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Although COVID-19’s precise origins may always remain a mystery, the disease that has claimed more than 6 million lives, halted global economies, and caused immense suffering most likely came from a bat.
Matt Bonds was young and idealistic when, as a postdoc, he set out with economist Jeffrey Sachs, a rock star in the development world, in his quest to end poverty. But the Millennium Villages Project on which they worked—a package of interventions from seeds to schools to clinics designed to imp ...
It was bats. Or pangolins. To hear common narratives about the origins of Covid-19, there is a simple causal relationship between China’s consumption of wild animals and the coronavirus ravaging the globe.
A diet has been developed that promises to save lives, feed 10 billion people and all without causing catastrophic damage to the planet. Scientists have been trying to figure out how we are going to feed billions more people in the decades to come.
The food we eat is putting 11 million of us into an early grave each year, an influential study shows. The analysis, in the Lancet, found that our daily diet is a bigger killer than smoking and is now involved in one in five deaths around the world.
The authors of a new study, which appears in BMJ Global Health, point out that producing red meat for export has environmental costs in terms of lost habitats and biodiversity and harms consumers’ health.
It is well known that peatlands matter for livelihoods, carbon storage, flood mitigation, and water quality, but a recent study has shown that peatlands also matter for human health.
Two new University of Pennsylvania studies led by LDI Senior Fellow and Perelman School of Medicine cardiologist Sameed Khatana, MD, MPH are bringing a greater focus on the increasing health threat of extreme heat waves and the deadly connection between those weather events and cardiovascular mo ...
Do biodiversity losses aggravate transmission of infectious diseases spread by animals to humans? The jury is still out but several scientists say there is a “biodiversity dilution effect” in which declining biodiversity results in increased infectious-disease transmission.
From searching for insects, to birds, to different plant species with their unique names, animals, nature lovers in December braved the Lonyiri 25km nature walk in Kidepo valley national park and ventured out in the newly discovered nature walk, to indulge in nature.
New infectious diseases could spread undetected in up to 20 per cent of the world's most connected cities, which are “slap bang in the middle” of high risk spillover zones but lack the health infrastructure needed to contain dangerous new pathogens.
Leaders of the Commonwealth, a group of 54 countries that are home to a third of the world’s population, met in Kigali, Rwanda, between 20-25 June, with the aim of strengthening international cooperation on some of the most pressing challenges facing humanity.
New Food’s Editor looks at the issue of dietary simplification and how a lack of biodiversity is impacting both health and food security.
The distinguished medical journal The Lancet has issued not one but two apocalyptic warnings about our food in under a month. One of its special commissions reported earlier this month that civilisation itself was at risk from the effects of the current food system on both human health and the E ...
Every country in the world is failing to shield children’s health and their futures from intensifying ecological degradation, climate change and exploitative marketing practices, says a new report.
The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has brought the link between zoonotic diseases - those transmitted from animals to humans - and wildlife trade into sharp focus. On World Health Day, WWF Calls For A Halt To The Illegal Wildlife Trade And Forest Crime
From the most remote terrestrial wilderness to the most densely populated cities, humans are inexorably changing the planet. We have put 1 million species at risk of extinction, degraded soil and habitats, polluted the air and water, destroyed forests and coral reefs wholesale, exploited wild sp ...
To improve ecosystem management in Borneo, look at the population trends of key bird species on the island, researchers say.
Human-driven nature and biodiversity loss is threatening life on our planet. Biodiversity loss affects humans more severely than you could imagine.
Pandemic must force reassessment on how we treat planet, experts say.The pandemic should serve as a wake-up call for humanity to reexamine our relationship with nature and, in doing so, drive home the importance of efforts to conserve biodiversity around the planet, experts said.
COVID-19 not only affects humans; our closest relatives, the great apes, are also at risk. A team of experts, including Oxford Brookes University researchers say that jungle trekkers could be risking the lives of Critically Endangered species of orangutans, by passing on human viruses like COVID-19.
Chained to our desk, a computer monitor in front of our face, smartphone accompanying us wherever we go, the stresses of everyday urban life can sometimes seem insurmountable. With more than 7m years of human evolution, we have spent less than 0.1% of that time living in cities – and we have yet ...
ON YOUR NEXT VISIT TO THE PARK, try and count all the different species you can see. Away from the closely mown grass, you might spot wildflowers attended by pollinating insects, like bees, wasps, and hoverflies. Overhead there are the gnarled branches of mature trees, some of which will have li ...
Grassroots bird-watching and gardening groups have seen an influx of new members during the pandemic, which has reignited a British love-affair for birds and their song.
