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Svjetska zdravstena organizacija je objavila stručan rad o mogućoj kancerogenosti glifoast herbicida već u ožuju 2015.
Život ovisi o čistom okolišu
Foto: Vivian Grisogono
Bez obzira na to, Europska Komisija hoće produžiti dozvolu za glifosat poslije isteka u lipnju 2016, i to na 15 godina, najdulji mogući termin.
Zastupnici Europskog parlamenta, uključujći neke iz Hrvatske, su glasili protiv odluke Komisije u travnju 2016. Slijedi glasanje u svibnju 2016., ali ako nema zaključka, konačna odluka će donjeti Komisija.
Na našoj internetskoj stranici objavljujemo tekstove i informacije na temu zdravlja, okoliša i zaštite životinja. Premda u prvom redu govorimo o otoku Hvaru u Dalmaciji, većina informacija vrijedi za cijelu Hrvatsku, a neke od njih odnose se na Europu, Sjedinjene američke države i ostale dijelove svijeta.
Većina tekstova je pisana na engleskom jeziku, ali s vremenom ćemo dodati i tekstove na hrvatskom jeziku.
Najsrdačnije zahvaljujemo Željki Horvat koja nam je stručno dizajnirala zaštitini znak naše udruge ECO HVAR.
Posebnu hvalu dugujemo Jeleni Bunčuga, Petri Mimica, Barulu Mimici, Ivani Župan, Dinki Barbić i Josipu Vlainiću za prijevode; i Mihaelu Magdiću iz ORION Informatike i Trgovine Varaždin, koji s mnogo strpljenja a s izvrsnim rezultatom dizajnirao našu internetsku stranicu.
In the Peloponnese mountains, the usually hardy trees are turning brown even where fires haven’t reached. Experts are raising the alarm on a complex crisis
In the southern Peloponnese, the Greek fir is a towering presence. The deep green, slow-growing conifers have long defined the region’s high-altitude forests, thriving in the mountains and rocky soils. For generations they have been one of the country’s hardier species, unusually capable of withstanding drought, insects and the wildfires that periodically sweep through Mediterranean ecosystems. These Greek forests have lived with fire for as long as anyone can remember.
So when Dimitrios Avtzis, a senior researcher at the Forest Research Institute (FRI) of Elgo-Dimitra, was dispatched to document the aftermath of a spring blaze in the region, nothing about the assignment seemed exceptional. He had walked into countless burnt landscapes, tracking the expected pockets of mortality, as well as the trees that survived their scorching.
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This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
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In this week’s newsletter: A generation is using the legal system to demand accountability for climate harm
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Rikki Held grew up on her family’s ranch in Montana, watching the land transform amid the climate crisis. The Powder River, which runs through the property, has sometimes dried up during drought, leaving crops and livestock without water. At other points, rapid snowmelt and heavy rains have caused flooding and eroded riverbanks, making the land difficult to use.
Two years ago, the 24-year-old and a group of other young people won a groundbreaking legal victory, intended to prevent those impacts from worsening. In August 2023, a judge ruled in favour of plaintiffs in Held v Montana, in which 16 young people accused the state of violating their constitutional rights by promoting planet-warming fossil fuels. The state’s supreme court affirmed the judge’s findings late last year, but plaintiffs say lawmakers have since passed new laws that violate that ruling. So last week, they filed a new petition calling on the supreme court to enforce their earlier win, one of several youth-led constitutional climate lawsuits filed in the US this year.
The trauma after the storm: Hurricane Melissa leaves trail of emotional devastation across Jamaica
Synthetic chemicals in food system creating health burden of $2.2tn a year, report finds
Montana youth activists who won landmark climate case push for court enforcement
More than 40 Trump administration picks tied directly to oil, gas and coal, analysis shows
Youth-led US climate activists widen focus to fight authoritarianism
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From floods to droughts, erratic weather patterns are affecting food security, with crop yields projected to fall if changes are not made
Experts have warned that the world’s ability to feed itself is under threat from the “chaos” of extreme weather caused by climate change.
