Archaeology shows how ancient African societies managed pandemics : The Conversation

Archaeologists have long studied diseases in past populations. They’ve explored the evolution of pathogens and how they interacted with humans.

Source: Archaeology shows how ancient African societies managed pandemics : The Conversation

The last decade was the warmest ever recorded, NASA and NOAA find

The data is a closely watched indicator of the Earth’s changing climate, particularly as projections for future years anticipate the trend to continue.

Source: The last decade was the warmest ever recorded, NASA and NOAA find

3 big ways that the US will change over the next decade : The Conversation

The number of old people will increase, while the proportion of white Americans will continue to fall.

Source: 3 big ways that the US will change over the next decade : The Conversation

To solve climate change and biodiversity loss, we need a Global Deal for Nature : The Conversation

A new study lays out a road map for protecting and restoring 50% of Earth’s surface, targeted to preserve biodiversity and maximize natural removal of carbon from the atmosphere.

Source: To solve climate change and biodiversity loss, we need a Global Deal for Nature : the Conversation

Examining how primates make vowel sounds pushes timeline for speech evolution back by 27 million years : The Conversation

Researchers say it’s time to finally discard a decades-old theory about the origins of human language – and revise the date when human ancestors likely were able to make certain speech noises.

Source: Examining how primates make vowel sounds pushes timeline for speech evolution back by 27 million years : The Conversation

New evidence that an extraterrestrial collision 12,800 years ago triggered an abrupt climate change for Earth : The Conversation

What kicked off the Earth’s rapid cooling 12,800 years ago?

In the space of just a couple of years, average temperatures abruptly dropped, resulting in temperatures as much as 14 degrees Fahrenheit cooler in some regions of the Northern Hemisphere. If a drop like that happened today, it would mean the average temperature of Miami Beach would quickly change to that of current Montreal, Canada. Layers of ice in Greenland show that this cool period in the Northern Hemisphere lasted about 1,400 years.

This climate event, called the Younger Dryas by scientists, marked the beginning of a decline in ice-age megafauna, such as mammoth and mastodon, eventually leading to extinction of more than 35 genera of animals across North America. Although disputed, some research suggests that Younger Dryas environmental changes led to a population decline among the Native Americans known for their distinctive Clovis spear points.

Conventional geologic wisdom blames the Younger Dryas on the failure of glacial ice dams holding back huge lakes in central North America and the sudden, massive blast of freshwater they released into the north Atlantic. This freshwater influx shut down ocean circulation and ended up cooling the climate.

Some geologists, however, subscribe to what is called the impact hypothesis: the idea that a fragmented comet or asteroid collided with the Earth 12,800 years ago and caused this abrupt climate event. Along with disrupting the glacial ice-sheet and shutting down ocean currents, this hypothesis holds that the extraterrestrial impact also triggered an “impact winter” by setting off massive wildfires that blocked sunlight with their smoke.

The evidence is mounting that the cause of the Younger Dryas’ cooling climate came from outer space. My own recent fieldwork at a South Carolina lake that has been around for at least 20,000 years adds to the growing pile of evidence.

 

Source: New evidence that an extraterrestrial collision 12,800 years ago triggered an abrupt climate change for Earth : The Conversation

Whatever happened to 2 Point 4 children? | National Statistical

The phrase ‘2.4 children’ refers to the stereotypical family size in this country. But does it still hold true? As the ONS publishes its first analysis of births that took place in England and Wales in 2018, Nick Stripe takes a look at whether it’s time to change that number.

Cast your mind back to the nineties. The era of Britpop and football coming home, where things could only get better. The sitcom 2Point4 Children, starring Belinda Lang and Gary Olsen, introduced Bill and Ben Porter to BBC viewers on the 3^rdSeptember 1991. It ran until the 30^th December 1999, just as the new millennium party was getting into full swing.

Strictly speaking, Bill and Ben only had two children, David and Jenny. But dad, Ben, had juvenile tendencies which, helpfully, meant that there were 2.4 kids really. How typical were they then and now?

The broad picture painted by our analysis of births in 2018 is one of decreases and record lows. A birth rate of 11.1 births per 1,000 total population was the lowest ever recorded. And a fertility rate of 1.7 children per woman, was lower than all years except 1977 and 1999–2002.

