son’s face and removed the tube from his thin arm."
"Firefighters battled raging wildfires across Central Texas for a second day Monday as wind-driven flames continued their relentless march through hundreds of homes and across thousands of acres."
Based at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, the second edition of the free, online collaborative Encyclopedia of Life, published Sept. 5, 2011, is redesigned and expanded with information on more than one-third of all known species on Earth. Search >700,000 species pages and 600,000 still images and videos.
"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- People with C8 in their blood face a greater risk of having chronic kidney diseases, according to the latest in a series of West Virginia University studies on the toxic chemical."
"South Florida’s lakes, marshes and rivers pump fresh, crystal clear water across the state like veins carry blood through the body. But cities along South Florida’s coast are running out of water as drinking wells are taken over by the sea."
Domestic drinking water wells in the region around Augusta, Maine, show levels of arsenic above EPA's new safety standards. Excess arsenic in drinking water can cause a range of serious health problems.
"The cost of America's quiet billion dollar disaster in the Upper Midwest keeps rising as floodwaters decline."
"Protesters hope to persuade President Obama not to approve the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline that would run from Canada to Texas. But the State Department already says its safe, and supporters point to thousands of new jobs."
"As Miami prepares to dredge its port to accommodate supersize freighters, environmentalists are making a last-ditch effort to protect threatened coral reefs and acres of sea grass that they say would be destroyed by the expansion."