Crop yields have increased enormously over the past few decades. But early warning signs have arrived as crop yield rates flatline, prompting warnings of efficiency hitting its limits and the impacts of climate change taking effect.
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Digital facilities that track wastage down to the gram have brought about behavioural change among users
Min Geum-nan walks towards a metal bin beneath her apartment block in Gangdong district, eastern Seoul carrying a small bag of vegetable peelings. She taps her resident card on the reader, the lid swings open, she empties the contents and scans again and a digital screen flashes: 0.5kg.
“You have no choice but to pay attention because you can see exactly what you’re wasting,” says Min, who has lived in the complex for 15 years and watched the system arrive in 2020.
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The molluscs are decimating food chains in Switzerland, have devastated the Great Lakes in North America, and this week were spotted in Northern Ireland for the first time
Like cholesterol clogging up an artery, it took just a couple of years for the quagga mussels to infiltrate the 5km (3-mile) highway of pipes under the Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (EPFL). By the time anyone realised what was going on, it was too late. The power of some heat exchangers had dropped by a third, blocked with ground-up shells.
The air conditioning faltered, and buildings that should have been less than 24C in the summer heat couldn’t get below 26 to 27C. The invasive mollusc had infiltrated pipes that suck cold water from a depth of 75 metres (250ft) in Lake Geneva to cool buildings. “It’s an open invasion,” says Mathurin Dupanier, utilities operations manager at EPFL.
Mathurin Dupanier indicates the water cooling systems that were blocked by the invasive quagga mussels. Photographs: Phoebe Weston/the Guardian; École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
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Hayling Island, Hampshire: Piles of goose barnacles are stranded on the beach after a long journey hitched on a barrel. They’re fascinating creatures, but they won’t survive long
A message pinged on to my phone – a photo from a friend out walking her dog. Her whippet, head cocked and nose quivering, was investigating a strange object that had washed up on the beach. Later, curiosity got the better of me and, though it was raining heavily, I went down to the shore to see for myself.
The blue drum lay stranded in a fresh seam of shingle, surrounded by storm-tossed debris – cuttlebones, wrack, and a profusion of single-use plastics. But what immediately drew the eye was the living cargo spilling over its sides – a dense aggregation of common goose barnacles (Lepas anatifera), castaways which, as larvae, cling to whatever floats past them – from driftwood and buoys to ship hulls and turtles.
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Were children’s bones found at the edge of European lake settlements an attempt to appease water gods?
Flood protection takes many forms, from the levees of Louisiana to the drains of East Anglia. Some villages in bronze age Europe may have had a more unusual barrier: a circle of skulls.
Researchers from Basel University have found children’s skulls at the edge of lake settlements vulnerable to flooding, dating to the ninth century BC. As flooding became worse, villages in the Circum-Alpine region in what is now Germany and Switzerland started building defences. These included log palisades, houses on stilts, and flood walls reinforced with stone and skulls.
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Nissan builds in capability to go fully electric at Sunderland plant amid scaling back of transition targets across Europe
Car bodies suspended from overhead rails move through Nissan’s factory in Sunderland, with workers stepping in to fit parts at different stations. At the newly installed battery “marriage station”, lifting machines push the most crucial component up into the body. Robots fit and tighten 16 bolts in under a minute – quick enough to ensure the constant flow of vehicles around Britain’s biggest car factory.
The electric cars in question are the third generation of Nissan’s Leaf, after the Japanese carmaker this week launched production following £450m of upgrades.
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For often-underfunded non-profits, merch can help raise funds and visibility – here are gifts that support animal conservation, civil liberties and public media
19 unique small business gifts that beat predictable US big brands
Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things
Last year, when my daughter opened her axolotl stuffed animal from her grandmother, I admit I was slightly peeved. Did we really need yet another stuffy? But this one had a purpose: it came from World Wildlife Fund, a conservation non-profit that sends 85% of proceeds toward conservation work and has a four-star rating on Charity Navigator.