How things have changed

At the height of the ‘baby boom’ in the late 1940s and mid 1960s, England and Wales was the scene of nearly 900,000 births per year. This represented a birth rate of around 20 births for every 1,000 people in the country. If the fertility rates of those years had persisted, women would, on average, have each given birth to around 2.8 children. This is known as the ‘total’ fertility rate. It projects forward how many children the average woman would have if she experienced that year’s ‘age-specific’ fertility rates throughout her life.

 

Source: Whatever happened to 2 Point 4 children? | National Statistical

Plans to install electric car chargepoints in every new home | The Canary

All new homes in England could be fitted with an electric car chargepoint under government plans.

The Department for Transport (DfT) is proposing to change building regulations to make the devices mandatory in new-builds with a dedicated car parking space.

It has launched a consultation on the plan, which is aimed at encouraging the uptake of electric vehicles by making it easier, cheaper and more convenient to charge them.

 

Source: Plans to install electric car chargepoints in every new home | The Canary

High-value opportunities exist to restore tropical rainforests around the world – here’s how we mapped them : The Conversation

The green belt of tropical rainforests that covers equatorial regions of the Americas, Africa, Indonesia and Southeast Asia is turning brown. Since 1990, Indonesia has lost 50% of its original forest, the Amazon 30% and Central Africa 14%. Fires, logging, hunting, road building and fragmentation have heavily damaged more than 30% of those that remain.

These forests provide many benefits: They store large amounts of carbon, are home to numerous wild species, provide food and fuel for local people, purify water supplies and improve air quality. Replenishing them is an urgent global imperative. A newly published study in the journal Science by European authors finds that there is room for an extra 3.4 million square miles (0.9 billion hectares) of canopy cover around the world, and that replenishing tree cover at this full potential would contribute significantly to reducing the risk of harmful climate change

But there aren’t enough resources to restore all tropical forests that have been lost or damaged. And restoration can conflict with other activities, such as farming and forestry. As a tropical forest ecologist, I am interested in developing better tools for assessing where these efforts will be most cost-effective and beneficial.

Over the past four years, tropical forestry professor Pedro Brancalionand I have led a team of researchers from an international network in evaluating the benefits and feasibility of restoration across tropical rainforests around the world. Our newly published findings identify restoration hotspots – areas where restoring tropical forests would be most beneficial and least costly and risky. They cover over 385,000 square miles (100 million hectares), an area as large as Spain and Sweden combined.

The five countries with the largest areas of restoration hotpots are Brazil, Indonesia, India, Madagascar and Colombia. Six countries in Africa – Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Togo, South Sudan and Madagascar – hold rainforest areas where restoration is expected to yield the highest benefits with the highest feasibility. We hope our results can help governments, conservation groups and international funders target areas where there is high potential for success.

 

Source: High-value opportunities exist to restore tropical rainforests around the world – here’s how we mapped them : The Conversation

Second NHS trust prosecuted for safe care failings | News | Health Service Journal

A second NHS trust is being prosecuted by the Care Quality Commission over the death of a patient under fundamental standards brought in after the Mid Staffordshire care scandal.

Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust will appear in court on Wednesday charged with failing to provide safer care and treatment to a patient.

The case – which will be heard at Brighton magistrates court – involves a 19-year-old prisoner who was found hanging in the healthcare unit at HMP Lewes in February 2016.

The charges follow the accusation by the CQC that the trust breached regulation 12(1) of the fundamental standards, in that it failed to provide safe care and treatment which resulted in avoidable harm, or a significant risk of exposure to avoidable harm, to a service user.

As a first appearance, the case is expected to be adjourned to a later date.

CQC chief executive Ian Trenholm warned last year that the regulator was considering bringing more criminal prosecutions against providers.

So far, the CQC has only used its power to prosecute for failing to provide safe care against one other NHS trust. Southern Health Foundation Trust was fined £125,000 and told to pay £36,000 in costs after a patient under its care fell from a roof.

 

Source: Second NHS trust prosecuted for safe care failings | News | Health Service Journal