"Making peace with nature is the defining task of the coming decades," writes António Guterres, UN secretary general, in his introduction to a landmark UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report, "Making Peace With Nature," released February 18.
Replanting urban environments with native flora could be a cost effective way to improve public health because it will help 'rewild' the environmental and human microbiota, University of Adelaide researchers say.
Creating wildlife-rich wetlands such as ponds, streams and rain gardens in deprived urban areas could help level up inequalities in wellbeing across the UK, according to a report.
In its official report on SARS-CoV-2’s origins the World Health Organization (WHO) pointed to the potential disease risks of contact between wildlife and people, showing the life-threatening risk of natural ecosystem destruction, which is breaking down the buffer zone scientists say protects us ...
The coronavirus crisis will not be the last pandemic, and attempts to improve human health are “doomed” without tackling climate change and animal welfare, the World Health Organization's chief said.
Nature keeps all of us alive. If we don't look after it, millions of people all over the world will face sickness and starvation in the coming century. But nature is struggling, and it needs our help. Animals and plants everywhere are disappearing. It is vital that we stop nature's decline - an ...
Bamboo, which belongs to the grass family, is one of the fastest growing species of the plant kingdom. Its herculean attributes are not at first obvious when encountered in the forest.
The rapid rise of disease caused by a new coronavirus seems to have caught much of the world by surprise. It shouldn’t have. An upsurge in the emergence of new infectious diseases started at least 30 years before this virus appeared. Some of these diseases have been transmitted from wild animals ...
I spent this break wandering through the Shenandoah National Park, irresponsibly lost at points. With root systems and fungi speaking deep under the earth and leafless canopies suspended overhead, the woods enveloped me on all sides. I felt more at peace than I had in months. In nature, I feel a ...
In early April 2022, about two dozen children and their families gathered beneath the redwoods in a regional park near Oakland, Calif.
They say you are what you eat, but in reality, your diet will have much more impact on what is likely to become of you in the future. Genetics account for less than 20 per cent of a healthy life expectancy, leaving factors like diet and lifestyle making up the remaining 80 per cent. Food choices ...
Recent revelations about the speed and scale of nature’s decline are hard to truly comprehend. Not since the dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago has the diversity and abundance of life on Earth plunged so precipitously.
Because this nature’s army is crucial for the productivity of our food system and the honey they make works for our well-being and health. This much we know. But what we ignore is just how quickly we can lose this gift of nature. Since the release of our investigation into the adulteration of ho ...
Imagine if there was a pill you could take that would extend your healthy, active life span by 10 years, with the side effects of reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Would you take it?
There is significant evidence to show how biodiversity positively impacts health and economic security. Conservation can no longer be put on the back burner.
Insects are a nutrition-dense source of protein embraced by much of the world. Why are some of us so squeamish about eating them?
Almost two years since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, scientific breakthroughs powered by international collaboration have helped us create vaccines and other treatments that can help tackle the health crisis. But our broken relationship with the natural world continues to make us vulnerabl ...
Imagine for a moment that you had microscopic vision. You would see an entirely different world within the world we currently perceive: a diverse, bustling metropolis full of activity.
Traditional Chinese Medicine is going global. Earlier this year, Chinese state media reported that 57 traditional medicinal centers were under development in places as far-flung as Poland, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, and France. By some counts, TCM can now be found in more than 180 countr ...
More physical exercise and ‘forest bathing’ contribute to boost in wellbeing of the population
The ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) joins the global community in celebrating World Health Day today. The theme “Building a fairer, healthier world” is a fitting reminder that health is the foundation of economic recovery and prosperity, and achieving this would require appropriate investmen ...
There are several health challenges around the globe. These vary from outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases like measles also called rubella, and morbilli and diphtheria which is a contagious disease, increasing reports of drug-resistant pathogens, growing rates of obesity to the health impa ...
The dengue research was part of the DOST’s Tuklas Lunas program to produce reliable and affordable medicines sourced from the country’s rich biodiversity.
Zoonotic diseases or zoonoses are animal infections that people can catch. Viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi transmitted by animals to other animals like pets, and people, can produce mild to serious illnesses. Scientists estimate that about two-thirds of known infectious diseases and thre ...
This week marked an importance observance which went overlooked by large swathes of the media, including this publication. World Zoonoses Day took place on July 6th, coinciding with the anniversary of the first rabies vaccine administered by French biologist Dr Louis Pasteur in 1885.
Zoos across North America are moving their birds indoors and away from people and wildlife as they try to protect them from the highly contagious and potentially deadly avian influenza.