My daughter loved it, and given the state of our climate, I appreciated a gift that supports animal and land conservation.
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Gestacijski dijabetes može uzrokovati mnoštvo komplikacija kod potomstva, ali do danas razlozi nisu u potpunosti shvaćeni. Nova studija otkriva da gestacijski dijabetes mijenja posteljicu na molekularnoj razini na načine koji nikada prije nisu viđeni.
Nedavno provedeno istraživanje je otkrilo da niske razine folata, vitamina B esencijalnog za rast stanica, mogu izazvati specifične genetske promjene pronađene u nekoliko ljudskih karcinoma, uključujući tumore pluća.
Konzumiranje više sira i vrhnja s visokim udjelom masti može biti povezano s nižim rizikom od razvoja demencije, pokazuju rezultati nove studije Ova studija ne dokazuje da konzumiranje sira i vrhnja s visokim udjelom masti smanjuje rizik od demencije, već samo pokazuje povezanost.
Više od polovice tinejdžerica iskusilo je obilno menstrualno krvarenje, a 40 posto imalo je nedostatak željeza, pokazalo je novo istraživanje provedeno u Švedskoj. Jednako tako, uočen je posebno visok rizik od nedostatka željeza i anemije među djevojkama koje prakticiraju vegetarijansku ili pesketarijansku prehranu.
Jednostavna intervencija na bazi kakaa koja se provodi neposredno prije dugotrajnog sjedenja može pomoći u očuvanju funkcije krvnih žila u rukama i nogama. Ovo ističe praktičnu nutritivnu strategiju za suzbijanje skrivenih kardiovaskularnih rizika modernog sjedilačkog načina života.
Američki znanstvenici identificirali su obećavajući kombinirani pristup liječenju rijetkog, ali opasnog raka mozga u djece koji se naziva atipični teratoidni rabdoidni tumor (ATRT). Reaktivacija i održavanje p53, proteina odgovornog za supresiju tumora, korištenjem lijekova idasantulina i selineksora, dobro se podnosilo, te je smanjilo pterećenje tumorom i povećalo preživljavanje u laboratorijskom modelu.
Proces starenja povezan je s padom imunoloških funkcija i upornom upalom niske razine. Sada su japanski znanstvenici otkrili da je soj Lentilactobacillusa sposoban spriječiti, pa čak i poništiti promjene imunološkog sustava povezane sa starenjem.
Zubna pulpa je osjetljiva na mikrobnu infekciju, što često rezultira upalom, nekrozom i defektima u kompleksu pulpe i dentina. Tradicionalne strategije liječenja pate od višestrukih ograničenja i ne potiču regeneraciju živčanih stanica. U novoj studiji znanstvenici su sada razvili injekcijski kompozitni hidrogel koji sadrži biokeramiku i želatinsko-metakrilatnu matricu s foto-umrežavajućim svojstvima koja potiču neuronsku diferencijaciju i odontogenezu, otvarajući vrata novoj strategiji za popravak kompleksa pulpe i dentina.
Sve je više dokaza da su bolesti desni povezane s povećanim rizikom od kardiovaskularnih događaja, uključujući srčani udar, moždani udar, fibrilaciju atrija, zatajenje srca i kardiometaboličke zdravstvene probleme. Učinkovita prevencija i liječenje bolesti desni, koje se nazivaju i parodontalna bolest, potencijalno bi mogli smanjiti teret kardiovaskularnih bolesti, tvrde rezultati nove studije.
Nova studija otkriva kako kronična prekomjerna konzumacija fruktoze, posebno iz bezalkoholnih pića i ultraprerađene hrane, može tiho oštetiti jetru. Stoga su promjena prehrane i načina života i dalje najmoćniji alati za prevenciju masne jetre.
