
As rising seas salinise the soils of the Venice lagoon, scientists and chefs are turning to long-forgotten wild herbs
On the scrubby banks of the rural swathes of the Venice lagoon, an evening chorus of cicadas underscores the distant whine of farmers’ three-wheeled minivans. Dotted along the brackish fringes of the cultivated plots are scatterings of silvery-green bushes – sea fennel.
This plant is a member of a group of remarkable organisms known as halophytes – plant species that thrive in saltwater. Long overlooked and found growing in the in-between spaces – saltmarshes, coastlines, the fringes of lagoons – halophytes straddle boundaries in both ecosystems and cuisines. But with shifting agricultural futures, this may be about to change.
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The winners and runners-up of this year’s RSPCA Young Photographer Awards have been announced with an image of a stag lit up in the darkness by Thomas Durrant, 17, from London, named the overall winner
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System operator Neso predicts lowest carbon intensity ever on Christmas Day after new wind and solar power come online
Britain’s energy system operator has predicted that this year’s Christmas Day could be the greenest yet.
If the weather remains mild and windy for the rest of December, the National Energy System Operator (Neso) has said it could record the lowest carbon intensity – the measure of how much carbon dioxide is released to produce electricity – recorded on the network for 25 December.
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Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk: Wildlife seems to like it as much as we do, and if you’re patient, you can make like a mistle thrush and spread it around
Stripped of their leaves, the trees are sculptural against the grey sky, revealing what is usually obscured. Trunks thick with ivy offer roosting sites for wrens and robins. Messy rook nests sway precariously in the breeze. And of course great balls of mistletoe, suspended among the bare branches as if put up for the festive season, although there all year round. Some trees have so many of the evergreen orbs in them that they appear to be in spring leaf.
For a parasite, mistletoe has a unique position in our hearts: from Greek mythologies, where it offered a gateway to the underworld, to the druids’ ceremonial links with fertility, which probably seeded our modern-day kisses under the mistletoe.
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Researchers noticed ‘dramatic’ changes in nutrients in crops, including drop in zinc and rise in lead
More carbon dioxide in the environment is making food more calorific but less nutritious – and also potentially more toxic, a study has found.
Sterre ter Haar, a lecturer at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and other researchers at the institution created a method to compare multiple studies on plants’ responses to increased CO2levels. The results, she said, were a shock: although crop yields increase, they become less nutrient-dense. While zinc levels in particular drop, lead levels increase.
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This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
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People of Silverdale report rattling and shaking as 2.5 magnitude earthquake strikes in probable aftershock
A village in Lancashire has been hit by a “radiator rattling” earthquake for the second time in little over two weeks.
Residents of Silverdale, a small coastal village located five miles south of the Cumbria border, reported the now strangely familiar feeling of rattling and shaking in their homes at 5.03am as a 2.5-magnitude earthquake hit the area with its epicentre 1.6 miles (2.6km) off the coast.
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Studies show crustaceans can learn, remember, solve problems and form relationships
Crustaceans are a festive season staple for many families, particularly in Australia where an estimated 18.5m kilograms of prawns and more than 150,000 lobsters are eaten over Christmas and new year.
Globally, trillions are caught and consumed each year. Australia is a major producer, with prawn, lobster and crab industries valued at more than $1bn.
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The first ever mass deployment of mother reef bricks aims to rebuild habitats – and could reshape the North Sea
Allie Wharf’s career unfolded amid conflict. As a senior foreign producer for Newsnight, she reported on Iraq and Afghanistan. Just two years ago, she was filming mass graves in Ukraine.
But burnt out by wars, and after a detour farming ducks in Tanzania, Wharf has now settled on the quiet north Norfolk coast. Here, alongside her life and business partner, Willie Athill, she has embarked on a different kind of mission: the creation of Europe’s largest natural oyster reef.
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The Campbell’s keeled glass-snail is officially extinct, but researchers have ‘high hopes’ that translocation will allow the population to thrive
On a grey day in early June, a commercial plane landed at Norfolk Island Airport in the South Pacific. Onboard was precious cargo ferried some 1,700km from Sydney: four blue plastic crates with “LIVE ANIMALS” signs affixed to the outside.
Inside were thumbnail-sized snails, hundreds of them, with delicate, keeled shells. The molluscs’ arrival was the culmination of an ambitious plan five years in the making: to bring a critically endangered species back from the brink.
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Prema rezultatima novog istraživanja, protein ACE2 može igrati zaštitnu ulogu protiv dva uobičajena stanja, visokog krvnog tlaka (hipertenzija) i dijabetesa tipa 2, koja pogađaju milijune ljudi diljem svijeta.
Australski znanstvenici otkrili su da gen TAK1 pomaže stanicama raka da prežive napad imunološkog sustava, otkrivajući mehanizam koji može ograničiti učinkovitost imunoterapijskih tretmana. Imunoterapije raka mogu vrlo dobro funkcionirati, ali u nekim slučajevima ne daju dobre rezultate zbog ugrađenih procesa preživljavanja tumora koji im pomažu da se odupru napadu imunološkog sustava.
Nova studija pokazuje da odrasli koji ostaju tjelesno aktivni tijekom cijele odrasle dobi imaju znatno nižu prevalenciju metaboličkog sindroma u dobi od 61 godine od onih čija tjelesna aktivnost u slobodno vrijeme ostaje niska. Međutim, tjelesna aktivnost u ranoj i kasnoj odrasloj dobi, posebno vježbe jačanja mišića, može ublažiti rizike povezane s ranijom neaktivnošću.
Španjolski znanstvenici identificirali su učinkovitu strategiju za smanjenje strukturnog oštećenja jetre i poboljšanje funkcije jetrenih krvnih žila kod ciroze jetre. Jednako tako, otkrili su ključni upalni mehanizam koji doprinosi oštećenju jetre i koji bi mogao biti usmjeren na razvoj novih tretmana za bolest koja je odgovorna za više od milijun smrtnih slučajeva diljem svijeta svake godine.
Djevojke koje su cijepljene protiv humanog papiloma virusa (HPV) nisu samo dobro zaštićene od raka vrata maternice, naime, one također imaju manju vjerojatnost da će razviti teške prekancerozne lezije vulve (stidnica) i vagine (rodnica), posebno ako su cijepljene prije 17. godine, pokazala je nova studija.
Žene dramatično češće od muškaraca pate od sindroma iritabilnog crijeva (IBS), kroničnog stanja koje uzrokuje bol u trbuhu, nadutost i probavne smetnje. Sada su američki znanstvenici otkrili da hormon estrogen aktivira prethodno nepoznate putove u debelom crijevu koji mogu izazvati bol i učiniti ženska crijeva osjetljivijima na određenu hranu i njihove produkte razgradnje.
Eksperimentalni lijek razvijen na Northwestern University pokazao je obećavajuće rezultate kao rana intervencija za Alzheimerovu bolest. Jednako tako, znanstvenici su uspjeli identificirat prethodno nepoznatu visoko toksičnu podvrstu beta-amiloidnih oligomera - toksične klastere peptida - koji, čini se, pokreću nekoliko najranijih promjena u mozgu, uključujući neuronsku disfunkciju, upalu i aktivaciju imunoloških stanica.
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.